“I go to seek a Great Perhaps”
-Francois Rabelais
Title : Looking for Alaska
Writer : John Green
Publisher : Dutton Juvenile
Pages : 213
In searching for the Great Perhaps of life, the ‘Pudge’ went to the Culver Creek, the boarding school that was once boarded by his father. Pudge believed that by going to the Culver Creek, he would be able to find the Great Perhaps of his life. Pudge met and made friends (close friends) with the ‘Colonel’, Alaska, Takumi, and Lara. The story mainly revolves around these 5 characters, and how they are threading on their path of life, in the Culver Creek. It begins with a normal story of a boarding school life. New environment, new friends, new teachers and so on. As the story developed and them knowing each other more, Pudge realized that the person that he secretly like – Alaska, have a deep, dark secrets lies within her and she was reticent about it. Except for Pudge (whom is a new guy in Culver Creek), the other four knew about the secrets, but never to expect such an abrupt incident to happen and turned everything upside down.
……..
The Great Perhaps, as understood by me, is the maybes of life, and of the afterlife. The above last words of Francois Rabelais were quoted and I believe - used as the backbone of this novel. Although this fictional novel is a light read that I read in between the heavy reads, it sure contains a hidden message. Despite the common storyline used (I would say that, as this is fictional), John Green managed to manipulate his wittiness into the book with knowledge and some facts that are mind boggling. John Green incorporated in this novel the philosophy of life and comparative religion in terms of finding one self, in terms of finding the purpose of life, in finding the Great Perhaps. Enlightenment [1], Sufism [2], etc. How one reach enlightenment, how one perceive this evanescent abode of worldly life. John Green elucidated about each of the virtues and those are (to me) one of the uniqueness of this book, and one of the strong reasons I’d be able to write a review despite the fictional nature of this book.
I believe all books written will definitely have their own virtues, depends on the situation of the writer and that time and the audience of the writer is targeting. Or at the very least, the book will define its own virtue according to the writer (the writer will at least write the book for his own good). Looking for Alaska definitely have its virtues, but the book might not be well accepted by some of us. Considering the background of the story (White people’s boarding school, boys and girls mixed etc), the book overtly tells about the social life of the characters (which I believe is a norm for the white people). It is fine to read, but when you arrive at the point of the book where the explicit situation starts, just skip it. The book is fine, but in my opinion some of the social explanation is incongruent to us in Malaysia. But we can always skip that part. The book is in our hands. The pages were flipped by us. It depends on us, not the writer. Again, please take note that this is a light read.
Semoga Allah merahmati usaha kita semua.
[1] - The version of enlightenment in this book is the Buddhist enlightenment. It is when one finds the truth about life and they stop being reborned.
[2] - Sufism is the Muslim version of inner strength. Other analogous phrase is tasawwuf. It can also be interpreted as one of the many pillars of knowledge in Islam.
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