A LITTLE LIFE

Hanya Yanagihara

I could not handle the intense viscero-somatic reaction elicited from this harrowingly depressing novel. All suffering was blown up to a cosmic proportion, everything on a brighter side was permanently tainted with the sickest shade of abuse, loathing, and self-destruction. Extremism shoved this novel forward: everybody was either the perverted devil incarnation himself or Mother Teresa with a perpetual savior-complex and the holy patience of a thousand gods. The folks who did not fully fit those categories scrambled around in absolute bewilderment of whatever the bloody hell happened to Jude, the main character, whom was such a malignant magnet for evil that thoroughly nullified even the most restorative forces of love.

 I made the mistake of choosing this book for my bedtime reading, which repeatedly jolted me wide awake with damning disbelief and a distressing need to stand under a hot shower scrubbing myself vigorously with antiseptic soaps for hours. Hanya Yanagihara was a true voyeuristic sadist who masterfully juxtaposed elegance and depravity in her plot and characterization. However, dooming the folks having same sex relations is rather exploitative, no? Additionally, I can empathize with the needs to fix the damaged souls, but I also wanted to scream at a lot of people in this book that they ain’t no miracle workers, so please, let nature run its inevitable course.

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

André Aciman

"We belonged to each other, but had lived so far apart that we belonged to others now."

AVietnamese poet once wrote that "Life is beautiful only when love is unfinished." The love story in this book was beautifully unfinished in the sense that it never ended. Although Anciman unfolded Elio's coming of age with lavishing intensity, Elio was more than just a virile 17-year-old and Oliver was more than just a teenaged wet dream. The few weeks they spent together decorated their lives with colorful passion and enriched their souls even if they were never meant to be together.

One could quickly dismiss the affair as a summer fling fueled with the sultry sun and scenic landscapes of coastal Italy. Certainly, any perceivable barrier could dampen the most fiery of passion, blur the most vivid of memories, and condemn all romantic sentiments to melancholic razbliuto. The lasting spell of love cast on the two men in this book bridged the chasm of time and distance with its transformative power of becoming erotic, empathetic, platonic, or unconditional.

 To escape the lonely darkness, how would you choose to live? A fleeting minute of radiance or a lifetime of dimness? Elio was suggestively blinded by the past and wandering on in a twilight. However, as punishing as time and distance could be, they allowed the luminosity of his past to guide him onward with peace and a touch of healthy longing. Oliver was his first true love after all

DOCTOR COMIC - PART 5

Source: Rhymeswithorange

"I don’t think you are from around here because your English isn’t very good”

It was not the elderly patient with acute mental status change who made the statement during her brief moments of lucidity in the ER, it was her son who said that immediately after asking where I was from. As a response, normally I would share I was an immigrant who came here more than ten years ago. However, the way he looked at me and the tone of his voice completely caught me off guard. I just finished the discussion on the plan of care for his mother who was to be admitted and asked him what question he had for me when it dawned upon me the real reason why he asked, and the absurdity of it made me chuckle and excuse myself quickly from the room.