John Green's Looking for Alaska, a great read!

January 22. 2013

I just finished reading a book that my son bought, probably for his English or Asian Studies classes. At first, I thought that the book was meant for young people, his age group, until I got to the middle of the book. It's about life, spirituality, religion, sex, love, friendship, forgiveness, death and grief, as seen, experienced and narrated by a young man, Pudge, as he's fondly called by his friends. ( John Green's "Looking for Alaska")

[I used to suggest books for the Son to read. Now, it is he who gives me books. I am happy that I coerced him into taking Philosophy, as a preMed or preLaw course in UP.  He will be graduating next year and has been a consistent Dean's lister, a university/college scholar in Diliman. He has grown to become a very responsible young man. We, sometimes, if not often,  have "intelligent conversations". That was how he described our exchange of thoughts and ideas when his dad asked what we were doing.] 

Back to the book I just read. Just some "quotes" from the book!

"I go to seek a Great Perhaps."

"I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps."

"They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing."
 
"... people believed in the afterlife because they couldn't bear not to."

"There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow --- that, in short, we are all going."

"You can't just make me different and then leave."

"You can't just make yourself matter and then die."

"...there is no best and no worst... there is only what is"

"Everything that comes together falls apart."

"..memories fall apart too, and then you're left with nothing."

"How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?"

"... we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth."

" ... thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth is to pretend that it did not exist..."

"I believe in the Great Perhaps, and I can believe in it in spite of having lost her."

"... the afterlife is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable."

".. we are greater than the sum of our parts...There is a part of her greater than the sum of her knowable parts. And that part has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed."

"... that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and  cannot end, and so it cannot fail."

"it's very beautiful over there."

"I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful."

********

Thanks Son for this great read. Surely loved it! 

/ betsisanders 2013