Select Page

TO
PARADISE

by Hanya Yanagihara

Cover Summary

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.

Reading To Paradise

I’m a big fan of A Little Life, so I had some grand expectations for To Paradise. I expected the same kind of emotion, which I experienced at some parts of the books but definitely not in others, and the same incredible story weaving, which this book fell short of. Honestly, I have mixed feelings; but mostly I would say I’m a little disappointed due to my super high expectations, the way that each section’s ending was left bafflingly at a cliffhanger, and also I felt like the three stories within the book were barely woven together at all.

 

The themes of this book are lovely, heartbreaking ones, and I especially loved the dystopian themes of pandemics, climate change and dysfunctional societies. I didn’t really enjoy how the themes of mental illness were treated apart from in one specific section, which I’ll delve more into, and some of the characters felt bland.

Photo by Ritty Tacsum

Part I

The book is divided in three sections, with three stories set at different times with different characters, all with the same names. This can get a little confusing and until the end, I haven’t figured out the point of it.

This was such a chonk of a book that to be completely honest, I don’t exactly remember the first section except that it was a bit of a drag. The main character, David, seems eternally bored, single and with zero ambitions so he didn’t appeal to me much. The story started getting a little exciting towrds the ending when he was packing off all his little china cups and stuff to move out of the Free States with Edward (possibly fooled by the prospect of love when all E wanted was his money?), where we were then completely cut off with a cliffhanger that was never resolved.

What I did like were the descriptions of New York, the dystopian borders of the States and the whole universe created where these characters lived.

 

Part II

The second part is itself divided into two sections, set some hundreds of years later.

The first part of this section was a complete drear, with the only interesting bit being that it’s set in the AIDS pandemic. Mostly it is about some Hawaiin boy in New York dating an extremely rich older guy. Yawn, sorry Hanya.

Contrary to Reddit’s popular opinion, my absolute favourite part of this book is the second half of Part II, where the guy’s father tells his version of events about being manipulated by a political extremist to the extent of being isolated from his own family and suffering incredible mental and physical disability at his hands. This was heart-wrenching, and the emotion and futile hope of this man broke my entire heart. I loved the descriptions of Hawaii too and started dream-planning a visit.

I wish it was fleshed out a little more, especially the kind of life he led while being so abused, but having said that, it didn’t really link much to the rest of the book as a whole. Overall, it just felt like different separate stories bundled together.

“You should always have a close friend you’re slightly afraid of.” 

Why?”

“Because it means that you’ll have someone in your life who really challenges you, who forces you to become better in some way, in whatever way you’re most scared of: Their approval is what’ll hold you accountable.”

Part III

The last part is set in the dystopian future, where pandemic after pandemic culls the population or leaves them with gorey mutations. Climate change has ramped up and people have to wear cooling suits to go outdoors. Society has turned into an autocracy with arranged marriages to keep the population under strict control, and rationing of water and food are mingled in with executions, detention camps and quarantine centres where the ill are left to die. People seem to merely function, emotionless and disconnected.

It’s also divided into two sections. We follow Charlie’s life in this hell of a society where she battles crippling anxiety and solitude, while in between, her Grandfather’s letters to his friend in Britain in the fifty years before explain how society has come to this, and we are left to piece together the narrative.

This was a section I enjoyed but way too much time was given to Charlie’s memories with her granfather that could really have been used to thicken and finish off the plot instead of leaving us with yet another cliffhanger.

All in all…

I still like Hanya Yanigahara’s writing more than many other writers, and want to get my hands on a copy of The People in the Trees, but I hope that will be level with A Little Life more than this one. 

This was a book I’d wanted to read since it was published last year, and the fact that it’s such a fat had me really excited, but I felt like it could have been three different books with at least a definitive ending to each story. 

If you’re new to Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life speaks far greater volumes of her extreme talent in storytelling. This book carries the same quality of prose as well, but is nowhere as impressive.