Butterfly Dive

Looking For Alaska - A Few Thoughts

I just want to get this out there now, not necessarily for anyone else but for me. It’s not a review, just a stream of consciousness on how it made me feel. 

A story can be powerful when told by the ones left behind, and Looking for Alaska is certainly that.

But a story will ALWAYS be powerful when seen through the eyes of those who have left.

At least, that’s how it is to me.

 I think on the main front it was Miles and his discovering of his Great Perhaps and the points on religions and the labyrinth.

And I did get all that.

But the moment I realized Alaska was dead, my reading of the story shifted. 

Because, even without knowing her, my head realized that yes, you can sympathize with Miles as Miles. But what would open up if you tried to feel Miles as Alaska?

I didn’t need to know why she had driven straight and fast, or why she drove in the first place

I read it as if I was Alaska, looking down on all those forced to cope with me being gone, and tried to imagine all the ways she might respond, because it’s impossible to know.

And THAT made the story so much more meaningful to me, because it made me work so much harder to understand knowing I never would and didn’t really want to.

That’s why I stopped my journey as Miles and my mind switched to reading as Alaska.

I realize that’s not necessarily the way Mr. Green meant for it to be read. It’s just what my head did. 

I didn’t see Alaska as the driving force of the plot. To me, she’s the glue that holds all the characters in the story together, and when she’s gone, they either have to let parts fall away, or make their own glue.

I read an interesting answer Mr. Green gave to a question on Tumblr regarding those papers we all write in English about what objects or images an author is using as symbols, and what it is they are symbolizing. And my understanding of his answer was this: that it’s not IF they intended it to be a symbol or WHAT they intended it to symbolize, But if YOU find it a symbol, and what YOU think it symbolizes, and then use that to help further your personal understanding of the overall message the author was trying to give and its place in the world you live in

Please tell me if you think I’m way off the mark on any of this. But on the whole I really do feel very strongly about what I’ve said, because it’s my emotional reaction to a story I believe we are all in some stage of living. I feel like I could write at least ten different papers, each over ten pages long, on all the ideas and questions in my head born from this amazing novel, and what I hope Mr. Green never forgets is that he has given me more inspiration through of this beautiful piece of literature than I have felt towards 99% of my school-assigned books, and that there are others out there who feel the same. Thank you, John Green, and all other writers who strive to show us the human side to our extraordinary journeys.

Tagged: John GreenLooking For Alaskavlogbrothersdftbaliteraturebooks