Looking For Alaska

     As I promised, I am giving you a review--of sorts-- of the book Looking For Alaska by John Green. I finished it on Sunday morning and have done some thinking on it since then, so this is how I'm going to do it: in the back of the book, there are some discussion questions, so I'm going to give you my personal answers to those questions, and then give a brief dissertation on some of the characters from the book. I must warn anyone that has not read Looking for Alaska that this review will almost definitely contain some pretty serious spoilers, so stop now unless you like being spoiled or have already read the book.

SOME INTENTIONALLY VAGUE AND BROAD DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Is forgiveness universal? I mean, is forgiveness really available to all people, no matter the circumstances? Is it, for instance, possible for the dead to forgive the living, and for the living to forgive the dead?

Once again, loving the FanArt!

I think that you, yourself, have to be willing to be forgiven in order for forgiveness to be available to you. If you feel no remorse for something that you did, then even if people claim to forgive you, you aren't really accepting their forgiveness, and therefore are not really forgiven. I think forgiveness is a two way street. I do think it's possible for the dead to forgive the living, even if it's something we can't see in real life. I also think the living can forgive the dead, i.e., longlasting blood feuds are eventually ended by younger generations who decided to forget the past and forgive the wrongdoings of their predecessors.

2. I would argue that both in fiction and in real life, teenage smoking is a symbolic action. What do you think it's intended to symbolize, and what does it actually end up symbolizing? To phrase this question differently: Why would anyone ever pay money in exchange for the opportunity to acquire lung cancer and/or emphysema?

Teen smoking, in my opinion, is intended to symbolize young peoples ability to make their own choices, even if those choices are bad ones. It's easy to sit back and listen to your Mommy and do what she tells you to do, but it takes a supposedly "grown up" mentality to make individual choices that often differ from the preferences of ones parents, or elders. In actuality, however, this intended symbol of self-government and individuality actually just ends up looking like naive rebellion. People pay money for potential illnesses in order to look "cool", but society's idea of "cool" really isn't "cool" at all, unless you mean "cool" as in the temperature of a dead body.

3. Do you like Alaska? Do you think it's important to like people you read about?

No, I don't like Alaska, but I think that's kind of the point. While I dislike Alaska, I like Pudge, and The Colonel and Takumi, and think the real point of the story was that even though I personally don't feel the pain of Alaska's death, I still grieve it because I feel the pain of Pudge and The Colonel and Takumi, who do like Alaska. I think it's important to have a range of characters that the reader can feel various emotions towards. If we always liked all the characters we read about, reading would get really mundane and boring. If we always hated all the characters we read about, reading would just suck in general. By having characters you can hate and characters you can love, books become more realistic and interesting.

4. By the end of this novel, Pudge has a lot to say about immortality and what the point of being alive is (if there is a point). To what extent do your thoughts on mortality shape your understanding of life's meaning?

Well, my thoughts on mortality are pretty vague, as I'm sure everyone's are until they actually die and find out what happens after life ends, but because I generally believe in the Christian idea of going to heaven if you believe in God and do what He asks you to do, and going to hell if you do not believe in Him and ignore His bidding, my understanding of life's meaning is kind of just that: do what you believe God is calling you to do, and live your life for Him.

5. How would you answer the old man's final question for his students? What would your version of Pudge's essay look like?

Well, I'm not going to write a whole essay, but my answer to Dr. Hyde's question (How will you--you personally--ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?) might be something like this:

      I think the only way to escape the labyrinth of pain and suffering is to stop thinking of it as a labyrinth. It always seems to me that the moment you stop worrying about something, or stressing over something in your life, that's when it becomes unimportant. So if life is just one big maze of pain, then the only way to get out of it is to forget that we are in pain. I don't know exactly how to do that, except perhaps to surround ourselves with things that distract us from the supposed pain that envelopes all our lives.

      Well, that's all for answering the discussion questions in the back of the book. Now for the characters:

Pudge: Pudge is not my favorite character. He's easily influenced, and chose the wrong crowd when there were plenty of other kids he could have hung out with. Plus, he had this skewed idea that he was really popular, even though he was pretty much just a tag-along friend. And he needed to stand up for himself sometimes when he didn't. I think that was the point though. He was supposed to be a 3rd wheeling, wimpy follower type person.

The Colonel: The Colonel is my favorite character. He is very real, and feels pain and love in real quantities, while still being kind of a jerk and a bad influence. The part where tears came to my eyes was the part when he's lying on the bleachers screaming "I'm so sorry" after Alaska dies. That part really revealed The Colonel in his truest form.

TAKUMI!!! Am I right???

Takumi: Takumi is my second favorite character. Have you ever seen the movie The Perfect Score? Takumi is SO Roy in that movie!!! (Played by Leonardo Nam, who also plays Brian in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movies, and would also make a great Park if they ever made Eleanor and Park into a movie, except of course that he's like in his 30s now. I digress). Anyway, Takumi is fun loving and kind of a background character who gets left out of stuff a lot, but he feels things too, and he's kind of misunderstood, which made me really like him as a character.

Lara: Ew, I do not like Lara. She just wants to fit in, which I get, but she has no personality. She's kind of a personality leach, posing after other teenage girls, and being nice even when she clearly should be totally pissed off. Like seriously Lara, be mad for once in your life.

Alaska: Alaska is a flawed character, but not flawed in a likable way. She's totally annoying and attention demanding even though she never really does anything special. She got all the attention she could ever want after she died though, so I guess she got what she really wanted. I really kind of hate her, because she caused decent people pain through her selfishness and stupidity and forgetfulness, and she was loved by so many people, even though she didn't appreciate all the love she was granted with.

The Eagle: The Eagle just wants to help the kids out. I think he genuinely cares about them, and was probably a lot like them when he was young too. I liked him.

Dr. Hyde: Dr. Hyde is  your typical professor-type character who mentally and philosophically guides the characters throughout their life journey. He's a good guy who says a lot of deep stuff and is respected by pretty much everyone. I liked him too.

       Well, there you have it folks.

Movie Recommendation: The Perfect Score. Watch it and see if you agree with me about Roy/Takumi/Park. It's a funny movie and I liked it.

See? He could totally be Park! And the blurry girl in the picture even has red hair like Eleanor!!

                      -VaughnDL