To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara || Book Review

I'm a Hanya Yanagihara fan because of A Little Life. Although I didn't think that book was perfect, I loved the writing and the emotions. It made me feel so much. So when I heard that the author is releasing a new book, I was excited. Unfortunately, To Paradise did not deliver.

Before I get to the review, here's a disclaimer: I quit reading To Paradise at 60%. For the first time, I'm reviewing a book I haven't finished. I really want to share my frustrations about the book and I can not be bothered to finish it.

Maybe the book gets better at the end but I couldn't hang on until then. I'm reviewing only the 60% that I read and will be explaining why the book annoyed me so much that I DNFed it. And believe me, I have a lot of frustrations.

about To Paradise

In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him – and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances.

These three sections are joined in an enthralling and ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can’t exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness.

To Paradise is a fin-de-siecle novel of marvellous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara’s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love – partners, lovers, children, friends, family and even our fellow citizens – and the pain that ensues when we cannot.

my review

Although the plot doesn't sound very enticing in the synopsis, these lines convinced me to read it: "What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness. [...] it is a work of emotional genius." That sounds great, doesn't it?

I put To Paradise on my TBR and decided to read it sometime in the future. When I saw that the audiobook was available on Libro.fm as an ALC, I immediately took it. I figured that like A Little Life, this book would also be best when read in a patient and kinda sad mood so I waited for a while before starting it.

One thing to note about this book is its size. The hardcover is 720 pages and the audiobook is almost 29 hours long. It's a huge book. I thought I was ready for it because I expected it to be fairly easy to read like A Little Life. But it wasn't.

I’m scared because I know my last thoughts are going to be about how much time I wasted—how much life I wasted. I’m scared because I’m going to die not being proud of how I lived.

To Paradise reads like a troublesome classic. It was as if everyone knew that it would become a classic and hence no one bothered to make it palatable, appealing, or easy to read.

I started reading War & Peace in paperback form around the same time. I expected to read To Paradise alongside it and maybe another light-hearted book. I usually switch between formats and types of books to keep things interesting so this was supposed to work.

Because I read them parallelly, I understood what To Paradise was trying to be. And it was falling short. War & Peace and To Paradise were way too similar and the latter did not have enough substance to make the dreariness worth it.

Why do we read classics even though they're sometimes hard to read and can be annoying or boring? It's because they have a timeless aspect or quality that captures hearts through several years. I'm absolutely struggling to read War & Peace but there is gold in between the struggle that makes me want to continue.

To Paradise started well but slowly lost its gold. Although I found it to be dreary like any classic, I was hooked on the story in the beginning. I liked the writing, the emotion, and the way the main character struggled to find his place in the world. But as the book went on, as I saw more characters and heard more stories, the book lost me.

Only people who have a plausible hope of being immortalized in history are so obsessed about how they might get immortalized. The rest of us are too busy trying to get through the day.

There are several problems with the book but the worst problem is that it is comprised of multiple stories.

Most novels follow one story from start to finish or have a single thread that keeps the entire book together. Even short stories tend to surround the same theme so that the compilation feels cohesive. When you're reading a book, you should feel like you're reading the same book until the last page.

From the synopsis, I understand that the author had similar intentions for this book. All the stories are technically in the same setting, feature a specific rich New York house, and supposedly showcase the same themes. However, each story felt like a completely different book.

Although they're set in different times and follow different lives (notice how I don't say different characters, I'll address this problem in a bit), they're supposed to have things connecting them. While they technically have similarities, those similarities are easily lost and don't matter.

I have not studied literature and may not know the exact art of it but I have picked up some knowledge in my several years of avid reading. I've picked up an understanding of the difference between a book of short stories vs. a novel containing multiple stories. It is not easy to do the latter but it is possible if you understand how to make it feel like a novel despite showcasing totally different stories.

I would say that the novel needs 2 threads connecting all the stories: a physical or "seen" thread and an emotional or "unseen" thread. The unseen thread is something that is not explicitly said but is clearly understood in every story. Maybe there are proper technical terms for these but this is what I'm calling them for now.

Let's take What You Are Looking for is in the Library as an example because it's a brilliant novel made of different stories. The "seen" thread is the library setting and the unique librarian who recommends just the right books to all the main characters. The "unseen" thread is the way all the main characters feel lost, find meaning in a seemingly unrelated book, and take steps to find purpose in their daily lives.

In To Paradise, the "seen" thread is the country and the house. The "Free States" country is made of a few states that exited the United States of America and made laws of their own. The house is a rich house in New York that sets its tenants' class apart and is a status symbol.

However, the above two factors make no difference to anything. The country is way too similar to the USA and its differentiating law doesn't make much of an impact (and actually feels like a copout, I'll come to that). The characters may as well live in the USA. It doesn't help that the stories happen at very different times in history.

The house is supposed to have a personality of its own but it doesn't other than the fact that it's a luxury place. The house is not even present all the time! I noticed it only in the first two.

The problem, though, with trying to be the ideal anything is that eventually the definition changes, and you realize that what you'd been pursuing all along was not a single truth but a set of expectations determined by context. You leave that context, and you leave behind those expectations, too, and then you're nothing once again.

The "unseen" part of the book is supposed to be what's mentioned in the synopsis: "illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can’t exist". It's also supposed to be the "qualities that make us human" i.e. emotions like fear, loneliness, etc.

But let me tell you, the above list is simply what's in the stories put together and doesn't actually tie the stories together.

Let's pick one of them, "wealth and squalor", for example. There are so many different ways to depict it and so many different reasons that emphasize it. In a way, half the books in the world feature it. Every human deals with money problems, but it doesn't mean all our stories are similar. That's what this book tries to convince us of.

Another problem in To Paradise was the detailing. Every story was so detailed that 1) they were each too long and 2) they felt like individual novels rather than parts of the same novel. Genuinely, if you cut the parts and published them separately, no one would know that they're linked.

In novels comprised of different stories, there isn't a need to flesh out everything like in regular novels. Some things can be glazed over. Readers don't need to know exactly the architecture of every house and street, we don't need to know how the lamps looked or other random details that don't make a difference to the big picture.

Maybe the author got carried away while writing this book. Because of that, I spent so much time on the small details that I couldn't see the big picture at all. About halfway into the second story, I nearly forgot that I read the first story and that it was part of the same novel!

If I had read the book in paperback, maybe I wouldn't have been so nitpicky. But since I listened to the audiobook and couldn't skim, I was forced to notice everything and realized how unnecessary so much of it was.

To live a life in color, a life in love: Was that not every person’s dream?

Let's talk a bit more about the setting. The "Free States" country is a subset of the USA that exited the USA (like Brexit). The main distinguishing factor of the Free States country is that people are allowed to love and marry any gender. It's supposed to be anyone, but from what I saw, the only thing that was removed was the opposite gender concept.

That's it. That's the only difference. It felt like the author wanted to write about gay couples without dealing with homophobia. There's no other difference between the fictional country and the current USA. There's still racism, classism, xenophobia, and whatever else. If the book is edited to remove the Free States aspect, it wouldn't make much of a difference. It will just be a slightly better version of today.

I don't mind the tweak to the setting to avoid the nuances of homophobia. It's the author's creative right to change the setting so that what they want to show is more prominent. However, I don't think it helped. I did not see any benefit of removing that. Nothing felt prominent anyway. The new country did not add anything to the plots, either.

Changing the world and creating an entire country to avoid homophobia felt like a cop-out to me. What's the point of removing it? It's not like any other theme was done well anyway.

To know someone, to love them, was to assume the task of remembering them, even if that person was alive.

I didn't like how the same character names were reused in the 3 parts. All 3 stories had a David, a Charlie, an Edward, and a Nathaniel.

In the first story, David and Charlie are courting but David secretly loves Edward. In the second story, David and Charlie are in a relationship but David's dad (also named David) ruined his life because of a friend named Edward. In story 3, the main characters were unnamed but we had some letters as a "sub-story" which had the same names again.

They weren't the same people and they weren't related in any way. Why use the same names? It confused me so much when story 2 started because I was trying to understand the link for quite a while before realizing that there was none. It was annoying.

I was so done when the whole writing style and tone changed in the third story and we had no idea of the names of the main characters (although we can assume they're David and Charlie too).

But shouldn't a name that was meaningful, be meaningful enough to hold its place, even in the face of insurrection?

Okay, let's talk about the stories themselves. This section contains spoilers!

The first story was fine enough. Set in the 1890s, we follow David who is set up with a potential suitor Charlie by his grandfather Nathaniel. Charlie is an older man and not from the legacy families of the Free States but David gives him a chance. Meanwhile, he meets Edward who is from a totally different life and class and falls in love with him.

David essentially two-times Edward and Charlie and makes a mess out of everything. There's something about his "affliction" which is probably a regular mental illness that no one had an idea of so it's considered taboo. I was annoyed with David for his actions but I kinda understood where he came from. I hated the decision he made at the end but I understood it.

The first story was honestly not bad. It's not great but was a good backdrop for the writing to shine. There were so many good quotes in this part that I actually liked the book. I'd say it focused on identity and freedom of choice.

Then we switch to the second story which is set around the 1990s. David is a young man in a law firm who is dating a high-profile lawyer in the firm named Charlie. Again, Charlie is an older man here too but they're in a relationship in this story.

The second story is mainly focused on the AIDS epidemic. Why does this fictional world follow the timeline of the real world very closely? Don't ask. It's just that way. David and Charlie of story 2 could have honestly been any couple in the real world setting because everything in the story matches the real world, except homophobia.

This wasn't bad either. I liked how the author explored how David's life changed after he started dating a rich older man whose life is very different from his. I liked the spotlight on how David doesn't live like a regular man in his 20s and lowkey lives like a 40-year-old because of Charlie. I particularly liked the spotlight on his friendship with a woman (I can't remember her name. Emma, maybe?)

However, I didn't like how the story didn't have any point. Yes, the author showcased how the AIDS epidemic affected lives and how queer people were living with it in different ways. But there was no real point to the story. There's nothing I take away from it.

In the second story, we read about how David had a secret past that he left behind but has now caught up to him. We think that there's trauma and some issues with his father. He kept it a secret from Charlie but was finally forced to tell his full story when a letter arrived.

And, just like that, it randomly switched to David's father's story. The father is also named David. The father is not living well and cannot communicate or do any physical movement. So, in story 2 part 2, we read father David's thoughts. The father always addresses his stories and thoughts to his son and, through the narration in his mind, we find out about the younger David's secret past and how it came to be.

This was very weird. Out of nowhere, it switched to the father who's in a totally different place and in a different headspace. We read about the father's entire life story. And story 2 part 2 is focused on the Hawaiian annexation. There's a bunch of political commentary but it's useless because the father is useless.

The story takes a very weird turn because the father becomes friends with this weird dude Edward and the father follows everything Edward says. Edward is a bigger nonsense dude who spouts native Hawaiian ideals but doesn't do anything useful. At one point, they live in a wasted land in tents and don't eat or bathe properly. This also didn't have a point. It felt like another view of history but with no extra information or insights.

I had always been told that I should try to live my life with happiness, but could happiness give you the zeal, the energy, that anger clearly could?

So, to recap, we read Story 1 set in the 1890s, Story 2 Part 1 set in the 1990s, and Story 2 Part 2 set around the 1970s. Finally, we get to Story 3 which is set in 2093... partially. Story 3 is also made up of 2 stories but they progress parallely and are in totally different narration styles.

We read about this nameless main character who has zero personality and their husband who also has zero personality. They're apparently in a society that is slowly crumbling due to plagues (like Covid-19) and has to follow every word that the Government says.

I hated how the writing style totally changed in Story 3. We went from named to nameless characters and from third-person POV to first-person POV. I wouldn't mind the change if it wasn't so boring to read. I fell asleep during Story 3 multiple times. I also wouldn't have minded it if it was the only style.

Interspersed between the actual Story 3, is a sub-story about the main character's grandfather. (Named either David or Charlie, I can't remember and don't want to check the book to confirm.) We hear about the grandfather's story through letters ONLY. Maybe the main character is reading the letters sometime later but we read them in between chapters and I maaay make sense but I hated it.

Story 3 Plotline 1 is kinda about the mindless rule-following society and Story 3 Plotline 2 is kinda about the start of the plagues. However, I might be wrong. After all, I read only a bit of Story 3.

Another reason I didn't like Story 3 was because it was so easy to assume that Plotline 1's main character was a woman. I truly thought it was a woman until I read another review and wondered why the author would make only the last couple straight. I realized that I understood it wrong and that it was actually supposed to be a gay man.

Listen! It was so easy to make that mistake. Gender is not mentioned at all. The main character refers to themselves as "I" and their partner as "my husband." The main character has zero personality so I could glean nothing from it. Considering how we are brainwashed to think that a straight couple is the default, it's not surprising that I thought the main character was a woman. I hated the book even more when I realized this.

The author tried doing so many different things in this one book. I would rather read each of them as individual books. At least I wouldn't be this annoyed. At least then there would be a point to each story. In To Paradise, the stories got worse as I read.

overall

To Paradise was a whole mess. I understood the title and how the author was trying to connect "paradise" in the stories but I think the actual execution of each story was a failure.

I hated the book. I do not recommend it. Maybe the book is brilliant and I just didn't get it, but I don't want to get it at this point. It's so messy and convoluted for no reason. I wish I could get my time back. I won't lie, the book had some great quotes, but they're not worth reading the stories.

If the book is still on your to-read list, I suggest borrowing a copy first. It's easier to discard a book that's borrowed from the library but hard to unhaul books that you own and dislike.

chat with me!

Have you read To Paradise? What did you think? What do you think the point of each story is? What's the messiest book you've read? Tell me in the comments!