Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Start discussion here for The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara.

Summary (from the publisher)

An anthropological adventure story that combines the visceral allure of a thriller with a profound and tragic vision of what happens when cultures collide. It is a book that instantly catapults Hanya Yanagihara into the company of young novelists who really, really matter.

In 1950, a young doctor called Norton Perina signs on with the anthropologist Paul Tallent for an expedition to the remote Micronesian island of Ivu'ivu in search of a rumored lost tribe. They succeed, finding not only that tribe but also a group of forest dwellers they dub "The Dreamers," who turn out to be fantastically long-lived but progressively more senile.

Perina suspects the source of their longevity is a hard-to-find turtle; unable to resist the possibility of eternal life, he kills one and smuggles some meat back to the States. He scientifically proves his thesis, earning worldwide fame and the Nobel Prize, but he soon discovers that its miraculous property comes at a terrible price. As things quickly spiral out of his control, his own demons take hold, with devastating personal consequences.


About the Author (from LitLovers)

Hanya Yanagihara is an American novelist and travel writer of Hawaiian ancestry. Her first novel, The People in the Trees, based on the real-life case of the virologist Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, was widely praised as one of the best novels of 2013.

In 2015, her second novel, A Little Life was published, also to highly favorable reviews—and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Yanagihara was also an editor-at-large at Conde Nast Traveler. She is now a deputy editor at T: The New York Times Style Magazine. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/1/2015.)

Discussion Questions (from LitLovers)

1. How did you experience the book? Were you engaged immediately, or did it take you a while to "get into it"? How did you feel reading it—amused, sad, disturbed, confused, bored...?

2. Describe the main characters—personality traits, motivations, and inner qualities. Do you admire or disapprove of them?

3. How do the main characters learn about themselves and the world around them?

4. How would you describe the plot of the book?

5. Why might the author have chosen to tell the story
the way he or she did?

6. What main themes does the author explore? Does the author use symbols to reinforce the main ideas?

7. What passages strike you as insightful, even profound?

8. Is the ending satisfying? If so, why? If not, why not...and how would you change it?

9. Have you learned something new or been exposed to different ideas about people or a certain part of the world?

I didn't like this book as much as A Little Life, but I thought it was very well written. I particularly liked how the key passage was omitted until the very end. Knowing what he was in prison for, as I got closer and closer to the end of the book, I felt a kind of impending dread as I waited to be confronted with the events leading up to his arrest. And I really just wanted to believe the accusations were untrue so alllllll the way up to that last bit, I was prepared to think that maybe he hadn't done it, but then there it was, sadly unashamed.

I think the literary device of a story within a story, the unreliable narrator framed by the unreliable editor really adds to the novel too, because I like that their personal biases make it possible for you to question everything about the novel. I have SO MANY questions about this book:

* Why was Kubodera so willing to forgive and overlook Norton's pedophilia, but the only thing he ever admits to feeling negatively about is his treatment of the dreamers?? Why was the treatment of the dreamers worse than his treatment of the children?
* What the heck happened to Tallent? Why bring up that Norton was rumored to be responsible if there's no chance that he was?
* If Esme and Tallent never spoke about the a'ina'ina to anyone, how do we KNOW if really happened? Did Norton make it up, was it some kind of fever dream, a justification for his proclivities? Similarly, in his description of the events in the jungle that night of the boy from the a'ina'ina, he makes it sound like the boy was comforting him, but what really happened?
* Norton says he was with many boys over the years, including some of his own, so who were the other boys? Other boys in villages he studied??
* How much of Norton's romantic characterization of the Ivu'ivuans as simplistic, etc. was also part of his justification for his behavior?
* Why in the world was I so hopeful that Norton would be redeemed when throughout the novel he's obviously a horrible person? He was arrogant, selfish, needy, reckless, lazy, and generally unlikeable.

In summary, I didn't really enjoy reading this book, but if the metric of a good book is whether or not it made you think, this one definitely did.

I kept hoping for more from this book. I love reading about other cultures and I kept hoping to hear about how the children he adopted were adapting to life in the United States. I also listened to this on audio which isn't something I normally do. I did think the voicing was well done and to be honest, if I was reading it, I probably would not have finished. I found Norton to be very amoral and I could not relate to him in any way.

I was also surprised, and disgusted, to learn after that this story was inspired by a real scientist - Guillermo Escobedo-Hoyo. This may have been indicated in the book, but I don't recall hearing anything about it when listening to the audio.

Diane, I totally agree with your last few points - I also was still hopeful that Norton would be redeemed. And, the book, if nothing else - did make me think.

I disliked this book immensely, not only because Norton was so unlikeable. I found Tarrent and Esme to be completely unbelievable - in the initial visit Norton seemed to be the one to focus on the uniqueness of the people and Esme seemed to be dismissive of the culture at times. I struggled to how any authorities would allow a single male to adopt or sponsor 60 children. I also struggled with the lack of interest in Norton's initial work and then eureka he is an overnight success - the scientific process toward awarding a Noble Prize is not so simple. And I hated the portrayal of Micronesians.

Calzean wrote: "I disliked this book immensely, not only because Norton was so unlikeable. I found Tarrent and Esme to be completely unbelievable - in the initial visit Norton seemed to be the one to focus on the ..."

I agree about the portrayal of the Micronesians. I felt like the book could have been set anywhere "exotic" or "remote." I think it was set where it was bc the scientist it was based on did his work on kuru in Papua New Guinea so may she just needed an island, any old island?

I just started listening to the book and while I can't really say I'm enjoying it, I am intrigued by the characters. I don't like Norton and want to see how he wound up in the straights he did. Although, with his arrogance and pride, it's easy to see how he could justify his actions. He really didn't like his father!

Calzean wrote: "I found Tarrent and Esme to be completely unbelievable - in the initial visit Norton seemed to be the one to focus on the uniqueness of the people and Esme seemed to be dismissive of the culture at times."

We are told of Tallent and Esme only from Norton's perspective, which is very biased.
Everything we can infer they actually did seems to be good anthropology. They took careful notes, didn't disturb the Ivu'ivuans too much (and were even invited to dine with them in their next visit.)
Esme was also the one who took care of the dreamers while on the island, which we might assume was a big part of her research.
We don't get a chance to read any of the papers either of them published, but we have no reason to believe they weren't thorough and intelligent.
Norton claims they omitted one of the rituals, but it's more likely that he's making the ritual up, not that Tallent and Esme are hiding it.

I was really hooked from the get-go. From the very beginning, I wasn't trusting anyone who was telling me this story, neither Norton nor Kubodera. I was waiting for some of their lies to be revealed (maybe a complete shift in perspective halfway through the book or something) and that kept me on edge for the first couple of chapters.

I have a soft-spot for evil narrators. Not just unreliable, but straight-up horrible individuals.
Norton was giving me everything I could want! Such a misogynist, racist, all-round horrible person.

I found the way he described and talked about Esme particularly captivating, just because of how awful it was. As I just said in my previous comment, Esme was probably a good anthropologist, and we can believe her to be a decent person based on what Norton tells about her behavior, but the fact that everything we see of her is through the lenses of a sexist dude who's incapable of taking women seriously makes her portrait all the more interesting.

Then we have Eve and her introduction.
The way she came down from the tree was definitely not accurately described. The stereotype of "native people behaving like animals" was all there was to that moment -- Norton consistently compared the dreamers to animals and I don't believe that's how they actually behaved for a second. Deteriorating mental capabilities, sure. Coming down from a tree head-first... no, this was Norton's prejudices speaking. Especially because Eve seemed to have forgotten these capabilities as soon as they found the other dreamers (but to be fair, Norton seemed not to care at all for Eve anymore after that point... intersection between racism and sexism, maybe?)

And with all that... somehow... I started caring for him in the last chapter, Victor's chapter.
I also found him a little sympathetic in the first chapter, about his parents and upbringing.
But in the last chapter, he honestly convinced me that he was doing his best to be a good father, and that his best wasn't bad at all. He convinced me that he loved his children, even if he couldn't keep track of all of them at all times. He even, somehow, managed to convince me that there was something wrong with Victor, that the reason why he treated Victor as a lab-mouse was because of the way Victor treated him.

Then came the last bit, the one where he tells how he raped the kid.
Norton is someone who can be called "evil" without question. But he's also very complex.
His relation with Owen is one of my favorite things in the book, especially when he realizes that what he was feeling for his brother was Love. I honestly believe him in that moment, and I believe that his feelings were pure.
Then what he started to crave was abusive in nature, but he believed it to be love.
In the last bit we read, he's completely delusional.

I have to question one thing, though :
In a book that plays up a lot of stereotypes, but always in a completely unreliable perspective, I do think it's... weird... that another stereotype is central to the plot -- the one of the gay man who's a pedophile -- and hardly questioned at all.
Does anyone think the book was self-aware in that regard too?

The Mauro wrote: "I was really hooked from the get-go. From the very beginning, I wasn't trusting anyone who was telling me this story, neither Norton nor Kubodera. I was waiting for some of their lies to be reveale..."

I think this will sound strange, but I'm not sure that Norton was gay, at least in the traditional sense of the word. The only adult he ever expresses attraction toward is Tallent, and the way he describes it is obsessive, but never as love or anything even vaguely tender. He never describes pursuing a relationship with him and I don't think that's out of embarrassment or something, because the feelings he describes for him are already fairly cringeworthy. His attitude toward all women is universally horrible, contemptuous and hard, but when he talks about having children, he says he could never have a wife, and never once does he say it's because he's simply not attracted to women. It honestly surprised me that he and Kubodera seemed to end up in a romantic situation, although they are never mentioned as being together sexually, and Kubodera is obviously so in love, I wonder if they are in a relationship or if Norton is simply using him and we'd never know either way. Norton doesn't seem gay; he seems... aberrant?

I did wonder more about his relationship with Owen, and also the dad's odd friend who just sort of hung around - was there more history there that we don't hear about?

Denise wrote: "I think this will sound strange, but I'm not sure that Norton was gay, at least in the traditional sense of the word. ..."

I thought the exact same thing, actually.
The issue is that I usually pay extra-attention to representation of LGBT+ characters, so I constantly aware of terms that were being used or not to describe the characters, and I was always noticing all of Norton's attractions and how he described them.

My point being : Would someone who doesn't care for LGBT+ characters so much still notice that Norton could very well not be gay? And if the author's intention was not to have Norton as a gay character, is the "gay men as pedophiles" stereotype supposed to be ignored in the context of this book?

I have some mixed feelings about this book. I really liked the narrative style the way in which it was written ad a memoir with the added footnotes. It was a well crafted book and while the characters are not necessarily likeable or sympathetic there is a lot of complexity within them.

I appreciate the anthropologic aspect of the novel in which there are actions that occur we may not agree with and which go against our own morality but we are being asked to view these actions in a wider context of events and even if not condone them at least understand them.

While I do not agree with a lot of what Norton does I did sympathize with the fact that he was abandoned by almost everyone and ultimately betrayed by his own brother.

Like others I questioned the legality of him adopting all those children. On the subject of Tallent one of my suspicions is that he became one of the “dreamers” so to speak. He ate the turtle and wandered into the woods to forget himself and all that happened.