So it’s been some years since I’ve listened to the audiobook version of the story but I remember feeling quite taken by the writing, the style — the faux memoir was a brilliant narrative tool and the footnotes littered throughout the story give it a more “scholarly” feel — and the overall plot.
One thing did bother me after I finished and that was Hanya Yanagihara’s unwillingness to reckon with the abuse at the heart of the novel. The inciting incident for the whole story is the efforts of a friend/colleague of the disgraced protagonist — Doctor Abraham Norton Perina — to clear his name. He does this by publishing the Doctor’s own, unfinished memoir in hopes of setting the record straight.
I understand the symbolism at play here and what Yanagihara is trying to say about capitalism, western culture, pollution, environmental degradation, imperialism and white supremacy. It’s clear the sexual abuse Perina is guilty of is supposed to be seen as a bad thing, a very direct metaphor of sorts for the violation of the developing world and the twisting of their cultures, but Yanagihara remains mum on the abuse that “inspired” his actions. Which is taken from a manhood ritual seen on the Ivu’vu.
At least as far as I can tell, she seems to take less issue with the act itself as with the act being done by a white, anglo-Saxon male in the west. Yanagihara seems to accept it as a natural and normal part of their culture but at the same time your critique of sexual abuse loses a lot of its bite if you make it conditional on the time and perpetrator.
What am I missing here? Is there an added element I’m not appreciating?
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