The Labyrinth of Suffering

I got it into my head this week that I should read all of John Green's books. All five, in a row. A classmate lent me the first four, and today I'm reading Looking for Alaska.

I didn't like the first few pages; it took me a while to sympathize with Alaska and the Colonel and to understand just how desperate for friendship the narrator was. But once i got past that little, I was hooked. I'm reading it as fast as I read anything, but when I slow down, to savor a quote, I hear John reading it aloud in my head. This book is very him; not, perhaps, anything he ever wished to be (which is what I base my writing on), but certainly something he could have been.

The narrator is obsessed with learning famous people's last words. Of these the most relevant to Alaska is Simon Bolivar's: "How am I to get out of this damned labyrinth?" In the first third of the book, Alaska challenges the narrator to tell her what the labyrinth is, and later answers the question herself: suffering. And she has an answer to Simon Bolivar: straight and fast, which is what convinces the Colonel that her death was suicide.

I believe it, even three-quarters of the way through, when the narrator still refuses to. And at some level, I'm dealing with Alaska's death as intensely and deeply and personally as Pudge and the Colonel are. This is why, in spite of my first-page misgivings, I think this is a great book. It makes me live its characters' lives.

And I have an answer to Bolivar's last question, a challenge to poor Alaska and to Pudge, who resents being left behind among the living, and to every single person who lives on this planet. It comes to me through the scenes in which Mr. Hyde discusses Buddhism, and has echoes of my favorite album, The Complex by Blue Man Group. Which I intend to listen to after I finish this book. (I guess that's a mark of a great book: you have to recover from reading it.)

How are you to get out of this damned labyrinth? By climbing the walls. I can't do it, sobs Alaska, already drunk and tired of life. I don't have the strength. Bullshit, I'd tell her, and give her a boost.

PS The awkward-blowjob scene? Not worth banning a book over. Though if I had to come up with a list of reasons to ban a book, I'd probably give you a blank page.