A Little Life - Richmond/Harold Pinter/Savoy/ Cinema

[barelyathletic]

Everybody who's read the book says it's amazing. Every time I pick it up in a bookshop for my next read I think "complete misery fest. Why would I bother?" Not excited by seeing it on stage either. I loved (the original productions of) The Normal Heart and Angels in America and admired The Inheritance, but this just sounds like torture, mentally and physically. Maybe it will pull in an audience from fans of the novel or fans of any big name attached, but I can't get excited about it. The whole thing just makes me feel a bit sad.

[karloscar]

A Little Life has played the UK already as it was at the Edinburgh Festival this summer before heading to New York. The book is definitely abuse porn and the play seems to concentrate this to a new intensity by having the abusers all played by the same actor and focusing solely on the character of Jude. I read it with an open mind and concluded the author had never met a gay man in her life before. None of the characters were remotely believable, the actor Willem had a career that Hugh Jackman, Daniel Day Lewis and Gene Kelly couldn't compete with, and poor Jude gets ludicrously abused for decades while building a high level career when anyone else would need 24 hour care if they remained alive. Any sympathy you have for the characters dwindles as the writer piles on the self-indulgent misery porn.

[alessia]

Oct 26, 2022 10:12:23 GMT barelyathletic said:

Everybody who's read the book says it's amazing. Every time I pick it up in a bookshop for my next read I think "complete misery fest. Why would I bother?" Not excited by seeing it on stage either. I loved (the original productions of) The Normal Heart and Angels in America and admired The Inheritance, but this just sounds like torture, mentally and physically. Maybe it will pull in an audience from fans of the novel or fans of any big name attached, but I can't get excited about it. The whole thing just makes me feel a bit sad.

When a good friend (not really that good now, but this is nothing to do with the book lol) told me that years back this was her FAVOURITE book, I went and read it. Should have read more comments online. Some spoilers follow!

The more I was reading, the more I was like 'and now THIS happens to him too?' What ELSE can possibly happen to this one person?
And, another spoiler alert: what goes on with the other two friends who are fully part of the story in the first half of the book...they just vanish without explanation half way through. 
When I learned they'd made a play my first reaction was 'WHY??' 

[alessia]

Oct 26, 2022 10:20:40 GMT karloscar said:

A Little Life has played the UK already as it was at the Edinburgh Festival this summer before heading to New York. The book is definitely abuse porn and the play seems to concentrate this to a new intensity by having the abusers all played by the same actor and focusing solely on the character of Jude. I read it with an open mind and concluded the author had never met a gay man in her life before. None of the characters were remotely believable, the actor Willem had a career that Hugh Jackman, Daniel Day Lewis and Gene Kelly couldn't compete with, and poor Jude gets ludicrously abused for decades while building a high level career when anyone else would need 24 hour care if they remained alive. Any sympathy you have for the characters dwindles as the writer piles on the self-indulgent misery porn.

Oh I'd forgotten that Willem was an actor! 

[foxa]

I found the book frustrating as it focused more and more on Jude's trauma - there was much love and centring of Jude, though why he attracted so much affection was not really conveyed in the novel beyond him being perhaps a modern equialent of an ever pierced and suffering medieval saint. The New York Times review suggests that up to a third of the audience walked out by the interval - so must be tough-going.

However I was really impressed that the author wrote the book while holding down a demanding full-time job.

[karloscar]

Apparently there's a musical version too! It was first done in Kuala Lumpur in 2020 according to Wikipedia, so we have that to look forward to. It'll make Sweeney Todd and American Psycho look like Joseph and his Amazing Bloodsoaked Fratricidal Dreamcoat.

[BurlyBeaR]

I liked The New Yorker’s review headline “A little Life is a little much”.

It does sound horrible. Hard pass!

[samuelwhiskers]

Inclined to agree with alessia and Burly - torture porn/misery porn. I’m sure it’ll be a quality show, but hard pass from me.

[lemiz1862]

I wrote about this in The Shining thread. It's in English at the Pinter.

[couldileaveyou]

Oct 26, 2022 10:25:54 GMT alessia said:

Oct 26, 2022 10:12:23 GMT barelyathletic said:

Everybody who's read the book says it's amazing. Every time I pick it up in a bookshop for my next read I think "complete misery fest. Why would I bother?" Not excited by seeing it on stage either. I loved (the original productions of) The Normal Heart and Angels in America and admired The Inheritance, but this just sounds like torture, mentally and physically. Maybe it will pull in an audience from fans of the novel or fans of any big name attached, but I can't get excited about it. The whole thing just makes me feel a bit sad.

When a good friend (not really that good now, but this is nothing to do with the book lol) told me that years back this was her FAVOURITE book, I went and read it. Should have read more comments online. Some spoilers follow!

The more I was reading, the more I was like 'and now THIS happens to him too?' What ELSE can possibly happen to this one person?

yesss, I think that, unlike in life, in fiction drama is a parabola and after a certain point it stops being pitiful and it becomes laughable. The play could be an excellent drinking game - "take a shot every time [insert a generic horror] happens to Judd" - but you'll probably end up in a hospital before the interval. 

[og]

It (the book) continues to divide readers into two distinct factions; the 'I loved it' camp and the 'I've never read anything worse' camp.
The haters do seem to be aggressively vocal about how much they disliked the book, brandishing the "torture porn" label at every opportunity. Whilst those that fell into the writing and characters are equally passionate about praising the writer.

I fall into the loved it division. It's a very difficult read, but the depth of compassion I felt for the characters, who to me, felt so real, blew me away. I've never cried reading a book as I have whilst reading ALL.
Reports of the 4hr production sound intense and I'm not sure from what I've seen and read of it, it's how I'd envision a translation of it to stage, but intrigued nonetheless.

No doubt the production will divide reviewers as the book did. So prepare for some heated debate in this thread.

Anyone for a Jonny Bailey Jude?

[alessia]

Oct 26, 2022 16:30:00 GMT couldileaveyou said:

Oct 26, 2022 10:25:54 GMT alessia said:

When a good friend (not really that good now, but this is nothing to do with the book lol) told me that years back this was her FAVOURITE book, I went and read it. Should have read more comments online. Some spoilers follow!

The more I was reading, the more I was like 'and now THIS happens to him too?' What ELSE can possibly happen to this one person?

yesss, I think that, unlike in life, in fiction drama is a parabola and after a certain point it stops being pitiful and it becomes laughable. The play could be an excellent drinking game - "take a shot every time [insert a generic horror] happens to Judd" - but you'll probably end up in a hospital before the interval. 

A drinking game lol. Only way this would be remotely bearable! If I did this, I wouldn't last long -probably would need to be escorted out even before the interval!! 

[juicy_but_terribly_drab]

I haven't read this book or seen the play personally, but knowing that the author essentially set out to write a story about a character who should kill themselves because their life is so terrible tells me all I need to know really. I've heard people talk about some of the stuff the main character goes through and it just seems relentless and basically neverending to an absurd degree, and just when you think things might improve the author throws the most cliché and trite tragedy that writers can throw at a character when they need an excuse to cause them suffering. It all just sounds incredibly manipulative and like she's forcing her point on you against your will but also all logic and reason because it truly is comical the amount of trauma this character suffers.

Knowing what I know about it I would never read it and I certainly would never see it on stage. Fair enough to people who have gotten something out of it but I don't know how you can subject yourselves to that kind of misery apparently for misery's sake. Maybe if I'd read it without knowing the author's intentions I would have seen the beauty in it but I don't think I could look at it from an unbiased viewpoint anymore.

[Deleted]

I fully appreciate that many people find the author's treatment of Jude to be "abuse or trauma porn."

Yet some people actually experience comparable cycles of abuse from others and/or causing harm to themselves.

They may be a very silent minority, but the experience Hanya Yanagihara conveyed onto Jude does reflect a level of pain and anguish that would be biographical for them.

[alessia]

Oct 26, 2022 16:51:37 GMT juicy_but_terribly_drab said:

 Maybe if I'd read it without knowing the author's intentions I would have seen the beauty in it but I don't think I could look at it from an unbiased viewpoint anymore.

Well I read it without any knowledge of the author's intentions and I still don't see any redeeming features in the book. It's neverending misery for its own sake with added plot holes 

[BurlyBeaR]

Oct 26, 2022 16:51:37 GMT juicy_but_terribly_drab said:

I haven't read this book or seen the play personally, but knowing that the author essentially set out to write a story about a character who should kill themselves because their life is so terrible tells me all I need to know really. I've heard people talk about some of the stuff the main character goes through and it just seems relentless and basically neverending to an absurd degree, and just when you think things might improve the author throws the most cliché and trite tragedy that writers can throw at a character when they need an excuse to cause them suffering. It all just sounds incredibly manipulative and like she's forcing her point on you against your will but also all logic and reason because it truly is comical the amount of trauma this character suffers.

Knowing what I know about it I would never read it and I certainly would never see it on stage. Fair enough to people who have gotten something out of it but I don't know how you can subject yourselves to that kind of misery apparently for misery's sake. Maybe if I'd read it without knowing the author's intentions I would have seen the beauty in it but I don't think I could look at it from an unbiased viewpoint anymore.

That’s the kind of thing everyone is trying to stop happening on Instagram isn’t it? 

[og]

Oct 26, 2022 16:51:37 GMT juicy_but_terribly_drab said:

I haven't read this book or seen the play personally, but knowing that the author essentially set out to write a story about a character who should kill themselves because their life is so terrible tells me all I need to know really. I've heard people talk about some of the stuff the main character goes through and it just seems relentless and basically neverending to an absurd degree, and just when you think things might improve the author throws the most cliché and trite tragedy that writers can throw at a character when they need an excuse to cause them suffering. It all just sounds incredibly manipulative and like she's forcing her point on you against your will but also all logic and reason because it truly is comical the amount of trauma this character suffers.

Knowing what I know about it I would never read it and I certainly would never see it on stage. Fair enough to people who have gotten something out of it but I don't know how you can subject yourselves to that kind of misery apparently for misery's sake. Maybe if I'd read it without knowing the author's intentions I would have seen the beauty in it but I don't think I could look at it from an unbiased viewpoint anymore.

That's quite something, to say you've not read it and then openly pass some brazen opinion whilst parsing other peoples responses to the material as your own judgement on it.
It's almost manipulative in itself for you to force your point of objection on others against their will, ironically. 

"I've never been the to theatre, but I've heard its an appalling experience where a director will force their views of reality on you and submit you to the most excruciating and torturous of illogical and unreasonable scenes. Quite absurd that people actually go and enjoy themselves, when they're being subjected to such insincerity."

[juicy_but_terribly_drab]

Oct 26, 2022 17:17:44 GMT og said:

Oct 26, 2022 16:51:37 GMT juicy_but_terribly_drab said:

I haven't read this book or seen the play personally, but knowing that the author essentially set out to write a story about a character who should kill themselves because their life is so terrible tells me all I need to know really. I've heard people talk about some of the stuff the main character goes through and it just seems relentless and basically neverending to an absurd degree, and just when you think things might improve the author throws the most cliché and trite tragedy that writers can throw at a character when they need an excuse to cause them suffering. It all just sounds incredibly manipulative and like she's forcing her point on you against your will but also all logic and reason because it truly is comical the amount of trauma this character suffers.

Knowing what I know about it I would never read it and I certainly would never see it on stage. Fair enough to people who have gotten something out of it but I don't know how you can subject yourselves to that kind of misery apparently for misery's sake. Maybe if I'd read it without knowing the author's intentions I would have seen the beauty in it but I don't think I could look at it from an unbiased viewpoint anymore.

That's quite something, to say you've not read it and then openly pass some brazen opinion whilst parsing other peoples responses to the material as your own judgement on it.
It's almost manipulative in itself for you to force your point of objection on others against their will, ironically. 

"I've never been the to theatre, but I've heard its an appalling experience where a director will force their views of reality on you and submit you to the most excruciating and torturous of illogical and unreasonable scenes. Quite absurd that people actually go and enjoy themselves, when they're being subjected to such insincerity."

I don't think I ever passed anyone else's judgment on it as my own. For brevity's sake I said I'd heard what people had said about what happened in the book, what I meant by this is I had heard talk of how divisive it was and out of curiosity read what happens in the book. I'm not basing my opinion on anyone else's, just on the fact of the author's given intentions for writing the book and the events that take place therein. Knowing these pieces of information I can't see a world in which I could read the book and not find it an effort in manipulation to make you agree with the author. I'm not trying to sway anyone else's opinions on the book or play who managed to get something out of the experience (though I suppose reading back what I said it could sound like I was judging people who did but I honestly am just unclear on what people love so much about it and I would gladly read someone elucidating what it is about it they appreciate), I just wanted to add my voice to the people who expressed a lack of interest in seeing the play with the addition that not only did I have no interest in subjecting myself to the content as far as I understand it, but also that the author's own words on her intentions had also put me off.

If anyone is interested in the author's exact words, in case you find yourself with a more generous interpretation, you can find them in this interview. It's the answer to the question about therapy, I think it's the fourth or fifth question:
electricliterature.com/a-stubborn-lack-of-redemption-an-interview-with-hanya-yanagihara-author-of-a-little-life/

[mrbarnaby]

I loved the book and I loved the play- even though it is a brutal watch. It’s easy to label things as ‘misery porn’ etc … but this story and it’s characters moved me beyond anything I’ve read before.

I’m just glad a proper serious drama is coming to the west end.

[lemiz1862]

Agreed, I found it extraordinary in Amsterdam. I'm excited to hear it in English.

[theatrefan572]

I'm really hoping this is true. I'd love to see it. 'A Little Life' is my favourite book. A hard read, yes, but I've never read something where the characters felt so real to me. I think that's why I connected with it so much. They are so well written they feel real to me.

Obviously theatre is a different medium but I'd love to see how it's been adapted.

[AddisonMizner]

Does anyone know when this is due to be announced officially?

[mikey]

The book's social media accounts state an announcement coming tomorrow, so probably this?

[mrbarnaby]

Nov 22, 2022 20:08:10 GMT mikey said:

The book's social media accounts state an announcement coming tomorrow, so probably this?

I suspect it will be yes

[Rory]

Harold Pinter from 25th March.