incredible.

Increíble. Cautivador y atrapante.

Parte del interés del Paraíso es que no sabemos cómo es, o incluso si existe.

Así como, en vida, no podemos saber si existe un Paraíso, tampoco podemos conocer el final de las historias de David, Kiwika o Charlie: sus vidas como las conocen se acaban y este nuevo renacer —un nuevo renacer en el Paraíso— es inaccesible para los que estamos vivos. Es imposible saber el destino de los que ya no están. 

En estas tres historias tenemos tres protagonistas con situaciones precarias, quienes se enfrentan a la disyuntiva entre lo que podría ser una vida mejor (El Paraíso) y su vida actual, la cual no es muy prometedora. Tres viajes en mundos muy diferentes que, de alguna manera, laten de forma similar.

I'm crying in a coffeeshop.

I want to know if they made it to paradise - all of them. Even the first David, who was a spoiled brat. But especially Charlie

The writing is beautiful but ultimately I just found this book deeply frustrating. Go into this book knowing you will not get all the answers you might want. I also found the repeated character names across the stories added needless confusion. 
I think most reviews I've seen thought the second story was the worst one but that was probably my favourite. I much preferred the first two to the final story in the volume. Maybe I just wasn't ready to read about pandemics though! The author certainly does a good job describing a dystopian future. 

This book was way too long for what it tried to deliver. I did like the message/the whole point of the future pov but I do think there were some messy mental health rep, that bordered on problematic. 

The  sections of this book weave together in a fascinating, imaginative way. Yanagihara develops three plots and sets of characters that, when combined, offer reflective insight into relationship dynamics, societal and familial standards, and what it means to be a flawed human. I feared this would not live up to the reputation of her previous novel, but it is entirely different and equally enthralling.

CW: pandemic, lab testing on animals, armed police, dystopia, military law, radicalisation/terrorism, chronic illness, seizures, environmental destruction, arranged marriage, internment camps etc.

Spanning roughly 200 hundred years this is a book about a world similar to our own but subtly different. It starts in the 1890s in an America which has some areas where it is legal to marry anyone you wish. It discusses 1990s in the same place only with a backdrop of the looming spectre of HIV. The final part is in the 2090s after waves of pandemics have changed the face of the First World into a dystopian vision of strict controls and segregation.

The book discusses health and frailty, chronic illness, being gay, the idea of inheritance and Legacy, life and treatment of migrants of ethnic minority, and love, feud, vulnerability, and .. people being people.

When I got the audiobook I had no idea it was such a long read (over 900 pages or 28+hours in the Audiobook) but the story wasn't really slow.. it just had a LOT in it. It seemed a poetic decision to have a recurring set of names and places. Partly this was to reinforce the continuity of lineage, inheritance and flow of time. Looking at things from different cultural perspectives over time highlights the changes caused by the passage of time, but also the similarities.

This book is artful and tells the stories within it through letters, memories, and stories told to others. It leans hard into the Hawaiian / Pacific Islands' oral tradition, and also highlights the place of those shared stories we tell each other, and how they cement families and communities. It also shows how that knowledge can be so fragile and be lost to time when ideas are not shared or if they cannot be passed on well.

This story starts as a piece of historical speculative fiction, but the latter parts of the book are set in a police state. Published in 2022, this book clearly channels a lot of the common ground we have experienced in the face of global pandemic. Freedom of information, and the radicalisation of rebels and conspiracy theorists against government control, are sympathetically highlighted by the use of main characters on both sides of the fence, one working for the government to limit the casualties of disease, and one fighting against government misinformation and lack of social freedoms.

For all the big ideas, the thing that really sells this whole book to me is the solid characters. The feelings expressed and the stuff they are going through really resonate with me. A number of the characters over the span of the book deal with anxiety, trauma and  chronic physical illness. The relationships formed are often oddly unbalanced, either due to finances, physical/emotional frailty, or even just charisma, and the problems those couples have feel very real to me.

I could go on, but it would be too much. The characters were believable and human, and representation of disability and mental illness was relatable. The discussion of migrants and ethnic minority was an element I valued, and I loved that with the use of Hawaiian language I could still pick up one word in three due to its similarity with te reo Māori (which I  only have a very basic familiarity with).  This was a really good book, and I should have read it last year.

Could've used a firmer editor. Lots of unnecessary repetition, and a dickensian tendency to over-describe everything. Would've been more impactful, I think, at about a third shorter.

Nachdem ich ein wenig Schwierigkeiten hatte reinzukommen, hat mich das Buch nach der Hälfte des ersten Buchs gepackt. Hanya Yanagihara spielt mit Motiven, Namen und Orten, die sich alle 100 Jahre wiederholen. An vielen Stellen war ich sehr verwirrt wer, wer ist und wessen Kinder oder Enkelkinder wieder aufgetaucht sind. Ich bleibe verwirrt zurück. Besonders das letzte Buch im Buch, Zone 8, hat mich sehr gefesselt. Yanagihara schreibt eindrücklich über ein Land, das von Peking regiert wird. Ständig Pandemien und immer ein moralisches Dilemma - vor allem für die Leser*innen wie der neueste Virus eingedämmt werden kann. 
Eine Frage zum Schluss. Wieso schreibt Yanagihara so gerne traumatische und verstörende Geschichten mit Männern in schwulen Beziehungen? Warum nicht lesbische Frauen? 

 

To Paradise is a book I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it. I’ve checked it out twice before returned it unread both times. I breathed a sigh of relief when it wasn’t longlisted for the Booker then decided I might just try a little. And got hooked and had to plow through it quickly since it has to be returned in just a few days!

It’s a big, sprawling and ambitious book, one with gorgeous prose. It is sort of three stories in one. The first is an alternative history, set in an America where the Civil War had a very different outcome. In the Free States homosexuality is fully accepted. However, racism and classism still prevail. The second story is more contemporary set in what is recognisably the AIDS epidemic. The third, which has an epistolary element and is the longest and most multifaceted of the three, is set in a dystopian future where multiple pandemics and climate change have caused plenty of suffering, martial law, the loss of liberty and the recriminalisation of homosexuality.

These three stories are entirely separate, each set roughly a century apart. And yet they are not. A house in Washington Square is a prominent location in each and all feature characters called David, Charles and Edward. This can be slightly disorienting since they are clearly not the same people. And yet they play similar roles and represent similar constructs. In addition there are strong thematic threads running through each story. All have a character, somewhat an outsider, who is seeking love and acceptance. The impact of colonisation in Hawaii, which places a central role in book 2, reappears in book 3 with a focus on ownership of Hawaiian artefacts and cultural appropriation. Disease, loss, inheritance, race, homosexuality, and safety are other common themes. Yet despite seeing these connections I found the structure a bit messy and confusing. I’m still ambivalent as to whether they combined effectively to form a coherent novel. That, and many other issues, especially those where the author’s position seems at odds with my own, would make for a fascinating book club discussion.

A beautifully written book that made me think, made me feel and will stick with me. A winner.