Looking for Alaska It is John Green's first novel.. The American author is known worldwide for his subsequent works: Paper cities (2008) and Bajo la misma estrella (2012) Looking for Alaska was posted by Ink Cloud, a seal belonging to Penguin random house 2005 the year.
Miles is a boy who has a hard time fitting in with others. His life is monotonous until he moves to a boarding school called Culver Creek where he can be himself without being rejected. And also, there he will meet Alaska, a girl who will turn his head, and his heart, inside out. A novel where literature has an important weight and that could be described as existentialism for young people.
Looking for Alaska: Existentialism for Young People
Arrival at Culver Creek
Miles Halter is a teenager who moves from Florida to Alabama to finish high school at Culver Creek, a boarding school where he will know the freedom and all the independence that a boy of that age can have in a place like that. It is easy for him to integrate when he meets a group of friends with whom he you will live funny experiences and crazy jokes, although with them the tragedy will also strike him. In addition to Chip Martin, nicknamed "the Colonel", Takumi and Lara, Miles will also deal with Alaska Young, a beautiful girl with a dark past who has a crazy and captivating character.. Miles will fall in love with her even though Alaska doesn't want the same thing as him. At Culver Creek you will also know loss and learn some good lessons about life..
The novel is based on the autobiographical, although it is fictional. The author has emphasized it, although the character of the protagonist resembles that of Green himself, having suffered dissonance with the rest of the boys his age during adolescence. Green affirms that there are similarities, but that the only real thing in the story is the boarding school that serves as a space.
It is a youth book that talks about loneliness and friendship, vulnerability and the recklessness of those years that can be so expensive. In the novel there is a very particular sense of humor and literary references and historical figures abound. Green's fascination for writing and literature is inferred as an integrating element for the characters in the novel. History, philosophy and literature become the way of understanding the world for the group; and help the reader to assimilate the circumstances of characters and author.
The Great Maybe
One of the peculiarities of this novel is that Miles is obsessed with quoting great authors.. However, not from anyone, but from the last mention they made (or at least, that is known). Miles, for example, is delighted with the "Great Perhaps" thing attributed to François Rebelais, a XNUMXth- and XNUMXth-century French scholar who greatly enjoyed playing with anagrams. The Great Perhaps can be about the meaning of life, about the possibilities that the fact of having free will offers to the human being. Miles meditates on these issues, although Alaska herself also enters this game and uses these quotes to make them challenges that mobilize the rest.
All this existentialist discourse is seen, however, with enormous optimism, despite what may happen in this life that the boys are beginning to discover. They do things typical of their age, supported by the group, and also discovering that not everyone thinks like them, and that there are also those who want to make life impossible for them, such as the "warriors of the week", who have it sworn to Alaska . They are a group of young people who see life with innocence, improvisation and curiosity. They play at living and the first-person narration through the main character lightens the pace of this fickle and exciting age..
Conclusions
Looking for Alaska It is a youth novel in which the sense of humor and the spontaneity of the actions of its characters stand out. It has a light and conversational style, very down to earth, reflecting the teenage years of a group of students at an Alabama boarding school. It has emotional notes, although the background is optimistic. The reflection of quotes from historical figures and the admiration that these provoke in the characters in the book is what also makes it different within youth literature.. Although it has unleashed the odd controversy due to the inclusion of topics that transgress the sensitivity of some parents, such as sex, drugs, tobacco, etc., it is a highly recommended novel by John Green, even if it is not the author's best known.
About the Author
John Green was born in Indiana in 1977.. Before his university studies, he spent time at a boarding school of his own free will. He would later study English Literature and Religious Studies. Thanks to the success of his novel Bajo la misma estrella and its film adaptation, John Green has enjoyed recognition within the youth novel, a genre in which he has worked as a novelist. However, he has also written short stories and essays. His literary activity is also combined as a blogger for Youtube. Likewise, he has worked on radio and as an editor and literary critic. Among his books stand out Paper cities (2008) Bajo la misma estrella (2012) and Katherine's theorem (2006)