Looking for Alaska by John Green

 

"It hurt, and that is not a euphemism. It hurt like a beating. Meriwether Lewis's last words were, 'I am not a coward, but I am so strong. So hard to die.' I don't doubt that it is, but it cannot be much harder than being left behind."

                     -Miles, from the novel

Our group selected this book, a young adult fiction, as our representative from the "banned books list." I can't say I enjoyed it very much for a variety of reasons. I will give it a rating of 3 since I felt the writing was skilled, in a debut novel at that. There just wasn't much in the characters or plot to which I could relate. 

High school junior Miles Halter is sent from his home in Florida to attend the Culver Creek Boarding School in Alabama. There he makes friends with some unique characters including Chip Martin, nicknamed "The Colonel." Also in the circle are Takuma Hikohito and Alaska Young, a girl with whom Miles, or Pudge as he has been tagged, is enamored. Miles loves reading biographies and is obsessed with the last words of famous people. He is seeking the "Great Perhaps," a concept of peace within oneself, a philosophy of poet Francois Rabelais.

When Alaska is not cooking up pranks for the group to play she is dwelling on the labyrinth, or maze of life proposed by Gabriel Garcia Marquz in The General in His Labyrinth about Simon Bolivar. She definitely has some emotional baggage. I had never heard of that book or the poetry of Rabelais so I was left a little confused by the references.

Looking for Alaska is described as a coming-of-age novel with themes of grief, guilt and hope, as well as showing the impact one person's life can have on another. It is probably appropriate for mature high school students, but I could almost understand attempts to ban it, especially if certain parts are taken out of context.

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Our group met today to discuss Looking for Alaska. Our average rating was 3.3 with most voting 3 or 4. We started with a rousing discussion about "book banning." And, in fact, we hardly consulted the discussion questions from the publisher. We didn't need any incentive to discuss this novel!

I have no wish to reveal too much but some of our people thought the ending was better than the silly teenage antics of the first part because it was very thoughtfully written, addressing emotions all humans experience in their lives.

FYI there is another book with the exact same title about the actual state of Alaska!

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

"...one thing I have learned is that there is just enough variety in human experience for every single person in a city the size of New York to feel with assurance that their experience is unique. And this is a wonderful thing. Because to aspire, to fall in love, to stumble as we do and yet soldier on, at some level we must believe that what we are going through has never been experienced quite as we have experienced it."                  

        -Professor Abacus Abernathe, from the novel

I love this novel! I had checked it out from the library on Overdrive and it took me so long to start it, I was at risk of losing it before I could finish. And after I had been captivated by the plot and characters! At over 500 pages, I had a lot of reading to do in a few days but I made it! 

The story reminded me of Huckleberry Finn and, more recently, This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger. I had never heard of the Lincoln Highway which the reader learns was the first transcontinental road. 

In 1954 18-year-old Emmett Watson has just been released from a work farm where he was sentenced for manslaughter. He is returned to his home in Nebraska and his much younger brother Billy. The two are orphans and the family property is being foreclosed on, so they decide to take the Lincoln Highway west to start a new life. 

Two of Emmett's former inmates show up---Duchess, a charming but devious one, and Wooly, a sensitive, caring type---and they have some different plans for the 4 of them. I cannot begin to tell you all the adventures they have, and I wouldn't want to. Amor Towles has done an incredible job of it through multiple narrators.

Billy is attached to a book called Professor Abacus Abernathe's Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers and Other Intrepid Travelers. The book includes many references to the Odyssey, which in a way, is what Emmett and Billy are on---even including the introduction of a vagabond named Ulysses. Billy is able to meet the author, who is quoted above. 

I rate The Lincoln Highway a 5 out of 5. I could even see reading it again in a few years. Maybe the second time I could read more slowly and savor the intricacies of the plot and Towles's wonderful writing.