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Friday 28 June 2013

Looking for authorial intent (Looking for Alaska)

If you're on the Internet (i.e. reading this), you've probably heard of John Green. If you read a lot, you've heard of John Green. If you have an interest in Young Adult fiction, you're wondering what I'm going to say about The Fault in Our Stars, his bestselling novel and being made into a film. However, I'm going to talk about his debut novel, Looking for Alaska. Since he always finds himself talking about it in his YouTube videos, I might as well chip in my two pennies (or two cents would probably be more appropriate).

As well as a well known author, John Green is arguably more well known for his YouTube channel, the Vlogbrothers, which I briefly mentioned in a previous post. Via numerous channels, he discusses (amongst many other things) the process of his books and his intentions in writing them. When specifically talking about Looking for Alaska, he's recently discussed the apparent pornographic content in Alaska (which he correctly asserts is an inaccurate description of said scene) and his use of the Manic Pixie Girl trope (which he helpfully defines two minutes into the video)*. What these videos seem to show is an author who realises the novel he has written is not the novel he intended. As it is a debut novel this feeling is not surprising, at least to me. Naturally it is going to take a while for a writer to hone their craft and make their technique match their ideas. The videos seem to show John considering Looking for Alaska as failing what he intended to do.

However, along with many others I think Looking for Alaska is my favourite of his books and I'm going to explain why the mistakes that John believes exists in the book are reasons for why it is great.

An event occurs halfway through the book that divides the book into two halves, 'Before' and 'After'. I won't spoil what that event is but I will discuss how the novel changes between sections which will probably hint at what this is, so go on at your peril if you haven't read it.
Interestingly, John did not intend this as an event that warrants a spoiler warning. It was meant to be something that was inevitable and fairly obvious to see coming. So if we are to take the author as the authority of their book, I should freely reveal what the event is.

But when the event happened, I was dumbstruck. I genuinely stopped reading to take in the impact. It was an incredibly powerful moment that I didn't see coming. Nor did many others. Which surprised John. Yet while John thinks this effect changes the book from his intentions, this effect is not a negative one. In fact, it benefits the book enormously. While it changes the tone, the first half character development isn't abandoned but expanded. As we get a hold of who we think the characters are (muddling through the unpredictability of growing up), the second half severely challenges them and it is devastating to see these characters who were getting more self-confidence to be so shaken up. In particular, the one that resonates is the narrator, Miles. Seeing him cope with the consequence of the event, which we see through his actions and the style of his narration, results in one of the most beautiful and powerful depictions of grief I've ever seen.

As effective as I found the book, this effect seems to create a different sort of tragedy, one probably every author has experienced: being misunderstood. Alaska is a deliberate distant figure as we see her through Miles' eyes, who idolises her and puts her on a pedestal while paradoxically desperate to obtain her. After the event, this distanced relationship means Alaska becomes even more of a mystery and leaves the audience as mystified as Miles, according to John. From what I can tell, John intended to show how foolish Miles' perception is rather than have us sympathise with it. But for me, I think a combination of the two occurs and is why it struck such a chord with me. I could recognise Miles' behaviour as similar to my own far too recently while also recognising it as a stupid way to treat girls who are nice to you. I don't believe John intended this, indeed I don't expect any writer to be able to depict emotions and experiences I have had. That's just the perks of literature; by attempting to capture aspects of humanity in a fictional form, various books will have a particular influence on certain people as they see things that only they would recognise.

In fact, this whole post has been based upon my interpretation of what John said in the videos - I haven't quoted him for example, which is bad for an essay but has a purpose in this post. John displays much confidence in what the books are about with good reason - after all, he wrote it. However, I am inclined to follow the 'death of the author' view of literature. I am aware most authors dislike this perception of literature, including John who made the humorous quip that this theory makes him worried about how long he has left to live. Funny as that is, I do believe that the text of a book is out of the control of the author as soon as someone else reads it. They bring their own experiences, lifestyle and interpretation to it, and so the text they read will probably (though not always) be a very different one to what the author believed they wrote. For example, it is fine for Baz Lurhmann to present The Great Gatsby as gaudy and visually spectacular, and it is also fine for people not to like that version and prefer the one they have when they read the book.

Basically, to clarify the title of this post, authorial intent is not totally irrelevant as long as you don't simply let it replace how you feel about the book. It's a similar approach to how one should read reviews - this is a person's opinion. It is fine for them to have a different one to you. Just don't assume either of you are entirely right because in literature, there can be no such thing.

And if you haven't read anything by John Green, I highly recommend you do. I have yet to read An Abundance of Katherines or Let It Snow, but all of his other books are well worth reading. I'm not as fond as The Fault in Our Stars as others (although it's still brilliant) and personally prefer Paper Towns. However, Looking for Alaska is far and away my favourite and is as good as a place as any to start.

*Don't worry about the fact he's playing FIFA and is weirdly obsessed in creating a fictional word involving those players. I enjoy the videos and would recommend watching from the start, but the linked videos are still worth watching on their own, if ever so slightly bewildering.

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