I’ve been craving for something for a while now. I don’t quite
remember when it started, I don’t even remember what triggered it, I just
remember craving for it. I wanted to read.
And not just read because I needed
to, we have a little too much of that in med school, but read because I wanted
to. I wanted to go back to my younger days when me and my sister would use our
cellphones to keep reading well into the night because my parents had scolded
us twice already about keeping the light on in our room way past bedtime on a
weeknight. I wanted to cry myself to sleep again; as I did when Joe broke Laurie’s heart in words even a little girl couldn’t imagine ever
being used in normal conversation. I wanted to laugh out loud again even with
no one in the room; as I did when I pictured a beautiful Titania falling for a very donkey-looking Bottom with a naughty Puck
in the background. I wanted to wince in indignation then go back a few pages
hoping to change the story; as I did whenever I picked bad endings for goosebumps-choose-your-own-adventure.
I wanted to be experiencing someone else’s life without leaving my own, as I
did when I joined Alex Cross’
mysteries, or relating to Liz and Jessica’s growing-up-issues, or thrust
into the world of the Sandman
himself. I could go on vividly explaining what I was craving for with actions
and their related fictional characters, but I might start to sound crazy or
pompous. So basically, I was just
craving for a good read.
And I tried, boy did I try, looking for something good to read. I have
a few – nay, a lot – of unopened books at home that I was under the impression
would be really good reads. I even started reading through some of them,
doctors in particular was hard to put down, but for one reason or another, I
stopped reading midway and got lost in my too
busy or more important stuff to
do routine.
So I was really glad I decided to open Looking for Alaska. A
book that a friend highly recommended, but I was only half listening. Sorry!
But I did read it, and I loved it. It got me reading again, for one reason or
another, and it even gave me headaches – apparently my ophthalmologist says
that I’m a rare case, because I was able to hide my condition for so long, at
first glance nothing was wrong with my eyes, but apparently after closer
inspection, he even exclaimed “How did
you survive first two years of med with these eyes?!” haha, I really do not
know.
Anyways, back to the book.
A friend had said “Tell me
about it when you’re not raving about it anymore, tell me about it when you’re
sad, when it's the last thing that you could relate to. Maybe then, I’ll
believe you.” He was right. And I tried to sit calmly, and wait for the non-relatable time, so I can give my objective judgement of the book.
But I realized, what would the point be then? A simple recommendation of a book? I’m not a book connoisseur, nor can I
pass off as one. The way I read, watch, absorb, learn, is by integrating me into the piece – a little selfish and
shallow I know, but its what adds color to the story, and how I begin to
understand it, how it can contribute to me becoming a better person. You don’t have to believe me, that’s the
beauty of it.
An even closer friend said to me “Tell me about the author, the circumstance
at the time, and the reason for this writing, that's how you can gauge if it
really is a good book.” She was right as well. And to a certain degree, I
did look at the book’s background (at the bottom is a vlog of the author
talking about the censorship of the book).
But that was how they read their books -- and I super love, respect and look up to them for it, but it wasn't how I had read this book.
Another friend simply asked “What’s it about?”
It’s actually about a normal-boring young
person, who decides he no longer wanted to settle for the boring life and
sought out "the Great Perhaps”, and he does. He finds it in Alaska, this
amazingly described girl who was the complete opposite of himself – daring,
lived life to the full, spontaneous, interesting.
“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to
wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even
have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I
lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous
and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back
to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain,
I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”
Don’t be fooled, its not a love story, nor is
it some kind of messed up romanticized infatuation, he does not get the girl.
Instead, the girl gets him thinking, about life, love, lust, and hope. And the girl isn’t as perfect as she seems
either, which is what I loved about the book, apart from the honest language
used and parallel thinking involved with a few of the characters, the development
of the characters and their relationships with each other makes it enough for a good read.
But because Im not very good with words.
Leave
the good writing, to the writers.
And the judging, to the critics.
The reading, we can do.
“Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (...) You spend
your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one
day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but
you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”
