There are some stories that are intensely personal. John Green said it himself in The Fault in Our Stars -- "Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal."
While Looking for Alaska is not that book, because that position has already been filled, it still strikes that chord. I love it, and I think it would be personal for the majority of readers. I know it is certainly that book for a few readers, simply because of its message.
The labyrinth of suffering. One of the greatest things about this book, I think, is that it never once diagnosed Alaska with depression. It never gave the reader a straight answer. It explained Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, but never said that they knew the answers. Never. People like to categorize things -- she has depression, life has suffering and so [insert religion here], that death was complicated but no so complicated that we couldn't find a label and the label is suicide, etc. They try, they try, they try. They fail. The labyrinth, it turns out, is bigger than any answer.
"Answers are for squares," says the labyrinth, "and I am an undefined shape."
(By the way, I just ordered The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I plan on reading it ASAP).
Have you guessed yet? The labyrinth is different for each and every person, so how could there be a perfect way out? The labyrinth laughs at answers, too, so how could there be a solution? Reality can be poison. We can become so caught up in labeling everything that we forget the world runs on nonsense. On Alice's Wonderland. Ask the labyrinth again.
"How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?"
What if the labyrinth responds with another question? "How do you see me?"
How do you see the labyrinth? How do you see anything? Life? Death? Babies, even? How do you see at all? I do not think we are blind. If we were blind, we would not see the labyrinth. The fact is, we can see it, and that is all. We can see its pain, its suffering, but we can also see its beauty. A reader would not mourn Alaska if she was not a beautiful person. Alaska left a scar because she was worth remembering. Because she was beautiful.
I suppose that is why I walk the labyrinth. I could go on about imagined realities created as coping mechanisms (American McGee's Alice, anyone?), but I don't want to, because that is it. The labyrinth is laced with beauty, and so I walk along its winding pathway. Sometimes the beauty outdoes the pain. Sometimes I feel that there is neither beauty nor pain outside of the labyrinth, and while that allows death to be a comfort, it also makes the labyrinth a valuable place.
Is that the question?
Why do you walk the labyrinth?
How do you walk the labyrinth?
Why is this goddamned labyrinth so important, anyway?
Fucking labyrinth.
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