La La Land is everything beautiful about cinema.

The film is about keeping art fresh, exciting and alive, and Chazelle uses the language of film to its fullest to do exactly that. The performances are stellar, the colours are popping, the cinematography is beautiful, and the soundtrack is already one of my favourites of all time — it's amazing how powerful a simple piano motif can be. It has no shame being romantic and open about its ideas about passion and ambition, and expressing it as a musical was the perfect choice. This is an honest and insightful film with such powerful direction and an amazing soundtrack that hasn't gotten out of my head for the past week.

MOMENTS THAT STUCK

This film had a heart like (500) Days of Summer, and the song and dance numbers were so well-written. It's an unapologetic romance, the antithesis to these cynical and bitter times we're going through at the moment.

I'll tell you the moment my heart broke. Emma Stone's character says earlier in the film when talking about jazz "I always thought it was something that people put on in the background when they talk to each other." Gosling freaks out and says that's the antithesis of it, and that real jazz needs to be experienced live, that's what it's about. Later, when the pair of them are arguing for the first time and Gosling's in his sell out band, what's playing in the background? A classic jazz record. Gosling had forgotten his roots and what made Emma dig him in the first place. I also liked how intense the music was getting, it reminded me of how he said Jazz is conflict and it was building up as their argument got worse

I also liked how the ending was primarily from Mia's perspective. Had it worked out, Seb could not have lived out his dream. He would have had a great life, playing in a jazz band in Paris and having kids with her, but it wasn't his ultimate fantasy. And that's what this film does so well – it's about two people who fall in love and help each other reach their dreams...they just don't end up together.

One line that spoke to me was when Seb said: "It's LA, where people worship everything, but value nothing."

I think that applies to a lot of places, but I see it happening in LA, having visited it for a college tour last summer. There's many historical spots that back in the day were popular, awesome, or just part of culture or held importance. Then today those places are either closed down, torn down and replaced by a skyscraper or something else, or not valued at all.

A lot of places basically require someone to claim it and take care of it, government to landmark it, or support of a group. Otherwise, it's lost forever because the general population moves and doesn't value the importance of it. That's what's happening to Jazz. That's what Seb is worried about. Jazz has an important historical impact but its sound is being changed. Seb doesn't think it's right for traditional Jazz to die out, but no one cares because no one is valuing it.

THEMES

So can we talk about one of the major themes in this film — the idea that people dream and sometimes those dreams are foolish and futile but the very act of chasing those dreams can be quite magical. It's romantic and yet heartbreaking but also, I think, vital.

A lot of words have been used to describe La La Land. Among them, two of the most prevalent I've seen are "wish fulfillment" and "escapism". I understand why people give the film these labels; The visuals are colorful and vibrant, the music is whimsical and and romantic, and the lead couple is charming and archetypal. But to call this film an "escape" from reality, or in a more negative sense, a "misrepresentation" of reality, is, I think, a simplistic and surface level view of the film, and very very far from the heart of the story.

La La Land isn't a fairy tale. It isn't about dreams coming true (at least not one-sidedly so). La La Land is about the tension between dreams and reality, between what we want and what we're capable of getting, between ambition and practicality. Stylistically, the film embodies this wholeheartedly- the old fashioned "Song and dance" vibe is consistently and intentionally undercut by moments of contemporary realism- both tones exist, weaved together throughout the film, in tension yet not separate.

If no other moment could "definitively" demonstrate this, then look at the ending; Mia and Sebastian find the success they dreamed for, but at a cost. They lose each other, and in their collective dream sequence finale they imagine what would have happened if they had been more perfect people, people like in those old movies, who knew exactly what to say and do at the right moment, and existed in a cleaner, purer reality where things work out the way they should. But that's not the world that La La Land exists in. La La Land exists in a world of tension and compromise (much like Sebastian speaks about jazz earlier in the film). So in the end, a smile must suffice. This goes so much further than "becoming a movie star" or "getting financial success"; this is a truth that everyone has to deal with, no matter their path. We all have dreams, and we all have to weigh those dreams against the bounds of reality, and we all have to navigate the narrow space between.

I'm sure this is "no duh" for most of you, but I've seen so many people (even professional reviewers) come away with totally far-off takes that don't really do the film justice. La La Land is a great movie, and in my mind it deserves every bit of praise that's coming it's way. For me, it's actually my favorite kind of movie; a movie that acknowledges (and embraces) the flaws of reality without excess of cynicism. That's a tension in which we should all live our lives.

MAYBES

The only thing I've heard bad is that it's a musical and Emma stone/Ryan gosling are only ok singers, when musicals are best with great singers I felt like Chazelle and Co. were very aware that Emma and Ryan weren't amazing singers and utilised the little flaws to become a part of the aesthetic. Like how Emma starts laughing in the middle of the City of Stars duet. I absolutely loved it.

I personally thought they sounded great: even if they aren't the most gifted singers they sold the hell out of it. To perform in a musical you need to be an actor first and a singer second. I think when people forget this you get singers who get cast who can't act through a song. And in this case the music is original so it could be written to suit their voices.

I personally was very disappointed that they didn't stay together in the end. I totally understand why, and it was very reminiscent of Casablanca and An American in Paris with the bittersweet ending. The only thing I would say is Hollywood Oscar movies try to shy away from happy endings over the past few years because the "happily ever after" ending is considered silly. (Even La La Land mocks the idea.) BUT the movie was FULL of "happily ever after" events. The barista gets discovered and becomes a huge star. That doesn't happen in real life! That's silly. And grumpy losers don't get invited into popular bands. Haha. I mean there's a scene of dancing in outer space for crying out loud. There's already so much happiness and silliness and rule bending in the movie, a "happily ever after" ending would've worked fine.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for a ‘Happily Ever After’. I have to admit that I am a tiny bit glad they didn't end up together. As someone who normally hates romantic films for their predictable plots, it was refreshing to see them end up apart. It also allowed for the amazing final scene of them imagining “what could have been”.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

This gets me to the ending sequence. ​​I think that scene, for me at least, was about perfection. The reality in that scene was that they both wanted to achieve their dreams and it all just kind of happened for them without the struggle, heartbreak, and persistence in the real world. It showed that they could have been together if achieving their dreams was easy and would just happen for them, but it made the point that if 2 people in love both want to achieve their dreams, the world is so hard and so unforgiving that if they want to make their dreams a reality, they will probably have to put love aside and do anything they can (like move to paris) to make it happen. When they do this, their individual desire to achieve their dreams will ultimately separate them and they will end up moving on from each other.

In a perfect world, they would each achieve their dreams effortlessly and get to spend their lifes together. In the real world, you have to make serious sacrifices in order to make your dreams reality, and that sacrifice may include a shot at true love. This montage at the end of the film was the true 'La La Land' that could never exist in the real world.

They both achieved their life dreams and they are both so happy. Even though what could've been would have been great, they are in a great place and especially thankful for each other and the impact each had. Those little smiles made it all the more realistic for me. And the fact that it's implied he's expressing all of it through the piano, and that she just innately knows -- beautiful.

Seb changes himself for her during the first half of the film... he always is drawn to her from that initial meeting (disregarding the traffic jam). He actually says it-

Sebastian: I thought you wanted me to do this, it just sounds like now you don't want me to do it.

Mia: What do you mean, I wanted you to do this?

Sebastian: This is what you wanted for me.

Simply, they are not effectively communicating. He thinks she expects more out of him when she claims she truly loves him as he is, yet she cannot reason nor understand the pressure he was under and she blames him for missing her show. Does she love him as he is? There is a reason he feels the way he does. Why then does she not want to explore the reason WITH him. And why does he let her walk out? He realizes he has to stop changing for her and let her figure her life and career out on her own. She feels inferior in her career. He is doing well, but she projects her own insecurities and questions if he even likes the music he is playing? Which means yes, she cares most about her career over the relationship. And yet, Seb is the one to get her back on track. He says he will do what he's gotta do in LA... he'll wait on the sidelines for her while she goes to Paris... that's what he thinks she wants. And then, she becomes a famous actress and marries another man. Totally her right, and anyone should be happy for her... but she would have gotten the career either way. The only difference is, she would have been happy with Seb, not just content with what she always thought she wanted. The thing that "was always missing" is still missing in her marriage. It is a problem she has yet to reconcile in herself. However, Seb accepts her choices and her life and will always love her from afar. He will wait for her. He will play their song hoping one day she comes back to listen.

Which brings me to this point: Seb always knows what he wants for himself. He is just unsure of what Mia wants. And why? Because Mia is unsure of what truly matters to her. She does not know what she wants. Even after the credits role. She still wants him. Wants to know what it would have been like to stay. But she has a child. She has someone else's life to consider. She knew it was Seb's club...why go in and risk it unless there is something there. She does always love him. But she regrets not choosing him. Now, she is stuck again. She still does not know what she wants. The dream she wanted did not come true. She is unhappy with her current situation. Makes you wonder what she will choose.

Both of them let go, but when she saw his jazz club, at the end of the film, she takes hold, even for a moment. They both accept this; that heir love never faded. In fact, their story may not be over. Right now, they are both just on different chapters. That is all we know for certain.

As a NYT Review said, this movie is about how "the drive for professional success is, for young people at the present time, both more realistic and more romantic than the pursuit of boy-meets-girl happily-ever-after. Love is contingent. Art is commitment."

Usually, it’s not flattering. Adulteress. Murderer. The woman who killed Agamemnon in his bath after he returned victorious from Troy. Her story has been passed down like a cautionary whisper — a warning wrapped in tragedy.

From ancient times to the present day, Clytemnestra has been cast as the archetypal female villain — the kind of wife a husband should fear. Sly, deceptive, too ambitious, too intelligent, vengeful. In other words: unnatural. A woman who disrupts the supposed ‘order’ of things.

As a daughter of King Tyndareus and Leda, the wife of Agamemnon, and the sister of Helen of Troy - Clytemnestra played a pivotal role in the events after the Trojan War ended. Even today, she stands out in Greek history as the queen of Mycenae notorious for her ruthless acts of vengeance.

But what if we’ve misunderstood her all along? Was Clytemnestra truly a villain? Or did her circumstances turn her into one? (Clytemnestra Isn’t Sorry, and That’s the Point.)

In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, the first play in The Oresteia, Clytemnestra is undeniably powerful — but her power is written as deviant. She speaks in public, she commands the palace, and she alone orchestrates Agamemnon’s murder. Her lover Aegisthus, by contrast, is presented as a weakling, a figure of ridicule. He doesn’t commit the act himself; he lets her do the dirty work. The play ends with him being mocked by the chorus, portrayed as hiding behind Clytemnestra’s “skirts,” emasculated by her “manly” will. She boasts of the murder, likening herself to a man — and in doing so, violates every gender expectation of her time.

And that’s precisely the point. In classical Athens, a powerful woman could only be imagined as monstrous. Clytemnestra is "man-like" not because she wears armor or wields a sword, but because she dares to claim agency — over her home, her body, and her revenge.

Recently, I got my hands on Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. It didn’t just retell a myth — it reconfigured the power lines. This wasn’t a story of a woman gone mad with revenge, but of a girl shaped by violence, by grief, by politics, by the weight of being born royal in a world that gave you no control over your body, your fate, or your voice. This isn’t a retelling that asks for sympathy; it demands attention. Casati doesn’t try to redeem Clytemnestra — she reclaims her.

This portrayal of her is the best one I have ever read. Casati’s Clytemnestra is made of pure anger, unflinching in the face of adversity. She is not a flashy, dramatic heroine, but instead hones her anger, waiting for the right moment to strike. This book makes no excuses for her and she fully embraces her true nature.Clytemnestra has a fiercely protective streak in her, loving her family with a strong determination. Her relationships are the heart of this story and I loved how the author explored it throughout the book – given that this very trait of undisturbed loyalty would eventually lead to her downfall.

As an anti-hero, Clytemnestra doesn’t fit the mold. She isn’t male, doesn’t wield brute strength, and her weapons aren’t forged in bronze — they’re built from reputation, manipulation, and calculated silence. While the Chorus views her as a passive queen awaiting her husband’s return, she turns that perception into a disguise. The illusion of the obedient wife becomes her most effective tactic. She soothes Agamemnon, draws him in with careful language, and sets the stage for his downfall. Her duplicity is masterful as seen in:

“I shall have no qualms in telling you how I love my husband; a person’s timidity dies away in time. I have learned from others, I shall tell my own life’s hardships” 1

The key theme that Clytemnestra brings to the forefront is feminine rage — a raw, unapologetic force that so often goes unacknowledged in history and storytelling. Clytemnestra is not just a woman scorned; she is a woman who is driven by necessity, ambition, and unfulfilled potential. Her world is stacked against her, a patriarchal structure where power is a commodity reserved for men. But instead of crumbling under this weight, she channels her personal tragedies — her daughter’s sacrifice, her husband’s betrayal — and shapes them into a burning fuel for her rise to power.

The desire for revenge isn’t just some plot point; it's the natural outcome of years of injustice. What In Clytemnestra does so well is shift the lens of history. From the patriarchal perspective, her actions are unforgivable. From a modern perspective, though, she’s a woman who found courage in a system designed to crush it. When people talk about the need for strong female characters in literature, Clytemnestra is the answer. Yes, she has her moments of physical strength, but her true power lies in her complexity. She’s a character you want to understand more deeply, even as the narrative pushes you to feel the weight of everything that’s happening to her.

It’s like seeing a classic character through a fresh set of lenses, much like when the Star Wars prequels made us reconsider Anakin’s fall.

In short, my take on The Oresteia is that they’re all monsters, made by monsters.

No one comes out clean in Aeschylus’ trilogy.

Clytemnestra was a mother forced to watch her daughter die for the sake of a wind — Iphigenia, sacrificed by Agamemnon to appease the gods before Troy. Orestes, their son, grows up with the knowledge that his mother murdered his father — and is told by Apollo that the only way to cleanse that sin is by shedding more blood. Agamemnon himself is the product of a house cursed by generations of violence: his father served his brother’s children at a banquet. Blood runs deep in this family, staining every name.

The true villain in this story isn’t Clytemnestra. Or Orestes. Or even Agamemnon.

It’s violence itself — the endless cycle that turns victims into executioners, love into sacrifice, justice into revenge.

“As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her better. Let her be hated forever.”
- Constanza Casati’s Clytemnestra

1. [Anderson, Florence Mary Bennett. “The Character of Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 60 (1929): 136-154.]

Having read this in 2023 as a sophomore in high school, I was initially dissatisfied with the fact that the lives of Werner and Marie-Laure finally intersect towards the ending after a long build-up, and then only lasts a mere 12 hours before they separate.

Now, however, I’ve come to really like it, even the sense of dissatisfaction it gave me, because it felt so hauntingly true to life: to just think of all the people we meet whose lives might be intertwined with ours in ways we'll never know. I think that helped to emphasise the futility and the waste of war—there is no real ending, just a lingering aftermath inhabited by millions of people who are trying to piece their lives together in isolation. Lots of authors have tried to hammer the point home in a more didactic way, but it just feels like preaching when they make it so obvious. Instead Doerr just gives us a glimpse of all the possibilities that might have been, then drops the curtain.

Werner failing to realize that his life really doesn’t belong to him was a refreshing take. Being conscripted and essentially a weapon to be used by his masters is a sobering thing but a reality. Marie Laure never finding her father was another very sobering but real experience. People having to move on and rebuild their lives after suffering the horrors of war is in that same light (see what I did there?).

I really, really appreciate some aspects of the book. I liked the slowly converging timelines, the prose was obviously gorgeous. Some of the images and scenes will stay with me for a while. But at the end of my first read, it felt almost clinical:

• Werner’s death felt kind of cheap to me. I don’t necessarily mean that he shouldn’t have died at all, but it felt so sudden, so preventable, so quickly moved on from. Maybe Doerr has a point in doing it like he did, but I felt cheated somehow. I’m not opposed to beloved characters dying, or even dying unfairly, but it felt like all the characters who died had an appropriate send-off, but here we get a paragraph for Werner.

• It felt like the rising action/climax lasted about 50 pages, and then the resolution lasted equally as long but it really, really didn’t need to. Honestly, I would have been fine if the book would have ended with Marie Laure walking across the bridge with the pillowcase away from Werner and him left holding the key, but after he died I lost all interest, honestly, although that’s a me-problem.

• In retrospect, the Sea of Flames stone seemed like a silly plot tool to connect von Rumpel to Marie Laure.

And I agree that some of my criticisms might feel less mentionable if one views it as an anti war book that still tries to talk about humans and how their lives keep going on. I think that explains the lack of focus on the deaths, the seeming randomness and futility of Werners death, the sexual assault...all of it is a direct reflection on war at an industrial scale, the realities, the absurdity and the absolute terrifying and awful outcomes that come forth when those wars happen.

Now, two rereads later, I’ve really liked the bold courage it took for Doerr to write Werner a useless, almost "by the way" sort of death. That's the point. Soldiers very rarely die any other kind of death. Similarly, they don't kill in an honorable or epic way. They look at coordinates, find their target, fire and move on. The sexual violence was of course extremely dark, but I think it would have been a disservice to the reader and the history to not include that in a book about WW2. I'm not at all a fan of gratuitous sexual violence but I don't think it was gratuitous in this case. It was a way of addressing the realities of the war in the same way that, say, the anti-partisan missions were a reality in the Eastern Front. Or the fact that teenagers were being conscripted, and people who refused to fall in line ended up being subject to horrific violence (not all, and not always, but it was very much a tool that the German Reich used liberally).

So it’s safe to say I appreciate the apparent "senselessness" of Werner's death. It was unnecessary and preventable and everything just quickly moved on like in real life. I despise over-dramatic, epic (almost) deaths of the protagonists in most fiction, so this to me is a candid account of his death.

Werner’s death is actually heavily symbolic and appropriate. He joined the nazis trying to escape dying in the mines like his father. And yet it is a mine that kills him. A different kind of mine, but still. The death he was running from all those years is what he ends up running into. It is the cruelest kind of poetic justice, and a moment that echoes inside me to this day. His own life doesn’t belong to him. He’s a weapon to be used at his master's leisure. Nothing more. Millions of conscripted men found themselves in this very situation during WWII. The same goes for Marie Laure’s father: his disappearance and the lack of his whereabouts regarding his status and death are again common in war. Rape too. Millions of European and Asian women suffered the same fate as the characters do in the novel.

I felt like the PoV was strangely distant and even in chapters that should have been emotionally poignant, the narrative would go on long asides about random passersby or the spin of quarks instead of getting deeper into the characters’ heads, into their emotions. Despite this sounding like an argument against the writing style used, it is one thing I genuinely liked about this novel. Due to the distant writing narrative style, Doerr's books feel to me like a cool and quiet place where I can recover when my batteries are empty again, fill in the blanks (about people's emotions) as much or little as I please in my imagination and I can just enjoy the beauty of the prose. Just like closing your eyes and listening to classical music in a dark, cool room. As soon as something becomes really "dramatic" I am out. It feels forced and awkward and overwhelming to me when the characters' emotions are pushed in my face all the time.

A scene that really stood out symbolically to me apart from Werner’s death is that he kept the key that Marie Laure gave him. The key and the model of the house where he spent his few beautiful moments with her. I think he kept them because he loved her. He kept the two most precious things that reminded him of her. He did not take the diamond, that was meaningless to him, the diamond did not connect him to Marie, and she clearly wanted it in the water.

As far as the jewel being pointless, I don't think it is, as it did to some extent drive the plot forward. There's a curse tied to the object – about it bringing misfortune to the owner, and there was plenty of misfortune throughout the book. So when Werner throws the jewel back, he's essentially giving it back to the water where it was found and where it belongs, so it can no longer harm anyone, either directly or indirectly (such as von Rumpel's intent to kill an innocent child to obtain the stone).

Alternatively, one could argue that the insignificance of the stone at the end of the day shows how ridiculous it was that it was considered more valuable than human life. It was put somewhere safe, secret, and special so that it could never cause so much harm again.

I think this book does a beautiful job of not using the Holocaust as its main driver of "this is how awful war is," and uses characters like Werner and Volkheimer to demonstrate that even the kindest souls get sucked into the machine of war and propaganda, especially the German Reich. Werner had his internal battle the entire book, but it wasn't until the Allied invasion of France (read: the end of the war) that he decided to do something against the Reich. Volkheimer as well. Frederick was the only one who really resisted to anything in his time, and he exists as a reminder of how truly powerful the German Reich was in exterminating anyone who resisted. Bleak.

When the German Sergeant Von Rumpel is ransacking Etienne's house for the diamond and the city is burning down all around them, Marie is still hiding in the attic. At this point she decides, bizarrely, to start broadcasting again on the upstairs radio classical music and reading from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to anyone who will listen. Marie-Laure referenced her potential impending doom while she was in the last moments in the attic. She refused to open the last can of food, hadn't had any water, could hear the siege coming closer, and she was likely delirious from starvation and dehydration. I think it was a testament to the power of knowledge, how it had brought her so much peace, joy, and purpose in her life even during the war, and connected her to Werner. In what she believed would be her last moments, Doerr's final testament to Marie's selflessness was that she did what she believed was what the world needed – not what would save her. Marie was never interested in self-preservation, and despite her challenges and the trauma she faced, she chose to share knowledge and the joys of discovery over saving her own life.

One grievance was how Doerr deals with Jutta. Why is Jetta’s narrative completely ignored throughout the meat of the book, but then by the end of the war she and the other women from the Children’s House are raped before it switches over to decades later and she has a child? It was too rushed as if her storyline was an afterthought and the writer threw together some snippets to satiate the reader’s curiosity of what happened to her but never thoughtfully invested the time to properly incorporate her narrative into the overall storyline.

In particular, I liked that the chapters were short, sort of like snapshots that added up to a more complete image; the idea just really appeals to me, as someone who likes capturing singular moments, whether through photography or poetry.

I thought the book was captivating and well done. It’s quite different from other historical fiction I’ve read, and it’s romantic in a tragic way. I think I called it “haunted” after reading. It doesn’t give you the story you expect or want, and I think that’s one of its most alluring qualities.

It seems to be the thing nowadays to do the casual 'not a relationship' arrangement and it was so cathartic to read a story that acknowledges that these relationships are meaningful, defining and often deeply painful too, irrespective of the label, or lack of one. I fell in love with both Marianne and Connell - there is pain, meaning, and growth in these types of "relationships" and it's so rare to see them depicted in that way - either they move on to the loves of their lives with no major emotional baggage or they end up happily ever after. Somehow this felt more real than my recent insta-love current reads.

Rooney is a master of pathos - I was surprised by how emotionally invested I got in the characters. The book’s style is also pretty cool and definitely suited to the plot. I found the relationships with the characters' parents unbearably real and true in both books: it was hard to look at. I also liked that chapters switch point of view. It's really interesting when you see the same events through different pairs of eyes and hear thoughts that stew inside the character's head. I like the dissonance it creates between what the character thinks and what he does or says.

While the plot is pretty much "a chase" (which makes me question: If it was a chase, then who was chasing whom?), there are moments of safety and vulnerability. This was obviously a character-driven book. The plot was a quiet one as we were mainly exploring the relationship of Connell and Marianne. After the first quarter of the book, the plot did start to go into circles of repetitiveness. Again, this would not have happened if the story had been condensed. There were times when I felt the characters were problematic, but it's important to understand that Rooney wanted to display adolescence and relationships being experimental rather than reinforced at the ages of 17-21. It didn't feel right out of "a fairytale love story", but rather a very realistic approach to a modern day relationship.

I respect this novel. Quite a lot actually, and there were several mentions of the very real life political issue, while being totally self aware of their position. Along with this Rooney has also referenced a whole set of other books, which play a minor role in personality development of characters. I will say, ‘Normal People’ did something that no book has done to me before. I was reading a chapter and expecting to turn the page to the next chapter. The next page was the acknowledgements. That shocked me. Take that as you will.

With that said I do have a few nitpicks. All the characters have an abundance of IQ but a lack of emotional intelligence. They both apparently have genius-level intellects, but there isn’t really anything in how they act or speak that would indicate that, it just seems like Rooney tells us they’re brilliant in order to use their academic achievements to advance the plot.

With Marianne in particular, but also Connell, it seemed like everything in life (outside of, obviously, their relationship) came so easily to them that Rooney had to contrive not-entirely-convincing obstacles that you knew they would overcome. For a book titled Normal People, there’s nothing normal about Marianne - she’s brilliant, wealthy, and beautiful - and Connell’s genius makes him pretty exceptional in his own right. Maybe the title is supposed to be ironic and the book is secretly about how life is easy if you’re smart, rich, and good-looking, but I didn’t really get that impression.

Although I’ve heard the rebuttal that there are a few references to Marianne's beauty and wealth that makes the reader think she's exceptional in her small hometown, but when she goes to college she (Connell, actually) realizes that she's more average. This book has a very "Light Academia aesthetic" theme going on, and it's well constructed. Instead of glorification of the aesthetic, there is a very realistic, slice-of-life approach to this. Rooney has mentioned topics such as burnout, depression, equating your self worth to your grades, imposter syndrome, and even normalising therapy and counselling to approach a healthier lifestyle.

THE POWER DYNAMICS

I read this book in 2023, however recently, the idea has been swimming in my head of multidimensional, changing power dynamics depicted by Sally Rooney's Normal People, above all between Marianne and Connell. Their relationship undergoes extreme transformations from moments of dominance to moments of submission to reveal deeper emotional currents.

First of all, Connell had social power because he was the most popular person among his circle, but Marianne was an outsider. Then, as they progressed into the university phase of their lives, the latter gained more confidence, which was pretty difficult for Connell to compete with-an earlier developed sense of control. A turning point is reached when Connell recognizes how he can affect Marianne:

"He reaches for her hand and she gives it to him without thinking…he lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it. She feels pleasurably crushed under the weight of his power over her, the vast ecstatic depth of her will to please him."

This is a very nice encapsulation of the complex interplay of power and vulnerability, with Marianne's concurrent empowerment and submission. Yet, there is a more sinister level to their relationship as well-the way Marianne muses, for example:

"Her body's just a piece of property, passed around and ill-used in various ways, but it has always been in some way his, and she feels like returning it to him now."

It invites questions concerning agency and ownership within their relationship and insinuates a disquieting sense of dependency. This particular line speaks volumes:

"She would have lain on the ground, and let him walk over her body if he wanted, he knew that".

It says much of the degree to which Marianne will subordinate herself, willing to make sacrifices for Connell. It shows a most abject devotion, one which problematizes our sense of their relationship. The dynamic oscillates between dependency and emotional connection, thus pointing out the simplification of submissive versus dominant, while by the end they seem to arrive at a relationship wherein the voices of both are to be weighted as a mature understanding of vulnerabilities requires.

Marianne hates her school which has a society of pointless rules that she actively rebels against. To make matters worse she's miles ahead of the curve academically so the lessons are very dull to her. Socially she's disliked, she knows it and doubles down on it with her cutting remarks and behaviour (note - the ginger girl sees right through this and acts sympathetically towards Marianne). School and a bad homelife makes Marianne's surface character very spiky and unlikeable. Deep down she's a very frustrated individual who's dying to get out.

Marianne is everything that Connel isn't with the following exceptions, they are both smart and longing for something else (Marianne more than Connel though). Then university hits, and she really finds her place in her now-broadened world. She's allowed to be herself and she's with a different crowd. Her cutting remarks are now viewed as intelligent rather than just bitchy. The society she's in has much, much less in the way of stupid rules that try to stamp her down. Best of all, she's free of the toxicity of mother and brother and thus she blossoms.

One thing that's worth thinking about is Marianne’s choice of boyfriends after school. Firstly, there's the Swedish(?) fellow. Outwardly he seems decent enough, to the point that Marrianne starts to dislike him for it. He literally asks what he's doing wrong and Marrianne replies with 'be more nasty'. He switches to that soon enough and that works for them both for a while. The fact that Marrienne identifies with that and gains some strange form of comfort from it does seem to point towards abusive relationships in her past. Eventually it gets too much and she ends it.

So to her, relationships are transactional. She's sort of constantly seeking, from other people, what little love she actually felt from Connell, but she's doing so by trying to force herself to be what the other person wants. If she can satisfy that, then she's keeping someone around, keeping someone interested in her.

However, then she goes with another man (in Italy) who is very clearly a nasty piece of work. You'd have to be quite messed up in the head to give him for more than a few hours of your life and yet Marrianne sticks with him for a while. It shows that she's yet to completely break the chain of past abuse and she still doesn't know what's good for her. Given the ending of the series I think a lot depends on who she settles with next (if anyone, for that matter).

My thoughts about Connell as a human being first, then character, are different.

I came to blame Connell most of the time while reading. I thought he was a vain and vapid young man who truly never deserved Marianne and perhaps he doesn't. What really made me angry was when the novel rose to fame among the ranks of many late-teen/early-twenties girls like me and I kept hearing the same thing over and over again: they all loved Connell. In any conversation with women who had read the book, it would always lead back to the fact that Connell is actually really sweet and adorable and shy. I could not escape the narrative that he was somehow endearing and loveable in a way that is hard to accurately describe. It drove me mad. It still drives me mad thinking about his character. Did I miss something crucial? Was I too critical? Was I just bitter?

These conversations and questions about the book led me to sometimes last year. Only then did I finally understand why this book is so powerful. For all the faults of Marianne and Connell, every reader can see little bits and pieces of themselves because much of the book is vague. The ambiguity that once drove me mad is now somehow resolved. Connell is beloved by many readers because he truly embodies many young men of our generation. His character is the exact type of man many women experience in their first relationships, especially between late high school and early college. He is vapid. He is vain. He messes up over and over again by refusing to articulate his emotions in real life. The way he hides Marianne and his relationship with her from other people is condemnable. The truth is, that is what most of us experience in the modern world.

Connol always had a social support network that he didn't work on or especially deserve, it was just anyway. His mother was obviously very good, his friends less so. I say this because I think his friends suicide shows that the ‘laddish culture’ was a false and paper thin with not really being truely genuine. Connel took him for granted (all the lads took each other granted) and when he was gone he was devastated.

I really wanted to just highlight Connell's behavior in the early days of their relationship/non-relationship and how ultimately it has contributed to Marianne's declining sense of self-worth throughout the show/book. That power imbalance in their dynamic was set-up right at the very beginning. Keeping their sexual relationship a secret from the beginning re-enforced that notion she has of being an embarrassment or unworthy.

• He struggles to show affection in public when they are in college and eventually breaks her heart by unintentionally proposing they see other people

• Gaslights her when she was being bullied.

• Breaks her heart again by telling her about Helen (he told Marianne he loved Helen in the book)

• Him taking advantage of her in bed in Italy after she fights with Jamie. She was feeling vulnerable and that was just not the right time to make a move especially when he was also still with Helen.

I guess part of the allure of this story is that none of these people are perfect much like real life. We do romanticize a lot of what happens but so much of what he does is awful. He's sporty and shy and intelligent but I struggled with truly liking him both in the book and in the show due to his lack of self-awareness. This lack of self-awareness causes him to not only hurt himself but also damage another person even more. For someone as intelligent as he is he does not seem to see what he is doing to this girl. I understood the reason behind his behavior of course but it's just extra hurtful when you know how awful Marianne's home life and (non-existent) social life is. Connell did not even seem to take this into consideration. He was a pretty self-absorbed teen boy. Let's be honest here. Can you be in love and be so selfish and inconsiderate? Not knowing how hurtful he is makes it worse to me.

I say all this tying back to my analysis on Marianne because I just don't get it when I read comments about people not liking her. It is baffling to me. Between the two of them she was the better person in my opinion—even Connell acknowledges this in the book. She does come off cold and abrasive but I only see this as a defense mechanism. She also comes from a place of privilege and is so intelligent that this is off-putting to people. She recognizes and believes that her intelligence is her one asset and seeks validation to prove this by excelling in school/Uni and winning the scholarship. I do see how her being blind to her privilege would annoy people but she was always generous, kind and forgiving and she was only ever hurtful towards herself.

And it is kind of ironic (and beautiful in a way) how the person who repeatedly hurt her through the years became the catalyst for her healing and becoming better. The end message being that their love for each other made them better. I do still think my girl Marianne needs therapy.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I do wonder how Connel would cope with New York. He could barely get by in Dublin, and New York is a much bigger pond, and he simply doesn't take transitions well. Then again, would Connel finally mature into full adulthood and find his niche in life? Perhaps his experience of Dublin will force him to change his ways. I've no doubt Marianne will flourish wherever she ends up provided she stays away from her hometown.

All this is to say, Normal People is a beautiful book and my initial frustration was warranted, but the resolution I came to along the way taught me a lot about life once I came back to the book. I would even go so far as to say that this book taught me how to spot a Connell in real life or understand personality traits in him that in my own relationships. That is true power and craft. I have to commend Sally Rooney for her ability to say so much through such ambiguous characters and their subsequently confusing relationships. If you haven't read it, please do. If you have, I implore you to reread it again.

Close to December last year, I finished reading the book. I’d been an emotional wreck that entire week. I didn’t know how to feel and what to think, but I had this intense craving of wanting to change something in my life. Something about wanting to try again. I was cleaning the mess in my room, so I could focus on things that truly made me happy. I was thinking of working harder academically, inspired by Jude, to pursue skills and talents and be really good at some things and be valuable. I wanted to immediately meet my three closest friends and tell them then and there that they are my Willem, Malcolm, and JB. I felt then, an intensity of something that I till date cannot seem to put into words.

It’s safe to say I have been thinking about this book ever since. It is one of the few books that have moved me to tears. So, I was surprised to find out about the large amount of hatred it receives in general. I know that for this book, it is either a hit or miss for a lot of people and I still stand unsure as to whether it was a hit or miss for me but some of the negative comments really seemed to resonate with me while some didn’t. Here’s my breakdown.

JUDE’S TRAUMA

The criticism I’ve seen of the abuse in A Little Life has less to do with how graphic it is, and more to do with the amount in general. At a certain point, I felt that the abuse stopped informing Jude’s character, but the author continued to torture him for no apparent reason.

To a certain extent, I agree with this criticism. I devoured the book, and was entranced by the excellent writing, but I found it hard to believe EVERYONE in young Jude's life was that sadistic. Though I rated this book five stars and could not put it down, I absolutely thought the monastery episodes were unbelievable. I think this is one of the book's flaws. The book also totally glosses over how Jude is able to go to law school and learn to play piano and all the poetry he’s memorized after the childhood he had. Jude starts out as an attorney somehow and gets all the grace in the world with no explanation.

Did Hanya Yanagihara think forced childhood prostitution wasn’t traumatic enough? Did she believe all the other horrors were necessary to make Jude’s past experiences warrant his current trauma? Not only does that seem to me like a slap in the face to all real-life sexual abuse survivors, but at a certain point it also begins to warp the narrative into something that is no longer plausible. For me, this point was when Jude hitchhiked from Montana to Philadelphia. Every single trucker he waved down was a rapist pedophile monster? Really? And before that, every counselor at the home was either a rapist pedophile monster or turned a blind eye to their rapist pedophile monster coworkers? Then, as an adult, the one guy Jude finally decides to date is the most batshit crazy evil guy in all of New York City? I’ve never had to stretch my suspension of disbelief so thin as I had to to get through the Caleb part of the book. Jude’s abusers were cartoon villains, not characters, and this cheapened the story so much.

Out of these cartoon villains, Dr. Traylor especially was entirely unnecessary. He had no motives, no depth, no character; he only served as a vehicle to deliver further suffering to Jude, just to really drive it home that Jude’s childhood was bad, if that wasn’t already clear. Not only does the excess of Jude’s suffering make the reader doubt the reality of the book’s world, but it diminishes the impact of all the other characters and their experiences. Yanagihara created complex, beautiful characters worth exploring and then threw them to the rats.

Personally, I don’t buy Jude as a ruthless corporate lawyer. He never seemed very passionate about the law, or driven enough by money to make up for it. We’re also never shown him succeeding in court, just told through the series of houses he buys and the nice things people say to Willem about him. In his personal life, Jude is far too passive and insecure to be believable as a mean lawyer. After all that Jude went through as a kid, then adolescent, then adult, the fact that substance abuse never entered the picture is one of the more unrealistic aspects to me. Incredibly hard to believe that Brother Luke never exposed him to that, got him addicted, or was a crutch for coping later on. Someone else said it above, but it almost feels like an unempathetic disservice to people who actually went through similar trauma to show someone come out of all of that so successfully. Like, why couldn’t you become a successful, math-genius lawyer? Jude did it!

In fact, Everyone seems unrealistically successful. It runs like a video game, where logic only runs on the whims of the creator. I remember being super annoyed early on in the book at Andy, who is an insult to doctors. It goes against everything for any doctor to treat friends or family, to not report abuse, to not refer further necessary care, or to recommend against getting help.

The characters’ paths to success run the same way—supported only by the logic of Yanagihara. I know JB only exists to be an ‘asshole’ and Malcolm only exists to supply Jude with tasteful ADA-compliant home renovations, but it’s also strange that Willem continues to bag leading-man roles after the age of 50. Not only are all of the years 2014, the characters grow very little and in arguments they have at 50 they still sound like they're 20.

Speaking of JB and Malcolm, their sections at the beginning feel like they belong to a different book than the Jude show it turns into later. It’s odd that the 4 men get equal focus at the beginning, and then there is a couple formed between them for the rest of the novel.

To some extent, the whole friendship dynamic is far-fetched, with Jude introducing nothing of value to his friends’ lives and yet they continue for decades to throw at him affection, money and time. And what do they get in return? Lies, deceit, manipulations, coldness. Nevertheless he remains the most important person in their lives and basically anyone who has met him, just because.

Jude's trauma soon became unbelievable to me. It feels cartoon-ish, so much so that I didn't shed a single tear. I was mostly annoyed. Also, the way Jude is supposedly an incredible lawyer, but also an amazing pianist, great at maths, bakes wonderfully. Again, cartoon-ish. In my opinion, Jude’s childhood would’ve made a lot more sense if he was rescued from Brother Luke and met Ana then, as the counsellor house, the truck drivers, and Dr. Taylor are simply superfluous and redundant to the point of annoyance.

JB’S CHARACTER PORTRAYAL

Eventually, I came to ask What about JB and Malcolm? Isn’t this their story too?

As a person of color, I think there's a conversation to be had about how cartoonishly wicked JB is written and how he's pawned off as ‘the wicked never do well’ black character for the entire book that Jude can then thrust his trauma and anger on to. Malcolm the biracial black is written into a lackey who is obedient and friendly and very rarely viewed in a poor light.

The black and biracial characters become shells and caricatures and tropes by the middle of the book. After JB's drug-induced meltdown he became a villain undeservingly so. I think it's weird that they could forgive Jude for all of his range of tantrums for which they don't know the root cause (and trauma) but they couldn't really forget JB from a drug induced outburst. From there he was just written comically wicked and a shell of the character that we were introduced to. It is this demonisation of JB that doesn't sit well with me. Right from his first entry Yanagihara portrays the only main black character as conceited, selfish, spiteful and generally depicts him as an awful character. Even after he’s done terrible things she doubles down on the fact that JB is a character you mustn’t like at all: he’s not a good character you should root for, by even getting Jude — our withdrawn, brilliant and enigmatic Jude — to voice that if he could’ve chosen anyone to replace Willem in the car accident that day he would’ve chosen JB in a heartbeat.

And the scene in JB’s apartment is the most harrowing of them all. It had me crying harder than any other part of the book. The struggles of every single one of them in that room felt so real; a drug induced JB’s to maintain some semblance of dignity in front of his friends, Malcolm’s to keep the peace, Jude’s to accept what he’s just heard come from the mouth of a person he loves and is trying to help, and Willem’s to save JB but then to fight for Jude once it all goes down. Those last three lines sting. The whole scene does.

This is not to say JB was irredeemable. Despite his explicit negative connotations, I think JB did have redeeming qualities that we saw through his art. He truly 'sees' his friends for who they are, notices moments where he captures their true essence and paints them in a way that cuts through how they see themselves. JB is capricious, arrogant, vain, self aggrandizing and self centered who really craves victimization in order to justify these traits. But he lives wildly and loudly and doesn't seem to know how or want to dull his sharper edges. Especially as it feeds his art. The reality is that many artists are very raw and brazen in how they see and represent the world.

Maybe this is a very pretentious thing to assume but I think it is also largely true based on biographical history. I wouldn't say JB is depicted as a villain but rather his friends have such adverse reactions to him at times because he can't filter or soften his inner dialogue. Jude has hateful, vain thoughts like JB but unlike JB he doesn't have the courage to voice them. He is more likeable not only to the reader but to his friends because he doesn't force them to confront themselves. Jude is a chronic people pleaser who never really allows people to be close to him. And in my opinion JB is a realistic example of why that is. It is just human nature to balk a little in the mirror when you don't like what you see and JB was often an unforgivable mirror to his friends. He becomes lonely and struggles with addiction because he can't learn to be quiet or look the other way from his own observations.

Adversely however, he comes out the other side more emotionally healthy, more willing to express his needs and desires and more brave in willing to be vulnerable and put himself out there. Out of the four of them, he is the only one to survive physically but I would argue also mentally. Being a good person is not about being liked and I think JB would be a challenging friend. Jude destroyed himself from the inside out because he couldn't process his sense of self in the way that JB was able to do.

JB is grating because he allows people to see all of his many facets without flinching. That takes courage. A different kind of courage to Jude but it is still brave. Jude is often seen to have wasted his true potential. He could have been a professional musician but in order to have pursued these skills he would have needed to embrace all parts of himself in order to tap into his artistic expression. If he was more like JB he would have found the courage to live differently. In my opinion, Jude seemed envious of JB for how he was able to fully step into his own skin. JB allowed people to see him, his flaws, his self hatred and I don't think Jude could ever understand how JB could live with himself while these things were on display. Jude certainly wouldn't have.

…MALCOLM, I GUESS

Malcolm was a non entity to me, he barely had any dialogue, I don’t feel like I got a clear picture of who he was or what his purpose in the book was. The author didn’t put much effort at all into his and JB’s characters after the initial introduction – pretty disappointing since the book is described as the friendship between the four of them, but partway through I just accepted that it was going to be Jude–and eventually Willem-centric.

Malcolm is shown to be dumb because of his good life. It's almost like to make a character likable, you have to give them trauma. Those who don't have it – JB, Malcolm – are not the best characters, even if they are in reality the most realistic.

WILLEM

Just months ago, I read an interview where Yanagihara said the premise was to push a character by having nothing positive happen to him. Obviously there are occasional points of happiness - the (ridiculous) adoption for example - but I think Yanagihara may have seen the Willem situation as a means of taking happiness away. However, it also manipulates us, as readers, into seeing Jude as so wonderful that even someone like Willem falls in love with him, before unleashing an extra round of torture on Jude/the reader with whatever self-mutilation or life trauma came next.

Regarding Willen and Jude, I remember starting the book really liking it and somewhere in the second half is when it started falling apart for me. The relationship between Willem and Jude just felt so wrong to me. I remember being up in arms when I found out because I immediately found the relationship codependent and wrong. Willem found himself in a similar position helping Jude like he was helping Hemming. Jude went on and on about how he didn’t understand why Willem was with him etc. When Willem cut himself also to prove a point to Jude I laughed it felt so dramatic! This book was supposed to be about platonic friendship and I loved their relationship before it turned romantic and sexual. Watching Jude basically relieve his trauma every single time with the person he loved disturbed me.

Early on in their relationship, I also caught on to the fact that Willem was OBSESSED with ‘curing’ Jude and genuinely believed he could; however, once their relationship progressed it became clear to Willem that he could not — this was difficult for him to grasp, and he never fully did accept it. Willem struggled and suffered seeing Jude tear himself down, cut himself, and constantly lie to him (Jude was clearly not a good partner either), so I think the reason his reactions to Jude become so violent and emotional as their story goes on is because he is 1) exhausted and 2) rightfully terrified. Willem didn't understand what he was truly getting into when he got with Jude: he was blinded by his newfound romantic feelings and by the fact that Jude was his long-time best friend. He first attempts to have a "normal" relationship with Jude, but Willem internally realizes this isn't working and that Jude is not telling him the truth.

And I didn't feel like Jude ever had romantic feelings for Willem, he just sort of agreed to be with him to not lose him(?).

According to me, deep down, Willem did not fully understand Jude on the same wavelength as one would expect his lover to:

• Constantly poking and prodding at Jude to open up. Every character does this, and I do think talking would help Jude a great deal. However, knowing that even the memory of his abuse triggers self harm and suicidal ideation, I do not think that for most of the book that Jude is in a healthy place to recall and relay those stories to non-professionals. Willem, on the other hand, demands that Jude talk about what happened to him as a child, even asking for Jude to detail his abuse to him for his birthday present, and yelling at him again to talk about it to the point that Jude shuts down in the car on the way to thanksgiving. Willem doesn't just think this will help Jude, he feels like it is something Jude owes him. And that leaves an awful taste in my mouth.

• When he walks in on Jude cutting, he grabs the razor and starts cutting himself in front of Jude. Jude's self harm is harmful, destructive, maybe even selfish- but never once does he do it in front of another person. Willem walked in, and did it in front of him with the sole intention of hurting him. Not only is there peer reviewed research that shows that a self harmer watching another person self harm will only make the issue worse, not better. But the same research also tells loved ones that threatening to, or executing, self harm on yourself to get the other person to stop doesn't work, and is actually extremely manipulative. It will only hurt and traumatize the other person more, and make them feel more ashamed about a behavior that they are addicted to and cannot easily stop.

• When Willem leaves to shoot a movie, he makes Jude promise him to stop self harming, with little to no resources to stop him from doing it. Not only is it not that easy to just stop, choosing to make him abstain instead of reducing the harm is not helpful. That is exactly what happens in the book. In order to stop cutting, Jude burns himself. And this is obviously horrific and not Willem's fault in the slightest, it is the shame and secrecy imposed by Willem that causes him to act this way. This throws Willem into a fit of rage where Willem again demands and yells at Jude to tell him about Brother Luke. Again, making the problem worse, not better or even neutral.

• That night, after suspecting that Jude has self harmed again, he comes into the bathroom, rips Jude's clothes off and gets on top of him to see if he has self harmed. He forcibly removes the clothing of his rape survivor boyfriend, and we are supposed to empathize with how bad he feels about it? I don't know. I understand how upset he is, understandably, but he handles the situation with such little tact and such severity that he has to realize that he is actually being abusive. Not just adjacent, not just a bad partner, but actually abusive by getting physical with his partner.

Willem obviously had a hero-complex when it came to Jude, he stated multiple times that he could "fix him" and tried and tried over and over again, when in reality, no one could fix Jude. A friend who picked up this behavior too didn't have the same reaction as me because she told me she didn’t see Willem as a romantic lead really, but a flawed person of his own. She didn’t think that his and Jude’s relationship was written to be perfect, or even to be good or healthy, but maybe it was perceived as that. Which is fair, I guess, but we both agreed that denying Willem’s saviour complex would be ignorant.

TAKEAWAY CRITICISMS

Hanya Yanagihara also did some interviews about the book that rubbed me in a slightly bad way. Her words gave the impression that the book is an intellectual exercise on the effects of abuse rather than an empathetic one. A Little Life’s thesis is that some people are so broken that suicide is their best option. That’s a deeply unkind thing to write about, and I think people would cut Yanagihara a lot more slack for all the trauma in the book if its thesis was literally anything else. That said, people read fiction for emotional catharsis, and that’s found in spades throughout the book.

It's also uncomfortable how there are almost no women and so many emotionally-stunted men. Yanigahara, in that same questionable interview, said she prefers writing men because she believes they are less emotionally intelligent and self-aware (also questionable).

Now, while I find the characters’ lifestyles silly, it’s not exactly problematic as Yanagihara herself admitted the book was a dark fairy tale (or something along the lines of that), but my problem with it is how classist her write-up is. Have you noticed how literally every single rich character in NYC or Cambridge in this book is a saint with a halo on their head (except Caleb), while almost every single poor character, from the monastery monsters, every single highway truck driver Jude met, the counsellors at the Home, even Dr. Traylor wasn’t particularly rich, were paedophiles? The message is almost like poverty produces absolute evil (except Willem and Jude, who went on to become rich af anyway), which is appalling.

My major major problem is that the reason Yanagihara wrote the book is because she believes that some people are too "broken or damaged" for therapy. Reading the book through that lens makes me disgusted.

Yanigahara comes across as a fetishist for the suffering of gay men, and posits herself as some kind of metanarrative saviour. It's creepy and the way people flock to it and hold it on this pedestal of literary achievement. I find it misguided and vapid. I wouldn't take away from anyone's reading of it, though. If it made you cry, it made you cry. If you love it, you love it.

We also get zero growth from any of them. Willem is always a Labrador retriever. Jude is always the same twelve year old in a hotel waiting to die. Malcolm is always some semi non-committal super architect. JB is always an asshole.

I could almost forgive this complete dismissal of all character development and psychology, if the whole thing wasn't so damn exploitative. She hides complex conversations about intimacy under mountains of rape. She hides difficult realities of friendship under a fixation on Jude. She hides really tough navigation of adoptive relationships behind prose about thanksgivings and cooking. It's really manipulative, and it makes her a skilled writer.

HOWEVER,

Personally, there’s a few aspects of the book I deeply connected with. The passage where Willem talks about codependency and deep friendship feels like it came straight out of my brain, and I love it too much to say I truly hate the novel.

As much as people in your life can do everything in their power to try and help you it really illustrates how cantankerous mental health can be. How it erodes your ability to function or live a fruitful life despite how ‘good’ things may be on the outside. Ultimately it is you and that reflection in the mirror that has to be healed for you to be able to live and love. Also made me think about how life is short and how precious life is.

But before that, here is what I initially loved—and still do appreciate—about this book. It is undeniably gripping from the first chapter to the end. Despite having a repetitive torture driven plot, just detailing the lives of the characters for 800 pages, this story kept me up reading until the sun came up more than one time. The first hundred or so pages gives such a solid introduction to (what you are deceived into thinking will be) the four main characters that you become invested in each of their lives, rooting for them individually along with dying to know more about their history and dynamic as a group.

I knew A Little Life was different from any book I’ve ever read pretty early on when I started to feel it in my chest. It’s a physical ache that makes my chest feel hollow and heavy at the same time. That feeling has only gone away a few times since I’ve read the book, it keeps coming back, and it’s here right now as I’m writing this. I know this sounds so over the top but it’s true and that chest feeling is honestly the main reason I’m writing this—I want it to go away. That feeling started as a combination of genuine love developed for the characters, pain from the truths about friendship and life weaved within the narrative that hit me with an intensity I wasn’t ready for, sick anxiety for what could possibly be waiting in the following hundreds of pages I still had left, revulsion at the scenes I was being made to visualize, and eventually just pure sorrow for Jude and all the people who loved him.

Hanya Yanagihara put something into the world that will stay with me forever, and there is absolutely something to be said for that.

That being said, what Yanagihara succeeded on epic proportions is the way she writes about love. Despite the complete lack of realism to this story, the central relationships – namely the brotherly love (between the gang and between Jude and Andy), the fatherly love (between Harold and Jude and Harold and Jacob), and the romantic love (between Willem and Jude) – are written so beautifully that it made my heart ache just thinking about them. There are many stunning quotes and paragraphs in this book I will forever remember with tears and/or with tenderness: the fire escape sequence, Harold to Jude’s letter about the broken mug, JB fucking up with Jude, Willem’s winning speech and Jude’s reaction to it, Willem’s exhaustion when Jude was contemplating amputation and his tears before the surgery, “You are Jude St. Francis” and “I am Willem Ragnarsson”, Willem cutting himself in front of Jude, Andy crying at Jude’s funeral …I can go on and on and on. Ultimately, the prose and the emotional weight of this book are unparalleled, and that’s what got me so hooked and attached to it even though when you think about it, the narrative is actually incredibly dull and I can easily imagine Yanagihara grinning like a sadistic psychopath while she was writing this book in front of her screen.

I understand a lot of the criticisms, but even still I loved the book and I think it had a profound effect on me. I definitely know it was unrealistic, but I appreciated the beauty of the writing and the way it made me reflect on uncomfortable topics, so I personally found it to be a really worthwhile read.

My final straw however came when Jude killed himself. It broke me to pieces but, given the agony he endured every single day of his life, I will never argue that it didn’t make sense. But it really makes me wonder what her purpose was for putting this story into the world. This is a story about trauma. It’s a story about what a person’s life becomes when, from the very start, they are physically and psychologically broken down in every way imaginable. It’s a story about how that kind of trauma never ever leaves you, and how you have to find your own ways to cope just to make it through your remaining days. So what is her message for the readers out there who are like Jude? The sexual abuse survivors? The human trafficking survivors? The domestic abuse survivors? Those who cut themselves, those with eating disorders, those living with chronic pain? That even if you find an escape, become unimaginably successful, travel the world, and, most importantly, form lasting, meaningful relationships with angelic people who support you and love you from the bottom of their heart, that there is still no hope for you? That life for the abused is a lost cause? From what I understand, her message is that it never gets better.

I think Yanagihara did something irrevocably dangerous: she created a book, that has now somehow gained popularity and critical acclaim, in which she wrote suicidal ideation from the perspective of a suicidal person with such conviction that she forces the reader to begin to see his side; that killing himself would in fact end his pain, and at this point the reader loves Jude so much that all we want is for his pain to end. She writes from this perspective and then does not rectify it. Yes, she makes it clear that Willem and Harold and Julia (Julia, who got no characterization but deserved so much) and JB and Malcolm and Andy love him, and that they’re doing what they can (I know they really could have done more, but I’m not going to go off about that because I understand Yanagihara was making a point about the agonizing struggle that is trying to maintain the balance between respecting your loved one’s autonomy/protecting their dignity and knowing when it’s time to cross a boundary in order to keep them safe and having the courage to cross that boundary; it’s part of the tragedy and one of the most realistic parts of the story, so I get it) but in writing what she wrote, she sent the message that unconditional love is not enough. And when Jude kills himself, what she’s said is that in the end, he was right. That suicide was the only thing that made his pain go away. And she is wrong for that. She wrote a devastating story, intentionally making readers connect deeply to her characters just so she could make it hurt when she ruined them, and she neglected to include even a shimmer of hope; the one thing essential to stories like this. In A Little Life there is only misery and no solace.

A Little Life is a cathartic book to read. It’s unforgettable. Between the despair, there are small pockets of joy and triumph that made my chest swell with good feelings instead of hollow from bad ones. It reveals harsh truths in a way so subtle yet so strong it takes your breath away. It made me feel an aching, powerful love for the main characters.

I really loved this book. I definitely don’t think it’s realistic, but for me, it grappled with suicide (and whether suicide prevention even becomes selfish) in a way that I’ve not seen grappled with very frequently. I’m NOT advocating for it, but for me, it did what Lolita did (hear me out). I read Lolita and would find myself nodding along to Humbert’s arguments and explanations (for pedophilia) and then have to ground myself that that was the very point, the manipulation of the reader in a way that makes you uncomfortable because of course you aren’t okay with pedophilia, but you have to stay alert to keep remembering Humbert is the bad guy. A Little Life did this for me with suicide (also not comparing suicide to pedophilia, simply saying that this made me support Jude’s right to end his life and then struggle and grapple with rooting for someone’s death.

That’s it from me. I had to get this review off my chest for the last few months. Thank you, goodnight.

The book is written so beautifully; Kate Russell’s prose style is extremely easy to understand yet so captivating. I felt that Vanessa’s character was apathetic and unlikeable, yet extremely relatable at times, which I think perfectly conveys the effect of child abuse on a person’s entire life. It leaves you torn between recommending it and recognizing the difficulty in doing so.

I think the author did a fine job in terms of character development because her writing was so emotionally intuitive. I will say that the way she developed the character of Vanessa is one of the best I've read in a very long time. I felt as if I were with her and watching her – cringing and feeling so bad for her – but, then, rooting for her as she grows older and starts coming to a realization.

This book kills me; it so perfectly encapsulates being young and miserable. That feeling of such intense self-loathing that you'd give yourself up to anyone who asked. The shame and regret once you realize how absolutely twisted it was. And those completely sordid moments where you have to reevaluate the whole situation, flip it upside down to really look at the bones of it all, to see how convoluted it ended up being.

I had read Lolita prior to reading My Dark Vanessa, which I thought was useful as I could understand the references to Lolita a lot better. Similarly to My Dark Vanessa, Lolita captivated me (grotesquely so) and stuck with me. I like that My Dark Vanessa switches perspectives between Vanessa’s past and present, which really represents how abuse doesn’t simply leave a person once the abuser is gone.

Perhaps I liked My Dark Vanessa so much as it felt like an extension of Lolita to me, except from the victim’s perspective rather than the abuser. It also helped me realise how messed up it was that Strane wanted Vanessa to be his very own Lo, and how similar he is to Humbert. Strane gave Lolita to Vanessa to normalise grooming her, and even make her see it as romantic. Strane found the perfect victim and sucked every bit of life out of her before life even started. Yes, this book was as disconcerting as Lolita with the depiction of insidious manipulation. Vanessa provided the adult perspective, with all the tumultuous moments, rationalising, deconstructing, and reconciling with Strane’s depravities that I wanted from Nabokov and Lolita. Nabokov utilised his prodigious vocabulary and facility for writing to seduce the reader and render Humbert palatable; reading Vanessa I found the vestiges of her teenage enamourment and how its percolates through the text had a similar effect. I feel so deeply for Vanessa as she is stuck as that 15 year old girl when it all started even into her 30’s.

Russell does a great job of showing how grooming manipulates the person into feeling loved and thus they "give" a part of themselves away (really it's taken). It's a grossly lopsided seduction that leaves the other person empty and destroyed. And if the person who loved you is actually a monster, were you ever loved? Are you lovable? What about the feelings you felt for another person? Were those real? And are you a terrible person for loving a monster?

Vanessa grapples with her history and finally reconstructs it into a more truthful version of reality, even though it's hard and painful. She couldn’t see that she was being groomed because from the very beginning Strane manipulated her into thinking that he was innocent, that she was the one with power over him. He made her believe that she had autonomy over her body, that she was the one who initiated, that she gave consent, that she controlled the pace at which their “relationship” developed.

Even as we see Vanessa grown up in her 30s, we can still see just how much the manipulation has affected her. When her therapist asks her questions about whether or not she ever initiated, she knows deep down that she never did. But still, she muses, “sometimes believing you had a choice is easier than knowing you didn’t.”

One of the reasons I loved this book so much was because it came from the eyes, heart and soul of someone who had been groomed and abused so cleverly that she still doubts it even as an adult. It courageously includes all of the feelings she went through - the ones which sound like falling in love, the ones which sound positive in a book about a survivor of abuse and rape - which, quite frankly, is realistic for a lot of groomed teens’ experiences. It does feeling exciting at times. It does feel flattering. It does take on the hue and feel of something good when it, in fact, is heinous and awful.

At some point in the book, I started believing myself that Strane did in fact love her like he said so on the bridge. However, after giving it a thought, I’ve realised that I don't think he really understood what love was. I think he believed that he loved her, but at the end of the day he would always prioritize himself over her. And that’s why the whole book is about her feelings after he died. She needs to unpack the good and the bad of it all in order to make sense of her feelings. It's never as simple as just being sad. She could care for him and hate him at the same time. She says that she's grieving, but in a lot of ways I think she's also grieving herself. She's grieving for the life she didn't get to lead, thanks to him.

Another thing that Russell tried to bring to light was just how deeply something like this can affect someone. Vanessa knows that her dismissal of other victims is bad, she knows that she should feel some sort of empathy. But since she’s still so impacted by the manipulation that she experienced when she was 15, an extremely impressionable age, she cannot seem to accept the grooming and abuse she faced.

One question I had when reading this was about Vanessa’s feelings toward Strane which she voiced to him one day. Vanessa says that she’s disgusted by his touch or when she has to touch him but yet she’s in love with him…which got me thinking how she could be feeling two stark opposing ways at the same time? Eventually, I realised that Russell is trying to convey Vanessa’s inner battle: she does not like the idea of being with Strane but likes the idea of being wanted. It’s like her thoughts and reality are two separate entities and this can be coined as cognitive dissonance – something she grapples with well into her 30s.

Henry serves as another example of someone wanting to use Vanessa. Strane assumed the role of the more obviously "villainous" example of an abuser — someone who takes advantage of a minor, manipulates her constantly, and makes her feel awful about herself as often as he makes her feel good about herself.

Henry is so different from Strane that it allows Vanessa (and the reader) to romanticize him and ignore the red flags. He makes her laugh (she even compares that to how Strane never does), they have stimulating conversations and fun banter, he never outwardly touches her or tries to make advances, and he defends Vanessa by confronting Strane. But in the end, he's still her professor. He's abusing his power by flirting with her and inviting her into his life. He's attracted to the nymphet persona she puts on in class to attract him. He frequently emails her and tries to get back in contact with her when it's clear she no longer wants contact with him (despite having been appalled by Strane's frequent missed calls and refusal to leave Vanessa alone).

I think it's also telling that Henry admits to reading her blog, just like Strane did. They were attracted to Vanessa because of her youth (she even theorizes Henry's interest in her is him chasing after his fleeting youth), and she's attracted to them because she can't break the cycle of being used by older men. With both of them, Vanessa was not the first student they pursued and she, likely in Henry's case, will not be their last. It's this endless cycle of abuse that Vanessa's attracted to because she has known nothing else.

Sure, Henry isn't as bad as Strane, but "not as bad" does not equal "good." Looking back, I think Vanessa wanted Henry to be a creep to in some way validate her relationship with Strane. She was just going through the motions of accepting that Strane was a predator and pedophile and she was his victim. I think she wanted to normalize the roles between herself and Strane so she could keep believing that what they had was “special”. That she was just special and he wasn’t really a pedophile. It’s a very hard thing to come to terms with as a reader, and I had to take a physical breather from this book for around a day before I resumed my reading.

I also think the point of the novel is to show there is no perfect victim. Vanessa’s flaws, her complicated feelings towards strane and coming forward, and our frustrations with her as a result of those things don’t negate her abuse. The narrative highlights the failures within support systems, emphasizing the absence of a "perfect victim" and the importance of not pressuring individuals to share their experiences. It underscores the harsh reality that, in an ideal world, victims would come forward with assurance of support and justice, but unfortunately, that's not always the case. The book prompts reflection on respecting individuals' decisions regarding disclosure.

The school's lack of action towards Strane shows just how many people the system has failed. the quote “The excuses we make for them are outrageous, but they’re nothing compared with the ones we make for ourselves.” comes to mind, where Vanessa talks about how there were certainly teachers who knew about starnes abuse but stayed silent, justifying their own lack of actions while also likely thinking of how important it is to advocate for children who have undergone sexual trauma.

What I found beautiful about the book is how boldly it showed those feelings littered amidst the fear, the disgust, the anger. It was extremely realistic. It was a horrendous read. It was heart-wrenching. And I loved how absolutely real and unapologetic it was.

I felt like the ending was perfect. Healing takes years and years, and the resolution to the novel was the beginning of that journey. My favourite line in the book was at the end after she sees Taylor while walking her dog: “with the sun on my face and a dog at my side, I have so much capacity for good”. All her life (since 15) she’s felt that she’s inherently “bad” for who she is, for simply existing. This line signifies such growth to me, that she’s considering, even for a moment, that she might be or could be good. I think that’s the perfect ending.

“I can’t lose the thing I’ve held onto for so long, you know? I just really need it to be a love story, you know? I really, really need it to be that, because if it isn’t a love story, then what is it? It’s my life. This has been my whole life.”

What struck me most wasn’t just the plot (though the premise is chilling) but the characters themselves. Each one is carefully constructed, not to be liked, but to be studied.

The book picks up pace from the first page, and I found a lot of the main character's experience somewhat familiar to my own from my time at university (before, you know, the whole murder stuff). Donna Tarrt really nails how easy it can be to become entranced by a charismatic figure like Julian Morrow, and find yourself pulled along the current of ideas within a very closed group of (in my opinion) elitist people. At the moment it all seems incredibly important and relevant, until you've graduated and wonder what you've actually been doing this whole time. And, man, did I want to scream at Richard for obviously throwing his life away on a whim.

The way the main character remains such a mystery, even when written from Richard’s perspective, really pulled me in. It's clear he's even hiding things from himself, channeling his inner Henry by observing first, and acting later. In a way, each of the characters in this group represent an aspect of Richard, only pushed to extremes. He describes Julian as someone who sees the potential and positives in anyone, rather than truly seeing the person as a whole. Richard falls into the same trap, where the in-group is this mysterious and fascinating object of study to him.

While Richard spends a lot of time describing Charles's problems with alcohol, it's pretty obvious he's got some substance issues of his own. The book, I think, also pretty strongly hints at the possibility of Richard being bisexual, which is explored through Francis (which would've fully come to fruition if it wasn't interrupted, though in a bit of a sketchy manner). Henry I already partially touched upon, but also represents the more silent, stoic and calculating part of Richard. It's true that the main character has a pretty dynamic inner life, but to the outside he expresses very little (part of which frustrated me heavily, but I suspect was intended to be).

Bunny and Richard pretty much fill the same role in the group, hence the beginning conflict and jealousy on Bunny's part. They are the poor students coasting on the money of their friends, pretending to be richer than they are. Bunny does this to an extreme, obviously. He is essentially what Richard has the potential of becoming in the second part, once Bunny is out of the picture.

What Richard has in common with Camilla I find harder to pin down. Both do have a rather passive role in everything that occurs, while both are still a lot more responsible for what happens than they themselves probably want to admit. You never really do get a full reaction from Camilla of the bacchanal. She suffers silently. Descriptions of the event suggest she didn't actively hurt the victim, but did somehow end up with blood in her hair. My impression is that she was an accomplice, and not an active agent in the crime, much like Richard later is when they turn on Bunny.

I do go back and forth on believing whether the farmer was actually killed by the four, and not by an animal. Descriptions of the man being horribly mutilated, teeth marks on someone's arm, and a short appearance of a cat-like animal much later on, makes it possible they only observed the beast mauling the man and in their drug-induced state, eventually came to believe they did it themselves.

I skew heavily towards this interpretation because it fits perfectly with the theme of changing perceptions that are threaded throughout the book (Richard never realizing how Henry actually appears to others until someone else points it out, Julian's change from magical mentor figure to flawed and cowardly man, and more). Appearance is everything, and it appears that they did it, and so events are set into motion. I also tend to believe Henry does have the correct memory of the events, and used it to keep control of the group (suggesting that he might've planned Bunny's demise much sooner).

Honestly, I have so many more thoughts and stray questions. The book leaves small hints of certain influences that might have a great impact:

• Henry and his care for plants, even planting the ferns he dug up by the cliffside.

• The implication that Richard comes from an abusive household, which could explain his sometimes passive approach to situations.

• Those two months Richard spends freezing in an attic that borders on suicidal.

• The butchered crime investigation which, to me, doesn't seem wholly realistic. Richard wasn't even interviewed once? Suddenly everyone forgets that Bunny hung around with this tight-knit friend group and it doesn't seem all that important at all once he died.

• etc. etc.

There are so many sad scenes in the book, however surprisingly one of the scenes that broke my heart is when Charles and Richard are talking about after college. Charles says that they all might move into Francis’ country house and Richard assumes that he is now part of the group and in his mind, it is a given that he is part of this “us” Charles talks about but then Charles finishes talking and asks him “What about you? What are you going to do after college? And Richard is confused before his heart sinks. For some reason, this scene struck me as so horribly sad. He assumed that after keeping their life-shattering secret he is now really part of the group. He has somewhere to belong. That he now has a family that he chose.

He is the sanest of them, maybe because he is ordinary. The most ordinary watching this group. The Greek group is picturesque but so terror striking. Maybe also he tried to define himself in terms of the group and because he was constantly iced out, he has always had a bit of himself that he never really grasped. If only he understood that he has been the most self-aware out of the group, that He was the least self-destructive, the least psychotic. He is ordinary. It might be boring and less dramatic, but it is real and solid, and he graduated and had a girlfriend and lived on this average ordinary life.

My other favorite is Francis. Francis may be the most human, out of this untouchable group he is the closest to the ground. He actually feels remorse and he suffers these anxiety attacks. He also has a soul-devouring fear of rejection and it made me want to hug him.

I think Julian's disappearance is kept purposefully vague. One could view it like God abandoning humanity after being faced with their unequivocal faults. That he was too heartbroken by the death of a pupil and that everything he's worked for has fallen to pieces at his feet. That he wanted to remove himself as a factor in any of Henry's plans, because he knew that the boy was deranged and had taken it upon himself to try and stop or at least postpone what would become an inevitability, that Henry would chase the taboo.

Richard's complacency is not that different from Henry's characterization, in my opinion. He's chasing anything to escape boredom, but unlike Henry, he also chases acceptance. This makes him a willing victim in any kind of manipulations set up by the cast. His acceptance of Henry's explanation probably comes from his desire to maintain his status as part of the elite. He recognizes that Henry is smarter than him and any doubts that he may or may not feel, are shoved down to maintain his position in their inner circle.

I think Henry's suicide is more about his egomania. A fulfillment of his role as a tragic protagonist. It also aids in exonerating the gang, but specifically Camilla, who he lives on through in some way. There's not a doubt in my mind that, if this had gone to court, the conflicting narratives and "crab in the bucket" mentality would have created a mistrial and they'd all be free to go. Not to mention that Henry could probably buy the prison and just let the others rot forever. So it's really only for his benefit that he kills himself.

HENRY

Henry is the one character in this that I never felt I fully understood. Is he a benevolent father figure who cares about the others and tries to take care of them? Or is he cold and calculating and simply manipulating the others for his own whims? There is evidence of both in the novel. Based on either interpretation he is either killing himself to save the others from more trouble, or he is doing it to give himself a god like persona in their eyes. One thing I'm pretty sure of: he believes in all the Greek mythology including the afterlife, so I believe he was not scared of death at all.

To me he killed himself to become the Greek hero who sacrificed himself at the end of the story and would be remembered forever as such by his friends. The main plot is taking on an arc reminiscent of a Greek tragedy with things at this point rapidly 'falling apart' or unravelling. Through that lens Henry's death (he is a narcissist who sees himself as the main protagonist and tragic hero) is almost inevitable. Henry takes the role of a psychopath. He says something like: “I have never felt so alive after having killed a farmer.” No normal human being would feel that way. A normal human being would be devastated, especially when there is no connection with the victim, it was just a random farmer. It's a classic 'downfall after hubris'. I also feel like his panic just escalated until there was no way out: it was an act of cowardice and I think Henry has a lot of misplaced bravado.

Henry was dependent on Julian and also had that saviour complex. He wanted to be the hero, so he killed himself to be one. Kind of works as his "heroine" spends all her life missing and loving him. His "side characters" kept seeing him, too. He wanted to make a forceful point/sacrifice himself in order to save the group and live/die by the virtues Julian taught them - to prove that it wasn’t all just nonsense. Charles was almost certainly going to go to jail for the whole stunt. Henry loved Camilla, and he knew she would be heartbroken if Charles went away, and that he would otherwise never stop trying to harm her or the others as long as Henry was with her.

It’s also likely the whole thing was inevitably going to be unraveled. Charles had abandoned all sense of caution and loyalty to the group. People who are that deep into alcoholism don’t care what happens to them or anyone else. He probably would have given in and turned Henry in to ruin his life and relationship with Camilla, and the lives of the others for supposedly betraying him. So, Henry sacrifices himself, thereby allowing them to pin the whole thing on him, absolving Charles and keeping Camilla safe, but also allowing Richard and Francis to escape consequences for murders that are largely Henry’s fault anyway: he is the one who researched and orchestrated the Bacchanal and who was the most committed to performing the mysteries - it was more important to him than anyone to live what they were being taught. He was Julian’s best student. He also comes up with the plan to kill Bunny. It’s supposed to reflect an actual Greek tragedy. Throughout the whole story, Henry is their leader. He’s always telling them what to do and he’s honestly the one who got them all in trouble to begin with. In that moment, he demonstrated “true leadership and honor” by putting everyone else’s well-being above his own and taking responsibility for his outsized part in the whole thing.

I thought those passages about the funeral and police investigation were too long. It seemed like they took up the majority of the book then everything after was almost rushed to conclude the story. Henry’s death happens so fast it leaves you shocked and confused.

I think Henry reminds me of Anna Karenina, and by that I mean he needs to believe he's the main character in a grand sweeping narrative to feel alive. He's a genius, a leader, a strategist; he's physically intimidating and wealthy: he has all the features of a great conqueror/king, except he's trapped in New England craving stimulation and purpose. I mean we know now that at the beginning of the novel, he's already very much mentally ill, but he's so magnetic that we don't fully see how mentally ill till he's dead. So regarding why he kills himself, I think it's a combination of atypical depression, delusional thinking, and the desire to finish off the Greek tragedy he's been carefully writing with the appropriate ending.

Since this is a modern Greek tragedy with multiple myths and archetypes, it’s no surprise to me that Henry and Julian’s relationship reflects a stereotypically Greek father-son dynamic. This dynamic is also evident in the way the group views Henry as a father figure—a role he is clearly aware of. After all, each character comes from a complex family background. The way Richard describes Henry in extreme detail and with awe highlights this dynamic. Richard's love and adoration for Henry are far more intense than his feelings for Camilla, for example. The Oedipal theme is unmistakable when Richard says “I love you” to Camilla, but she rejects him because she remains in love with Henry, even after his demise—or the end of the "Name-of-the-Father," in Lacanian terms. Once Henry realizes that Julian can never fulfil the father figure role he had envisioned, he understands that to truly embody that role himself, he must sacrifice himself—thus becoming the symbolic father of the group.

CAMILLA

Camilla is complex too. I think she was probably subject to a lot more abuse from the group than what we know. Their hallucination in the woods where she was a deer running from three wolves, if I remember that part right, really stuck out to me. I'd say that the abuse from Charles was allowed to go on because Henry used it as a way to be her hero and gain her adoration. Francis looked the other way. Bunny, if he was really like how Richard told us, remembering he is an unreliable narrator, probably encouraged it. But I'm not saying she was a saint. I'm sure she was as detached and wrapped up in the dangerous elitism Donna Tart was portraying too. She was definitely the hardest to read and I think it's mostly because it's from Richard's perspective and he doesn't really know much about her despite being fascinated by her.

I agree that she's an enigma and purposely the most mysterious character because Richard is so biased towards her. I don't know if she's the master manipulator that some people theorize though, simply because we don't have enough to go off of to really make that statement. I agree with her comparison to the Virgin Suicides: Camilla was reduced to a romantic accessory rather than a fully fleshed character. I do think she was genuine in how she felt towards Henry, though. Richard also looked up to Henry and that shines through but since he also loved Camilla I would have expected some mild denial towards her feelings for him but that element always seems consistent. Camilla seems to be fully aware of her power over the men in the group and uses it to her advantage. I would disagree with the idea that she dislikes the attention she gets from men. I don't think she enjoys it in a bimbo-esque way, but I think she acknowledges the power in it.

I always thought it peculiar how little of a deal was made about the fact that Charles and Camilla were incestous. There's really little to nothing in the book, even from Richard, that hinted at him being disgusted at it, as most people would, or anything like that. It hardly got the passing mention when it was necessary. About this, I think it’s a matter of showing how much of the disconnect the Greek class has from the outside world, and how Richard is slowly being sucked into it. Assuming what Richard explained about Camilla and Charles is completely factual, which it might not be seeing as he is a liar, it’s a reflection of how the book has become much darker and the cozy dark academia aesthetic has fallen away. Richard only hinting at being disgusted shows that he is trying to prevent the loss of the aesthetic, clinging on to his fatal flaw of a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs, Camilla and Charles being involved ruins that. At this point in the story, everything is falling apart, and it’s harder to hide secrets. There's a bunch of incest in Greek stories so calling it out too strongly would 100% be breaking from the "world" they've created where myths are real and they didn't just kill a guy in the woods "for the vibes." Their stance is the allowance to do anything as long as it's Greek. Henry is the only one to take that to its logical extreme. The others fell away when it got out of control.

Camilla, like the other Greek students, is complicit in Bunny’s murder. However, unlike some of her peers who unravel under the weight of their guilt, Camilla maintains a remarkable composure. Her ability to handle the aftermath of the murder sets her apart. Yet, this stoicism also hints at a deeper, more complex internal struggle that she manages to keep hidden from those around her.

BUNNY

Bunny's rampant bigotry and especially homophobia was a large part of his character in the novel. Richard noted this at one point and indicated that he didn't think it was reminiscent of any kind of internalised hatred, but was simply a prejudice with a lack of nuance.

Bunny's paranoia as he nears his own end is interesting to analyse, because we don't really know what causes it. Is it guilt from keeping the murder a secret, knowing that the more time passes, the more likely he gets to be convicted along with the others for not speaking up sooner? Is it - as Henry implied - anger because his friends, and even his best friend, kept things from him? Is it because he knows he's playing a dangerous game and yet the benefits and power trip are too good to stop? Julian says that Bunny was "one of the least morally concerned young man" he knows, yet Bunny does seem to suddenly develop an interest in morals and ethics out of the blue. The letter - if he did write it - implies that he was scared of Henry, and disgusted with the others for various reasons (except for Richard, who's not mentioned).

I think towards the end he had a lot of resentment for these people he thought were his friends and actually turned out to be cold-blooded murderers. When Richard describes Bunny's relentless brutal teasing toward the end of his life, it's very hard to have much sympathy for Charles, Camilla, Francis etc, simply for the fact that they seem to almost deserve any amount of his teasing - or at least have no right to speak up. I view it as the only way that Bunny can vent his frustrations and his disappointments at his friends turning out to be so heartless. This is also bearing in mind that (as someone else mentioned under this post) Bunny knew the real way that Henry, Francis and the twins had murdered the man (which was far from accidental).

All this is not to say that Bunny was not selfish. I'm sure he was impulsive, self centered, a chatterbox (not to mention sexist, homophobic and racist). And I'm sure his family was no model family either, but could it be that Bunny really was concerned that his friends had murdered someone in cold blood with no remorse, and Richard only portrayed this as his wanting revenge for being left out of the group?

One thing I've always wondered about is whether or not Bunny ever truly liked the rest of the clique. Richard was told by the twins that he was best friends with Henry, and I suppose that's one thing. I'm not talking about his relationship with Henry because I feel like this is something else to discuss entirely. But do you think he was actually friends with the others? He was disgusted by the twins' alleged affair, belittled Camilla for being a woman and made fun of Charles' alcoholic tendencies, and seemed pretty judgemental of Francis' sexuality (putting it lightly). Him and Richard seemed to get along well enough, going on hikes and stuff, but it feels to me like he was leeching off of the others mostly (enjoying Francis' money and lavish country house, eating for free at the twins on dinners.)

Possible Answers after brainstorming:

• I think it was complicated for Bunny. He was raised to chase and admire wealth and status. But he came from a family that had status but didn't let him access what wealth they had. So he probably resented the rich kids he'd been raised to ingratiate himself with. He probably also felt like a fraud because of his learning disability and his lack of access to money, and I think that's where his tendency to insult people came from. Most of the characteristics he mocked in others were things that could be used to exclude them from a group, so he's sort of saying, I'm not the outsider, you are because you're gay/alcoholic/the only girl/from California. I think he liked the status in the group that came from having a special relationship with Henry. And I think he must have enjoyed being part of the clique.

• I think he was like Richard at first: enticed by them, but as time went on began to dislike them. This romanticism would have worn off eventually.

• Uniquely amongst the clique, Bunny had an outside social life. For the rest of them, this insular clique is their only set of friends, and so hanging out with them despite not liking them that much makes sense. But Bunny has Cloke and Marion who are symbolic of his contact with reality.

• They really killed the farmer. I would reread the sections where they talk about that carefully. There is a play by Euripides called The Bacchae (Richard mentions it near the beginning of the book when narrating the discussions in class) where a group of women tear the king apart limb from limb while celebrating Dionysian madness. Bunny is completely shocked by what he read in Henry's notes and diary while they were in Rome. When Henry tells Richard they accidentally killed the farmer, he is lying. The murder was not an accident, and Bunny knows this and is disgusted by it.
  
  

RICHARD

Now onto my favorite character.

The whole story being told by Richard as the narrator also felt like it was so limiting, especially with characters as complex as the ones in the book. It’s almost like we never get a complete idea of who they truly were. Richard’s perspective is indeed pretty limiting. I prefer 3rd person for character driven stories for that reason - the others aren’t bound to one person. I’ve thought before that she should do a new version of it: keep the ending but cut out a lot of what happens between Bunny’s death and Henry’s and replace it with more Julian scenes, more dark academia aesthetic.

The amount of ‘screen-time’ that Julian’s presence has is criminal. He’s a storied and world famous intellectual, essentially a stand-in for Salman Rushdie, and he’s only in a few scenes. The first class is promising—we get one tiny peek into what Julian is teaching, but it’s difficult for the reader to believe his education could drive people to attempt occult rituals with how little of it that follows. I’d like to see more conflict between Richard and Henry, more of the Charles and Camilla story, and something more from Francis than just being the gay friend. Maybe Francis has visions of Dionysus and it becomes a question of whether it’s real or he’s just going nuts from stress and guilt. As you say, it’s like we don’t truly get to know them despite the book’s immense length.

Richard's contact with the group is his contact with the sublime. He leaves behind the ordinary people like him and his friends from the dorm and he becomes so isolated from real life into this magical illusion that he wants so desperately to be true. Despite getting so close there has always been a line he has been unable to cross. Some barriers that still set him apart from the group and render him terribly lonely. He is desperate to belong. to feel like he is part of this big thing, but he is always cast out, never quite reaching them and it's so heartbreakingly lonely; To be surrounded by everything he has ever wanted and still be a little out of place. A perfect example is when he got shot and no one paid any attention to him. He is like a ghost, and he only exists when they look at him.

So, agonizingly terrible. No matter what he does, how far he goes, he will always be a little skewed out of place. He does so much for Henry, begging for affection and attention. He wants to be part of the big plan, helping them, he imagined that a shared experience would be the strongest binding thing. He went through that experience and ran to help them with killing bunny. However, at the end of the day, after experiencing his first murder for them when he calls Francis begging for support he finds him and Henry drinking together and Henry ices him out again, he is so dismissive of him giving him some stupid advice about thinking in another language.

FRANCIS

So I’ve read this tumblr theory (not the best source but it’s interesting so I have to add this in), that Francis is predatory. As in, he only sleeps with Charles when the later is drunk, and then passes it off as "Oh, he always says he doesn't remember cause he's embarrassed to sleep with a man", and also tells Richard "If you drank as much as Charles, I would've probably slept with you too". Also, I believe he must've noticed Richard wasn't exactly sober when they were making it out, and earlier in the story, made a pass at Richard when, again, he was drunk.

I think Francis confessing to Richard that he would’ve slept with him if Richard had been drunk enough IS a confession of his wrongdoings and his awareness of his rapey behaviour. He’s not proud of it and he knows his behaviour is wrong i.e. predatory. I think Charles denied the things that were going on because of both reasons—Francis being a man and feeling violated. A lot of the people in this group subject one another to this sort of sexual abuse. I feel like no one talks enough about the level of abuse in Charles and Camilla’s relationship: we don’t know how consensual this was since we see it from Richard’s perspective, but the scene where Camilla puts sugar in her coffee tells us a lot. She’s trying to get rid of the taste of him, this is something a lot of victims of abuse do to cope with the abuse. My point with this is that Charles and Francis’ relationship is evidently non-consensual in any way shape or form and I think Charles would use Camilla as an outlet for this at times, since a lot of abusers are continuing a cycle of abuse.

Overall, they're all generally bad people. They’re not just interested in Ancient Greece. They genuinely want to live in a society like that with all its classism and misogyny. I think Francis' biggest flaw for me was how spineless he was. He seemed to know the secrets of everyone in the class, yet he was as much of a bystander as Richard (who, in comparison, knew next to nothing until the very end, and was still left with many questions). Hence his famous quote "Forgive me, for all the things I did, but mostly for the ones I did not". I think Francis ultimately spiralled down because he regretted the actions he could've taken, and did not, out of fear or doubt, or who knows what.

CHARLES

A big question that came to mind after Charle’s abuse of Camilla was revealed to me was ‘who is worse? Henry or Charles?’

To sum it up, I think Charles is worse as a genuine safety hazard but Henry is worse morally. Charles was dangerous because he was erratic in the end but Henry genuinely didn’t care about human life and killed his friend and used everyone else to get it done.

It is tricky to understand because Richard’s feelings get in the way and nobody we hear info from comes across as fully reliable when giving it. Everyone is a liar about some things. But that said, I think we can still tell Henry is worse. All the characters subconsciously sense a certain evil in Henry that they don’t sense coming from Charles. There are scattered points where Bunny, Richard, and Francis try to articulate a raw, horrible feeling they get about Henry. And he’s shown to have a capacity for intentionally ruining lives that Charles doesn’t. The characters did their own wrongs, but Henry drove them all. He’s at the center of the Bacchanal and Bunny’s death. He’d planned to use and potentially betray Richard. He very likely was promoting Charles’s insanity and tried to kill him. Charles is so erratic, lonely, and jealous. He does awful crimes of passion and addiction. But he can express genuine remorse. And he’s not sitting alone at home making chess moves that will allow him to get everything he wants at the price of his friends’ souls and heads.

It took a reread and deep-diving to try and see Charles outside of Henry’s manipulation and try to understand what he was going through and why he spiraled the way he did. Charles was the character who objected to the murder the most, therefore he was also the one who suffered emotionally the most from the aftermath. It’s fascinating to think of him getting sicker and sicker as a metaphor for the plot getting darker and darker, them all becoming morally “sicker” as time goes on.

I feel like reading the story from Richard's point of view makes the reader, in a lot of cases, immediately more sympathetic to Charles, because Richard admits he is one of his favourite members of the group. Therefore, he probably presents him in a more favourable light a lot of the time—he doesn't even really criticise him when his sexual relationship with & abuse of Camilla is revealed. I’m a Charles apologist. He was set up to look like the bad guy so that Henry could take Camilla for himself. So yes, I very much felt the same and liked Charles throughout the book, even finding myself feeling sympathetic towards him after all of that is revealed, even though I'm aware of how terribly inhuman what he did to Camilla is and that, in ordinary circumstances, I would absolutely condemn such a character without hesitation. Such is the power of an unreliable, first person narrator who is framed as the protagonist—you often find yourself leaning towards their likes/dislikes, even if they're objectively wrong. This was something that genuinely shook me as I read the book, which I understand is only a canon event (thanks, reddit).

If that side of him where his mind is a bit off balanced and him mistreating his sister is ignored, I found him to be a nice character. He definitely had a lot of concerning flaws and issues, but if he sought therapy and probably didn't end up in situations where his fragile mind couldn't do anything other than follow Henry in his murderous plans, I'm sure he was like the Golden Retriever kind of guy of the group. And note that by 'fragile mind' I meant his constant drinking which affected his cognitive functions and the constant problems he had to face.

GENERAL THOUGHTS

I think a large part of the novel/its conclusion is that you don't know what the characters' true intentions and desires were. There was so much manipulation and deception between them that I really doubt Richard was able to accurately convey what was happening when the others were away from him. A lot of the things he admits he didn't pick up on because he had romanticized the group.

Richard is essentially a voyeur until he is also culpable in the crimes, at which point he turns to substance use to cope, and his motivations are pretty clear throughout the book — he romanticises his life and has a deep need to feel like he belongs.

Henry is cut off from his emotions, dealing with significant health problems (extreme insomnia, migraines) and unable to effectively navigate interpersonal relationships (total lack of boundaries/communication with Bunny for example).

Bunny is the epitome of male privilege, someone sheltered and catered to his entire life by virtue of his gender & perceived social class.

Francis is the archetypal bad boy, flirty and lazy with a strong penchant for morally questionable actions.

And Charles to me is a Jekyll/Hyde character; he is the most caring guy in the group, the most overtly loving, but his alcoholism reveals the flip side of this nature and just how violent he can also be.

I feel like for all of the men, we can sort of understand how and why they fell into the tragedy, starting with the bacchanal and going all the way through.

But for Camilla — I don't know why she’s in this circle. Camilla is the least developed, certainly by design since we’re getting Richard’s POV, but I don’t understand her motivations or see clearly why she also ended up here. I’ve seen some vague commentary on how Camilla is the main mastermind — how could this be? I just don’t have an understanding of her at all.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I read yet another tumblr post that talked about how Dark Academia (the genre this book basically spawned) is born of book nerds longing for an elite world where education is cool and being artistic and well-read enough could grant you access to it. When you’ve been bullied your whole life for your love of books, the appeal of suddenly belonging to these glamorous, wealthy people feels very real. But of course it’s unattainable, because of our insecurities both real and imagined, so there must be darkness there too. The fable of the interloper gone too deep explaining the inherent violence at the heart of any exclusive group. The plain, boring ugliness of what wealthy people will do to stay wealthy, or to stave off boredom, and what the poor novices in their strange world get dragged into.

I felt super conflicted about this book. I really really enjoyed the first part a ton. To me the whole part about Richard getting gradually assimilated into the friend group (while Bunny drifted away) and the lead-up to the climax was super suspenseful and well done. I still think that it was well-written, but I honestly think that the author could have shaved a good 100 pages of detail off and still ended up with a fantastic book.

Also, I really wished that Julian would have had more parts in the book/a more active role in influencing the characters. To me he was the most interesting character, yet got the least amount of “screen time”. Maybe that was the author's intention though, that Julian was supposed to remain in mystery and be this heavily romanticized/larger than life character. Either way, I have a slight suspicion that I’ll appreciate this book more once I experience college.

THE SECRET HISTORY PLAYLIST

1. Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky

2. Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles

3. Fourth of July - Sufjan Stevens

4. The lakes - Taylor Swift

5. Beautiful Boy - John Lennon

6. Mystery of Love - Sufjan Stevens

7. Clair de Lune, L. 32 - Debussy

8. Sound of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel

9. Atlantis - Seafret

10. Creep - Radiohead

FURTHER READING:

https://lithub.com/a-close-reading-of-the-chilling-prologue-of-donna-tartts-the-secret-history/

https://lithub.com/the-secret-historys-tragic-flaw-is-that-the-group-is-simply-not-fun-enough/

https://wordcrafters.org/book-review-the-secret-history-by-donna-tartt/