Perhaps

 

So, I just finished John Green's Looking For Alaska. This is not supposed to be a book review or anything of the sort. This is just a blog post from someone who is still in awe of how life can be so enigmatic and beautiful at the same time. First of all, let me tell you that I was told once in the last three months that I should read this book if I liked Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, then this book is something that I might like. Well, I did. I did like it more than I had expected to. Yes, my literary taste might not be that hard to please, but there are certain books that I think I would never forget, and let me just tell the whole world that Looking for Alaska is one of them.

I can't even describe the feeling I have after reading it. It was cathartic in a joyful sense. It was detaching from the memory and the reality of the life and death of Alaska Young. I felt the same as Pudge felt from before and after, and there was no moment that I disagreed with his decisions, because for me, Pudge was, like Alaska, rather unpredictable. Or is it only the author? No, it's Pudge. The way his character is being tossed from conformity to nonconformity and from individuality to association is brilliantly written that it did not provide any space for confusion or disappointment. The book is one of the very few which I did not bother to analyze or even dissect in the literary blah aspect as I have been unfortunately doing in the past months in the hopes of developing a keener sense as a reader. Looking for Alaska was a world in which I was lost - the ideal feeling that I would want to get when reading - and not being engulfed by literary theories or criticisms that I am led to forgetting the essence of literature. What previous books have killed in me, Looking for Alaska revived. 

Mr. Hyde's classes were also very interesting, and being least familiar with Buddhism among the three they studied, I was amazed by how Buddhists looked at life and enlightenment - particularly, their belief that all things disintegrate at some point, yes, was a great thing in my mind once this school year. After reading Looking for Alaska, I somehow realized that all we really have, can hold on to, and look forward to is the here and now. The way the labyrinth of life and suffering was described just made me imagine myself in the same place - forever stuck, unable to escape, but Pudge's World Religions finals essay set my mind in the right place; "There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless." It hit me right there where it was supposed to hit me. God does have reasons for giving us things to read or hear. And let me just tell you again - it was a strong hit. It catapulted me to a brief flashback of everything that I have been trying to do for the past months, and heavens, it was bad. Guilt seemed to be a poison that seeped through the tiny pores of my skin to the tiniest organ in my body. The sting was so unbearable I had to stop for a moment and mull over things before I came back to reality with a resolution that could possibly change my life. And this time, it's foolproof. Inner bully-proof. CJ-proof even. My mind could not possibly contest to the epiphany that I still cannot describe. 

Before I even regret posting something so impulsively that I may edit in the next couple of days (so I may be discouraged to - exactly the reason why I had to put that line. Meh, the incomprehensible irony of me), of all books, I was not expecting a modern classic to change my life. Of course, I've been reading Austen and Alcott, and they've been giving me some things to think about, but I don't think there could be a book more fitting for me at this point in my life that Looking for Alaska by John Green. And now, I say goodbye as I go to seek a Great Perhaps.

So there, I have my first attempt at scanner art with one of the quotes in the book that really affected me and Alaska Young's white tulips. I've been getting quite creative lately, haven't I? Aye, I just love the way it turned out.

“Thomas Edison's last words were '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.” (p. 221)