Summary
Summary
In 1950, a young doctor, Norton Perina, signs on with the anthropologist Paul Tallent for an expedition to the remote island of Ivuivu 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 proves his thesis, earning worldwide fame, 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 consequences.
Author Notes
Hanya Yanagihara was born in 1975 in Los Angeles, California. She is a graduate of Smith College. She has worked as a publicist, a writer and editor for Conde Nast Traveler, and a deputy editor for T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Her novels include The People in the Trees and A Little Life, which won the Kirkus Prize for fiction in 2015. A Little Life also won Fiction Book of the Year from the 2016 British Book Industry Awards.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Driven by Yanagihara's gorgeously complete imaginary ethnography on the one hand and, on the other, by her brilliantly detestable narrator, this debut novel is compelling on every level-morally, aesthetically, and narratively. Yanagihara balances pulpy adventure tale excitement with serious consideration in unraveling her fantastical premise: a scientist, Norton Perina, discovers an island whose inhabitants may somehow have achieved immortality. Perina sets out on an anthropological mission that became more significant than he could have imagined. His tale raises interesting, if somewhat obvious, ethical questions; what can be justified in the name of science? How far does cultural relativism go? Is immortality really desirable? The book doesn't end with his astounding discovery, though. It continues with seeming banality to recount the predictable progression of academic honors that followed it and the swift and destructive attempt to commercialize Perina's findings. The story of Perina as a man emerges with less show but just as much gruesome fascination as that of his discovery and its results. Evidence of his character worms its way through the book in petulant asides and elided virulence, at first seeming incidental to the plot and then reflecting its moral themes on a small scale. Without making him a simple villain, Yanagihara shows how Perina's extraordinary circumstances allow his smothered weaknesses to blossom horribly. In the end, he reveals the full extent of his loathsomeness explicitly, unashamedly, convinced of his immutable moral right. (Aug. 13) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
Any analysis of human behaviour is, among other things, an assertion of power over those whose behaviour is being analysed. Perhaps for that reason, the field of anthropology has seen its fair share of scandal, from the case of Napoleon Chagnon - who was accused of spreading disease among the Amazonian tribe he was studying - to Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, the inspiration behind Hanya Yanagihara's debut novel The People in the Trees Power and its abuses are at the heart of this richly imagined novel, both in form and subject matter. The framing device brings up questions of authorial control, of editing and excision: the novel purports to offer the memoirs of a Nobel prizewinning convicted paedophile, Dr Norton Perina, as edited and annotated by his acolyte Ronald Kubodera. In 1950, Perina - very loosely based on Nobel prizewinner Gajdusek - joins an anthropological expedition bound for the imaginary Micronesian island nation U'ivu. There, he discovers a lost tribe of "dreamers" - exceptionally long-lived and acutely senile individuals. Later, he discovers that the secret to the dreamers' longevity is the flesh of a turtle called the opa'ivu'eke, which is ingested upon an U'ivuan's 60th birthday. Perina smuggles an opa'ivu'eke sample back to America, publishes his findings, and achieves instant renown. That's only the first part of the story, of course. The remainder of Perina's memoirs detail the cost of physical but not mental immortality, the destruction of the Edenic island that gave him his fame, and his long fall from grace. In structure and subject, The People in the Trees pays tribute to Vladimir Nabokov's two masterpieces: Pale Fire and Lolita. But where Nabokov's megalomaniacal Charles Kinbote constantly threatens to overwhelm John Shade's manuscript, Kudobera is a more reverent custodian of Perina's work. Perina's voice - wry, superior, unthinkingly cruel - is one of the key triumphs of the book. Another triumph is the astonishingly thorough invention of Yanagihara's Micronesian country. The specificity of the world she creates - flora and fauna all described in the necessarily precise language of a scientist - allows for the fantastical revelation of the opa'ivu'eke's extraordinary properties. And while sexual abuse is a key strandof her story, it is the rape of this physical place - culturally, ecologically, linguistically - that gives Perina's conscience pause. The novel contains a critique of western imperialism, even as it acknowledges the familiarity of that narrative. Most effectively, Kubodera's footnotes show the institutions of knowledge as tools of imperial power. The peer-reviewed articles, book publications and laboratory studies populating the footnotes are as much responsible for shaping the destiny of U'ivu as the pharmaceutical companies that eventually descend on the islands in search of profit. Yanagihara makes multiple literary references in her work, but the underpinning one is the Garden of Eden, the story of paradise, temptation and innocence lost. On one level, Yanagihara is telling a story about the corruption of knowledge and, more specifically, language. Perina relates the acquisition of English by the island's natives: "'How you?' asked Uva, smiling proudly, and this - his newly acquired English, and his pride in it - made my skin prickle . . . the enormity of the island's changes loomed large and clear in my mind." In prison Perina has recourse to nothing except language, in all its invention and complicity. If his narrative doesn't reach Humbert Humbert's heights of fancy and self-loathing, or Kinbote's baroque mania, Perina's story remains both striking and highly satisfying. Yanagihara's ambitious debut is one to be lauded. Katie Kitamura's Gone to the Forest is published by Clerkenwell Press. To order The People in the Trees for pounds 10.39 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk. - Katie Kitamura In 1950, [Norton Perina] - very loosely based on Nobel prizewinner [Daniel Carleton Gajdusek] - joins an anthropological expedition bound for the imaginary Micronesian island nation U'ivu. There, he discovers a lost tribe of "dreamers" - exceptionally long-lived and acutely senile individuals. Later, he discovers that the secret to the dreamers' longevity is the flesh of a turtle called the opa'ivu'eke, which is ingested upon an U'ivuan's 60th birthday. Perina smuggles an opa'ivu'eke sample back to America, publishes his findings, and achieves instant renown. Perina's voice - wry, superior, unthinkingly cruel - is one of the key triumphs of the book. Another triumph is the astonishingly thorough invention of Yanagihara's Micronesian country. The specificity of the world she creates - flora and fauna all described in the necessarily precise language of a scientist - allows for the fantastical revelation of the opa'ivu'eke's extraordinary properties. And while sexual abuse is a key strandof her story, it is the rape of this physical place - culturally, ecologically, linguistically - that gives Perina's conscience pause. - Katie Kitamura.
Booklist Review
Debut novelist Yanagihara tackles some ambitious and deeply vexing scientific and personal conundrums. By way of protagonist Dr. Norton Perina's memoir, the story unfolds of a lost tribe of Micronesian natives who have discovered the secret of immortality. At first anthropologist Paul Tallent and associate Esme Duff invite Perina along on what they describe as an investigation into a myth, but their real hope is to confirm the tribe's existence. After many pages of overlong, obtuse, parenthetical sentences describing the island's dense jungle, readers will be relieved when the team finally happens upon the fabled tribe. Despite the language barrier, Tallent convinces the leaders that the team means them no harm; they only want to learn about tribal customs. While the anthropologists take notes, Perina snoops around until he discovers the tribe's secret to immortality and, in time, exploits and abuses it for his own despicable purposes. Perina is a delightfully black-hearted protagonist trapped inside Yanagihara's unfortunately inelegant prose.--Chavez, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IN 1976, Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek won a Nobel Prize for identifying a fatal disease in a remote tribe in Papua New Guinea. By the time of his death in 2008, Gajdusek had achieved another kind of notoriety, having been imprisoned for sexually abusing one of the dozens of native children he had adopted. Hanya Yanagihara's suspenseful first novel, "The People in the Trees," is based loosely on this true story, with a number of horrifying twists. From the start, she sets her narrative dial to creepy, and challenges to the extreme the notion that a protagonist needs to be "likable." Yet thanks to her rich, masterly prose, it's hard to turn away from Dr. Norton Perina, her anti-hero inspired by Gajdusek Some might say he's a sociopath, and not even the charming kind (see Tom Ripley). In a voice at once baroque and chilly, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist tells the story of his ignominious downfall via an obsessively crafted "memoir." After being convicted in 1997 for the rape of one of his adopted children, Perina finds himself "living a strange kind of life, a life in which I have no one." His account, written from prison, has been meticulously transcribed and edited by Dr. Ronald Kubodera, his former lab assistant. Kubodera's sycophantic and often bizarre footnotes accompany the text. He serves as Smithers to Perina's Mr. Burns, a role made even more explicit at the end. In 1950, at the age of 25, Perina graduates from Harvard Medical School, where he "rather enjoyed killing the mice." He is invited to join a Stanford anthropologist, Paul Tallent, on an expedition to the fictional Micronesian island of Ivu'ivu in search of a lost tribe. (In a meta-twist, Tallent publishes a "landmark" book, "The People in the Trees: The Lost Tribe of Ivu'ivu.") Perina finds Tallent's physical beauty an immediate and unwanted distraction; he recalls being "disgusted by the ache I felt yet enjoying it too." The team tracks down the primitive Ivu'ivuan tribe, but even more extraordinary is the discovery of a group of forest dwellers ("the dreamers") who live for hundreds of years while suffering progressive brain damage. Their condition is both an affliction and a gift - a "parody of immortality," Perina says. He is awe-struck as he witnesses a dreamer for the first time: a woman whose movements are human, "but somehow poorly practiced, as if she had once, long ago, been taught how to behave as a human and was slowly, steadily forgetting." They name her Eve. The dreamers seem to achieve longevity by consuming the flesh of a sacred, enormous turtle called the opa'ivu'eke. While Tallent and his associate dutifully record the Ivu'ivuans' daily habits, recording the shape and texture of their feces, Perina has grander ambitions. Aware that he has struck scientific gold, he's eager to fully solve "the riddle that has preoccupied every culture since the beginning of time." He kills an opa'ivu'eke, smuggling the precious turtle meat back to America, and kidnaps some of the dreamers for extensive testing in his lab. Perina's cruel act will lead, predictably, to his ruin and to the tragic devastation of Ivu'ivu. The novel examines issues of moral relativism, Western hubris, colonization and ecological disruption in the name of science as it charts the disappearance of the wondrous flora and fauna and the grievous harm done to the indigenous people. Pharmaceutical companies pillage the island, creating turtle breeding farms in their quest to bottle the secret to longevity. But Perina is unrepentant about his role. "I did what any scientist would have done," he insists. Provocative and bleak, "The People in the Trees" might leave readers conflicted. It is exhaustingly inventive and almost defiant in its refusal to offer redemption or solace - but that is arguably one of its virtues. This is perhaps less a novel to love than to admire for its sheer audacity. As for Yanagihara, she is a writer to marvel at. CARMELA CIURARU is the author of "Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms."
Library Journal Review
Yanagihara's immersive debut, many years in the making, charts the trajectory of a Nobel laureate's reputation and subtly underscores the inadvisability of equating status with credibility. Consequent to discovering the source of a Micronesian tribe's unique longevity, Dr. Norton Perina gains significant power over more than one fragile domain whose future ultimately hinges upon his integrity. Within such worlds-pristine jungles, sterile labs, guileless native settlements, wary academic environs, his bizarrely assembled household-Perina's interactions propel the narrative toward admonitions against the hubris of scientific adventuring. News articles and footnotes effectively read by Erin Yuen and William Roberts grace Arthur Morey's suave, accomplished rendering of Perina's memoir. VERDICT Recommended for all literary fiction listeners, followers of Barbara Kingsolver, and fans of Mark Helprin's Memoir from Antproof Case. ["Yanagihara's work, which appears to be loosely based on the life of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, is fast-moving and intriguing, although it does darken toward the end," read the review of the Doubleday hc, LJ 5/1/13.-Ed.]-Linda Sappenfield, Round Rock P.L., TX (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.