I’m halfway through A Little Life and I’m convinced that the people who complain about the sequence of terrible events being unrealistic have barely had anything bad happen to them in their life. Is it a lot? Yes. Have I known people that went through one bad thing after another? Yes. And there are even more that I’ve read or been told about. I find it less realistic that a person with such a background as the main character’s should manage to go to college at all, let alone a famous one, than all the bad things that happened to him. There are those who allow themselves to live in a perfect world, where the worst thing that can happen is that your parents die when they’re old or you get a divorce–people with such regular lives that don’t let anybody’s pain touch them, I suppose!
I had to come back to this because I think a good reason why they complain about the sequence of horrible things is the writing. Hanya basically writes this as torture porn with Jude having little to no character development and is just stuck. Especially when he has resources to go to therapy or even get help from other. But for people who really deal with intense trauma, this isn’t an authentic experience. Also the book is extremely ableist.
What do you mean by torture porn? I don’t know if I would say that it is or isn’t authentic, because there are people who deal with it like you say, by going to therapy, or easily sharing with a friend, but there are those for whom it is quite difficult, especially if what happened to you is considered shameful and you don’t want your loved ones to see you differently. Even if (sometimes, especially if) they’re the type of person who’d actually want to help you. That’s something that Jude goes through a lot actually, and I’ve known people for whom this is also an issue.
It’s frustrating to see him dealing with the same issues over and over, but I also find it realistic. That when you’ve been through a lot of stuff, if you’re in a position that reminds you of how you felt back then you’ll do anything to stop yourself from feeling that way again, even if you’re aware that your coping mechanism causes more problems for you. He knows that what he’s doing is bad for him, he’s frustrated, and his loved ones are frustrated too. But it’s easy to say, “Why don’t you go to therapy? Why don’t you find a way to deal with your problems?” I think the reader is supposed to be frustrated too. We follow this person through life and think, “He’s an intelligent person. He can do so many things to help himself. Why doesn’t he do x, y, z?” I don’t think the story is meant to be instructive–that is, I don’t think it’s meant to show what should happen, or what always happens. I just… don’t find it strange that he would act against his best interests sometimes. Hell, there were so many times when I didn’t tell someone about whatever was happening to me and allowed them to be frustrated with me, or allowed them to think I was just being weird. I also found it relatable in how he doesn’t want his current and past lives mix.
I haven’t noticed that the book itself was ableist, only that there was a character that was abusive to Jude in a very ableist way, and that Jude is always dealing with internalised ableism. I’d like to hear your thoughts about that, if you’re willing to share?
I didn’t expect to be writing this much! Sorry if my response is too long. For some reason this book is very polarising, people either love it or hate it. My original post was in reference to some guy who wrote a very popular one-star review on Goodreads. I have about 200 pages left, and I’m dying to discuss it if you’d like!
I just got on the computer and Tumblr wants us to quit mobile AND desktop. Rip
wish i lived in 1600s amsterdam so i could be a heretical philosopher with a lens grinding business and then die at 40 of having inhaled too much glass particulate
what farming items in mmorpgs has taught me: i used to think using ice trays to make ice cubes was free but after thinking about it i have to pay the electric bill to power the freezer so every moment that i’m not freezing new trays of ice cubes is a moment that i’m underutilizing the freezer and increasing the cost of ice cubes. i have to constantly swap out ice trays for new ice cubes on an hourly rotation on a 24 hour basis or else i won’t produce the maximum amount of ice cubes possible and will underutilize the full potential of my electric bill. i need to stop using all other appliances and utilities in my home to make more ice cubes
one of the things that got me hooked on coding was how you can trick yourself into talking like an insane person really easily while doing it. like nodes in the software i use can be parents or children of other nodes, and i had to do some extra steps before deleting nodes that the queue_free() command didnt do automatically so i made my own command called explode() to delete nodes and was pondering how to do something and said “well, what do we do about all the unexploded children?” out loud and immediately stopped to go get a tasty drink and walked straight to bed
Recordando cuando unas gringas de Tumblr entendedoras de racismo se molestaron conmigo por decir que en castellano es considerado racista preguntarle a la gente cuál es su raza… Nunca más 💀 Están todas bloqueadas. Lo más cercano que estuve de participar en un discurso por interné.
Also “what happened to all indigenous and afro argentines” go fucking outside, they’re there
if you didn’t see any in your funny little trip to Buenos Aires go outside Palermo also
The worst thing is, I’ve been to Buenos Aires to visit family and even staying in the touristy or more expensive areas you see that people are diverse in terms of physical appearance.
There’s this weird xenophobia that some people on Tumblr have against Latin Americans, accusing all of us of being white, or saying things like being mestizo is almost the same as being white or that being mixed means you no longer belong to the group that your family belonged to, which would be recognised by these racism understanders as typical anti-indigenous rhetoric if used against North American folks. Anything to say that we’re privileged in comparison to people from the US.
Can’t help being obsessed with us if they keep repeating the same thing over and over I guess 🤭
Anonymous:
Isn't Argentina as much of a settler state as the USA, Canada and Israel? Say, what happened to the Indigenous and the Afro population after independence?
The independent Argentine state commited genocide against the native peoples of Patagonia during the “Conquista del Desierto”, and the less known yet not-less brutal colonization of the Great Chaco, by displacing or outright killing native populations. With regards to the Afrodescedant population, there was not an organized campaign of genocide, but rather a process of “invisibilization” where Afrodescendants hid their heritage to assimilate to eurocentric society, same with mestizo people. These are historical and current debts that the successive Argentine state has not repaid or adressed properly despite recent advances.
Sarmiento was the first and main architect of the conception of Argentina as a country for European inmigrants that “to modernize” needed to get rid of the native and afro-descendant population, the now celebrated figure of the gaucho, the same people who fought for independence, was disgusting to him. Julio A. Roca was inspired by the genocide of the native peoples of the United States and tried to use the same mentality and tactics here. Despite there have never been formal laws of racial separation, this mindset continued as part of state policy until roughly the early-20th century and still shapes national attitudes today.
Despite the desires of these men to destroy them, they ultimately failed. Over a milion (probably undercounted) Argentines belong multiple native peoples, with 30-40% of Argentines (depending on region) from partial or full native descent and 4-7% from african descent. Culturally, because of the aftermentioned process of invisibilization and the way the concept of race expresses itself in Latin America, there are fewer people who identify themselves with such groups than genetics show: racism still exists against “morochos”, that is, brown-skinned people, compared to the Eurocentric ideal.
These are not hidden facts, they are taught in Argentine schools and universities, widely discussed and regarded as shameful, and they still shape our society and politics.
When I read the term “settler state” it confuses me because every Latin American country is a settler state, because by definition they were colonized by Spain and Portugal. Independent nations in Latin American inherited the racial and colonial mindsets of their “parent” empire. From Chile and Brazil, which also commited similar genocides on native lands following the procesess of the Spanish and Portuguese, to the opression of native and afro-descendants in favor of the european-descended elite in places like Perú, Bolivia and México, and the overall “blanqueamiento” (whitening, or however you want to call it) theory common to all Latin America where mestizaje was encouraged to “whiten” the popluation. Every Latin American nation was born, like it or not, from these violent processes.
The genocide did not begin with Argentine independence, it began in 1492, and it continues to this day. Similiarily, it has not started or stopped with a single administration or another, and it expresses itself in multiple ways. The only way to solve such deep rooted problems is by the state assuming its political, social and economical debt, but also for the entire mindset of society to change, which will take generations. I like to think we are progressing on that front, but when I see recent events such as the repression in Jujuy, I also know we have decades, if not centuries as my grandfather says, to go.
