Episode 23 - Hanya Yanagihara: The People in Trees - Part 2

In the second part of my nicely noisy conversation with Hanya Yanagihara about her debut novel The People in the Trees, we began by discussing ----more----the fictional tribe of Ivu'ivu who may have discovered the secret to extending the natural  human life span. 

This leads to the following topics: 

• Western treatment of the elderly
• 'I would rather be lead off into the jungle than sit in some horrible home for decades'
• sexual rituals and moral relativism
• judging Norton Perina 
• 'People do use being in a naive land, where they're the powerful one, as an excuse for all sorts of bad behaviour that they wouldn't do in their own society
• the morality of sexual tourism
• travel writing and the ethics of travel
• 'I can't think of anything that are moral absolutes in every society'
• children, sexuality and the problems of power
• sex and imperialism
• masculinity, editing and narrative in The People in the Trees
• the neatness of theories