Book Review – A Little Life

Small – Big Life Matters

A little life by Hanya Yanagihara

Revisiting my brief overview of ‘A Little Life’ the 2015’s Man Booker Prize nominee a year later was a passing idea. What could be gained from this experience was noting if my opinion had changed about the book a year later.

A Challenge

I was introduced to this book by my sister CF. She stated in a resigned fashion that this book was a depiction of a persons struggle. No matter what good experiences were presented to them, they could not heal from the pain of their past.

As a practicing counsellor with over 7 years of experience I was intrigued and appalled by the idea of a wound so great that no recovery could be experienced. Naively I approached the book like an investigator seeking to uncover what experiences a fictional character could not heal from.

Within 80 pages Ms Yanagihara (author) had me so involved within a complex story of loss, betrayal and pain that to stop reading was the furthest thought from my mind. As I turned the pages and further engrossed myself with this Little Life, I began to recognise why my sister had stated in as clear a way as possible why she proclaimed that there are scars that some individuals never recover.

Symbolism

The central character is called Jude. Jude has a number of difficulties that he is able to successfully negotiate his life with including low self esteem, self harm and a mysterious physical disability. There is a scene that springs to mind as a metaphor for the book. After a significant self-disclosure to a close friend, Jude is thrown from a roof to a window ledge in a scheme to rescue his friends. The rescue involves him undoing a lock that he alone knows how to remove.

Event Horizon

If a reader makes it to the impromptu rescue part of the book, unfortunately they have been pulled over the edge into the event horizon. There is little chance of escape until the book ends and even then a reader will be further embroiled with ‘But if’ scenarios and disappointed views about the characters lives in the book for months after completing A Little Life.

Support Group for a Book?

I have spoken with others and read tweets about how readers have experienced the story #aLilLife with calls for support groups and warm blankets to help the reader survive the tumult of impassioned story telling.

All talk about the effect the book has on the reader are accurate. The twists and turns of the story, the feelings the book and writing evoke and how, as a reader, they wish they could have friends and family that Jude has.

I read the book morning noon and night. At one point stating on twitter ‘It is the first thing I reach for when I awake and the last thing I touch before I fall asleep.’ At times I stay up for an hour or 2 past the witching hour to complete a paragraph or a chapter. A Little Life is a tour de force.

Willingness to let go

The aspect of the book that stays with me, is the roof incident and the reminder his social worker offers him; ‘You have to let others in and talk about this thing, or it will get the better of you.’ I am mindful that this coupled with the scene of him rescuing his friends
and undoing a lock that only he knows how to unpick are 2 moments of evidence. Jude has the tools for his own rescue if he were willing and able to open the locks. Anna provided Jude with a choice, as all good therapists are able to offer their clients.

Self-Agency

The experience of ‘Life’ can be taken for granted. A character like Jude’s helps to explore a reckoning with humanity and all that the human experience can present: Mystery, Adversity, Humour, Friendship, Challenge.

As a therapist, Jude’s story provided me with a reminder of what professional boundaries are – To walk beside a person being supported and remaining both caring and mindful of the individual’s journey towards self-discovery – hoping that they get there.

Jude’s story is tragic, many of the people I work with have disastrous life experiences too. I hold on to the idea that a character like Jude’s in ‘A Little Life’ and service users I support can take steps to change their life path if they can find value in being…

For Jude the chance to take a leap of faith appeared too great, however in my experience it is often as thin as a sheet of paper.

Walking and Talking Therapy Begins

Thursday, 30 May 2013

It’s evening on May the 16th. I’ve had a busy day, leafletting my local neighbourhood about Walk and Talk therapy. It’s in the quiet time of the day I can reflect how far I have journeyed. An estimate of the round trip, I have probably travelled 4 miles, Lee-Blackheath-Hither Green. Through my walks I am starting to develop a deeper understanding of the area.

Freud’s Dangerous Method

I want to use this space to enlighten the journey of walking therapy. It started I believe with Freud – one of the forefathers of Counselling and Psychotherapy. It has been well documented that Freud used alternative methods to interact with clients. He would use hypnotism to relieve clients of their distress and on occasion go for walks with clients. The development of having clients lie on a couch was something Freud found useful when working with clients related to clients being immersed in something other than the room. Disassociation became something he found useful for clients to fully open up, drop guards and defenses.

Collaboration whilst walking

Walking Therapy I believe does something similar, as a client starts to pick their way with a guide, the relationship established due to the motion and the action of walking becomes one of collaboration. Traditionally clients and their counsellors sit at a distance to one another. Their chairs are faced in just off oppositional positions to each other. The room will usually be furnished in a low key non threatening manner. There may be a picture or 2 on the walls, framed certificates somewhere in the room and a partially hidden time device. (To keep sessions to time)

Looking for some creativity to my own practice I imagined another way I could work that might inject something new to the counselling process. Walk and Talk Therapy was born. I haven’t looked back since. Excuse the pun (humour and analogy another way to be creative in therapy examined in On Being a Therapist Jeffrey Kottler).

Feedback

I have run 2 successful trials with 2 different individuals over the past 2 months and their responses have been hugely positive.

“Walking and talking is a tranquil activity as it combines movement with introspection”

“You can’t help but be in the moment! Each step you have to be aware of, and that keeps you in the now”, another useful comment.

I have enjoyed how the environment has enabled conversation and inspiration to bubble up and be accessed. Even when in a quiet lull in conversation, the effect of walking in beautiful areas around Lee and Blackheath has meant that something ‘other’ is being accessed and it is when this is brought back into the conversation the reflective quiet’s findings are always surprising and useful.

M

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Cover photo by Michael Opoku-Forfieh