Hanya Yanagihara’s “To Paradise”

It was in June 2016 that I read “A Little Life,” and I so moved and so awed by it that it actually motivated me to start a books blog to capture my thoughts and feelings about the books I read. My experience of “A Little Life” was the first post on that blog, and it tried to put into words what an emotional experience it was to read that book. Since then, I have gone back to re-read “A Little Life” a few times, and it never fails to pack the same emotional punch for me as when I first read it. I was not familiar with its author, Hanya Yanagihara, who seemed to have a very low profile relative to other authors and was not coming out with new books on a regular basis. And that was fine with me — I thought “A Little Life” was so good that it would be a tough act to follow.

But then, the inevitable eventually happened — Hanya Yanagihara did come out with a new book, which has just been published and which has, naturally, been making the usual promotional rounds in the literary media. Called “To Paradise,” it is every bit as long as “A Little Life,” and while book critics have been, by and large, positive about it, I heard that many readers were lukewarm about it (in contrast to “A Little Life,” which most readers responded to the same way I did). After debating whether to read it or not — I didn’t want to do anything to taint the experience of “A Little Life” for me — I finally decided to take the risk and go for it. I chose a free weekend and started on a Friday evening, giving me some uninterrupted time to “get into” the book — which I thought was necessary, given how long it was.

I knew the basic plot of the book — that it actually combined three separate stories, each set a century apart in New York, with the second part coinciding with our current era. I was able to get into the first story, set in the 1880s, very easily, and found it as beautifully written as I would have hoped from someone who had written “A Little Life.” The emotions, the details, the narration that just flowed so effortlessly and which kept me hooked — not only was I delighted to read a good book, I was also hugely relieved. So, this was going to be a worthy successor to “A Little Life” after all.

Alas, my relief was short-lived. It was tough going once the second part, set in the 1980s, began. However, I valiantly plodded on until mid-way towards the second story. That is when I finally gave up, realizing that I was no longer reading because I was enjoying the book, but because I wanted to be able to get through it. And once I reach that stage for any book, I don’t persist with it. It took me longer to do this for “To Paradise,” since I wanted so badly to like it. But I finally gave in to what I really felt and stopped.

While it would be easy to be annoyed or critical of the author for failing to follow up on one masterpiece with another, I think it is important to be grateful for the original masterpiece to begin with, to be grateful that it was created and put out into the world for all of us to enjoy. Because, ultimately, all great art is a work of “grace.” You can’t set out to write a great book, or paint a great painting, or compose a great piece of music. You can just do your best and hope that what you create is good. And for those of us that are the recipients of these creations, we have to be grateful that these creations exist at all, and more so when they are spectacular.

So while I may not care too much for “To Paradise,” I will always be grateful for the magnificence of “A Little Life.”