{"id":653,"date":"2011-11-22T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=653"},"modified":"2011-11-16T17:02:45","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T01:02:45","slug":"mark-reads-looking-for-alaska-the-prank-one-hundred-thirty-six-days-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2011\/11\/mark-reads-looking-for-alaska-the-prank-one-hundred-thirty-six-days-before\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘Looking For Alaska’: the prank. \/ one hundred thirty-six days before"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the opening of John Green’s Looking For Alaska<\/em>, we are introduced to Miles, pranks, the Colonel, Alaska, and the Great Perhaps. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Looking For Alaska<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This has sort of been a long time coming, and I don’t think it’s any sort of mystery now that I was going to drop a John Green novel into my reading rotation. The Lord of the Rings<\/em> trilogy is going to take…shit. Like six months or so. That’s a long time for the focus of the site to be on one series with no interruptions or other books to talk about. (There will be one-off reviews like I’ve done with A Song of Ice and Fire<\/em>, and I’m currently reading the Bas-Lag<\/em> trilogy and I have 45 million thoughts I need to convey to you all, so we will still have other books to discuss!) Truthfully, the Nerdfighter community has been pestering me (in the most lovable way possible!) to commit to reading at least one<\/em> of this man’s book that I thought it was high-time to actually do<\/em> it.<\/p>\n

Hence the Nerdfighter post yesterday. OMG I AM A NERDFIGHTER <\/em>AND I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT<\/em><\/strong>. Going into Looking For Alaska<\/em> is fascinating to me because it’s very similar to my experience with The Book Thief<\/em>. I have not even the slightest clue what it’s about. I don’t know character names. I don’t know where it’s set, or when it’s set, or if the main character is a reptilian overlord from a distant star cluster. I don’t know themes. I don’t know if Alaska is a person or a place or a concept, and I don’t know if the “looking” part implies a search, a vision, an action, or if it’s all a trick. I don’t know if John Green writes in first person, third person omniscient, or if this is an experimental novel written entirely in velvet and Morse code. HEY IT COULD BE I’VE SEEN WEIRDER<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Because this isn’t separated by normal “chapters,” all the post titles will follow the same format as above, as I am assuming this is how the book is broken up. Everything is leading up to a certain day (or maybe an “after”), so I’ll dignify posts this way to make them easier to determine which parts I’m talking about. Sound good? Then let me start Looking For Alaska<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The prank.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given that I read the first “chapter” and I’m talking about both, I’m going to assume this is the “event” that all the “befores” refers to is this prank. I like a well-executed prank and while I had a very bizarre, atypical high school experience, the school prank by the seniors was always immensely entertaining. Honestly, though, I am actually excited at the concept that I think<\/em> is at work here. I’ve never really done a book for Mark Reads that was about<\/em> high school or being in school in any context that isn’t Hogwarts. And while that school experience is the only thing I want in life, it didn’t have a whole lot that was indicative of the <\/em>schooling system that I’m used to. Wow, I swear I won’t turn my reviews of this book into me talking about Harry Potter<\/em> every other sentence. OR WILL I?<\/em><\/p>\n

So, from this…prologue? In media res<\/em> intro? Whatever it is, I’ve surmised that Alaska is a girl who is not the main character. There’s the Colonel. I like nicknames that are ridiculous, so there’s another positive point for this book. Who is the Eagle? What are Weekday Warriors? I’m used to the term “Weekend Warriors” from the cycling world, which refers to folks who only ride their bike on the weekend and they own the best gear and the best bikes and their spandex outfits are always clean and they always drink top-of-the-line electrolyte drinks and I just got carried away. I’m going to assume Weekday Warriors have nothing to do with that.<\/p>\n

What I will assume is that a great deal of the plot and development leading up to the prank will explain who the hell<\/em> all these people are, why certain people deserve to have failing notices sent to their families, and what it is that inspired such a monumental prank on this unnamed school’s campus.<\/p>\n

before<\/strong><\/p>\n

one hundred thirty-six days before<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, Florida, you are such a bizarre state. Very green; some wonderful people who are quite hospitable; and Disney World and Harry Potter Land are there, and I’ve never had so much fun on a waterslide. But you’re a strange state, one I don’t know that I could ever figure out unless I spent an extended length of time there. I’m pretty sure I don’t necessarily want to do that. I still haven’t been to Gainesville or Miami and I’d love to, but…seriously, what a weird<\/em> state. Also, your heat is OPPRESSIVE and took away ALL MY RIGHTS both times I was there.<\/p>\n

So this book is set in the United States and a lot of establishing facts are introduced in the first proper “chapter” of Looking For Alaska<\/em>. Miles is off to boarding school, one that I’m assuming replaces public high school. The thing that stands out to me most about all of this is how lovably awkward his parents are, something that I understand deeply and beautifully down to my bones. It is what I have known and will always know: My parents were awkward as fuck. I always find it interesting how that trope pops up again and again because it’s not a trope for me<\/em>. I relate to nearly every depiction of awkward parents ever made<\/em>. I think part of that comes from the dynamic between my mother and father and the massive cultural divide that existed the whole time.<\/p>\n

(Also, just to clear this up: my father passed away in 2006, so if you see me using past tense for him and present-tense for my mother, that’s why. I’ve confused people with that before, so I don’t want to do it again!)<\/p>\n

My mother has always been outspoken, a fiery redhead who uses her anger as both a weapon and a shield. To say I’ve gotten my personality from this aspect of her is an understatement; even if she’s my adoptive mother and I don’t have an ounce of her blood, my socialization with her taught me to be ~fierce~ and ~flawless~ about the way I carry myself. Yes, I had a whole host of self-esteem issues (some which I still have) that I had to work through, but at the core of my identity was this desire to be myself and fuck all the rest<\/em>. That comes from my mother. She ruled the house.<\/p>\n

My father, on the other hand, was so much quieter, a serene and stoic figure who might crack the occasional joke, unaware of how good<\/em> they might be. What was so striking about my dad was that he wasn’t<\/em> a very striking person. He blended into the background of everything. In that sense, he was the polar opposite of my mother, and it was that crucial difference that spawned most of the conflict and awkwardness growing up. My father grew up in Hawaii, of mixed Japanese and Hawaiian descent, and his culture produced the man I knew. None of his relatives were loud, boisterous, or invasive, just like him. I took a lot of trips to Hawaii growing up before the family was too poor to afford them, and I saw the same thing in the people I met there.<\/p>\n

Miles’s mom, in a way, reminds me of this weird divide between parents, even though I admit she’s not at all the same. My mom is the kind of mother who would make “a small mountain of artichoke dip” because she figures it would be necessary. Every time I go home to visit my mother, one of the first things she asks me is if I’m hungry. I think there’s a part of my mind that believes that she is convinced that since she no longer cooks for me, I do not eat at all, so every visit I have with her is a chance for her to fill me up with foodstuffs for the long winter of hibernation. This is my life’s canon don’t you dare oppose it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And look, all this said….the Good-bye to Miles Cavalry is just so awkward that I feel like it’s bursting out of the pages of this book. I, like Miles\/John Green, like to give Official Sounding Names <\/em>to things that are innocuous. Hell, how many times have I done that around here? It’s one of the ways that Miles copes with the little things; it’s not life-ending<\/em> that his goodbye is so strange, but it’s a thing he has to deal with. On top of that, another clear reason y’all recommended I read this: Miles makes lists. CONSTANTLY. That sheer fact alone<\/em> is probably enough to make me fall deeply in love with this book, but I’ll try to put aside my bias for lists and approach this book with an open mind, so that I can:<\/p>\n

1) Determine what I like and dislike about it<\/p>\n

2) See if I can discover why so many other people like it, and why it’s often taught in schools these days.<\/p>\n

3) Continue to do what it is I do best around here.<\/p>\n

Wait DAMN IT<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The only thing worse than having a party that no one attends is having a party attended only by two vastly, deeply uninteresting people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is in the Bible or something, right? What a goddamn universal truth dropped into this book. ON PAGE FOUR, NONETHELESS. Holy crap, why didn’t I read this before?<\/p>\n

It’s the world that Green drops us into, and I like introductions that can give a reader a sense of who these people are, what sort of personality they have; nothing super complicated or nuanced, of course, because that’s sort of what the point of the whole novel is. You introduce the idea, and then spend the book developing from that point.<\/p>\n

That point<\/em>, it seems, is something Green introduces here, another Properly Titled Important Thing that will provide, at the very least, some sort of thematic motivation for our main character and narrator: The Great Perhaps.<\/p>\n

“So this guy,” I said, standing in the doorway of the living room. “Fran\u00c3\u00a7ois Rabelais. He was this poet. And his last words were ‘I go to seek a Great Perhaps.’ That’s why I’m going. So I don’t have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not going to do any research on this idea, though I am vaguely familiar with Rabelais from college; sort of like what I did with American Gods<\/em>, I know there’s something here that would help give this context if I looked this up, but I’d rather speculate. I sort of feel that’s all one can<\/em> do, since this is supposed to be his last words. The very use of the word “perhaps,” as opposed to “purpose,” is ambiguous in nature, and I like this idea that whatever Great Thing that Miles is hoping to find, we don’t know what it is. He doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t know where to find it, what it’s about, what it could be, or if it’s even real. It feels like a statement of possibility: Miles is off to Alabama to find this Great Thing there, only because he knows that he won’t find it in Florida. Is something pulling him to that boarding school? Maybe that is<\/em> what he feels. Maybe there is no feeling at all and he’s simply throwing himself to the wind to see where he lands.<\/p>\n

I had never been introduced to this idea before. The existentialist in me loves it. And what a damn fine introduction to this book, I might add.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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