Hooray! Hooray! It’s finally John Green week over here at The Vandenburg Rewrites, and, frankly, I am shocked it took us this long to get around to it. Lemon converted me to a lover of John Green almost two years ago when we first become roommates. I’ve briefly mentioned my previous apprehension with reading YA novels, but being persuaded to read The Fault in Our Stars (which inevitably gave way to reading his other three novels in about a week and a half span) was a big part of me getting over my “only-read-classics” mentality.
I’ll be honest, I don’t have a favorite novel of his. I love them all for very different reasons, and it seems wrong to pick a favorite, but if I had to pick a character of his that most truly spoke to my teenage soul, it’s Pudge from Looking for Alaska. May you be forewarned, I may let a spoiler slide, so if you haven’t read the book, approach with caution.
Ok, so let me tell you about Pudge, focusing mainly on his ideals and the way he sees his future and less on his unfortunate nickname. Pudge is a high school kid living in Florida with virtually no friends. He’s not bullied or anything; he just exists in a relatively invisible state at his school. Being an only child, his isolation exists even at home. His main, if not his only, area of interest is reading biographies and memorizing the last words of notable people.
The story opens at the beginning of Pudge’s, whose real name is actually Miles, last week at home with his parents before he leaves to continue high school at a boarding school. His mother asks him why he wants to leave, and Miles replies with the last words of the poet, Francois Rabelais, the words that motivate him throughout the entire narrative: “I go to seek a great perhaps.”
He arrives at boarding school and stumbles into a small group of friends who seem to be interesting, unique and maybe even a bit dangerous. Within the first day he is smoking, laughing, and being hazed by older students by getting thrown into the school’s pond. This is what he’s been waiting for, his great perhaps. He is finally someone who things actually happen to.
Enter Alaska: The unstable, decidedly attractive, spontaneous girl who Pudge finds himself infatuated with. She is everything he is not. She is adventurous, daring, and has lived a life worth sharing stories about, which she does, often. So let’s go back. Miles/Pudge left Florida for a boarding school to seek a Great Perhaps. Based on the type of kids he encounters at school it could be said that a Great Perhaps has a broad, yet basic definition. It is a life of adventure, experience, risk-taking, a life lived to its fullest. This is how Alaska lives her life. That is not at all how Pudge lives his. He continues to return to this mantra-like quote again and again, even sharing it with Alaska, but it no way is Pudge really stepping out and seeking greater things.
He leaves his parent’s home and goes to a boarding school, the setting of all great coming-of-age stories, but it’s not all that risky or unique. This is the same boarding school his father went to, the same boarding school he grew up hearing stories about and forming a picture of in his mind. This new exciting terrain isn’t all that new to Pudge, yet this is where he goes to experience his teenage years.
Before he left for school, Miles/Pudge spent most of his time studying the stories of other people by reading biographies. When asked by his roommate, Colonel, what his “thing” is, he says memorizing last words, last words he gets from saturating himself in the stories of other people rather than creating his own. Their last words become his words, become points of wisdom by which he navigates his life. At school, Pudge finds friends to occupy his time rather than biographies, but he doesn’t let go of the words of others, and he spends his time studying another the story, the life of Alaska. She becomes to him an undiscovered biography.
This is then where we have to recast the Great Perhaps. It has an implied meaning, as noted, but I don’t think this is the only meaning. I think Pudge is seeking a Great Perhaps, I think his version looks a lot different than we may think it should or how Alaska’s looks, but I don’t think that is supposed to be seen as a condemnable characteristic in him. Alaska’s version of living is unstable, and her fate reflects that. As compelling as Pudge finds her, I don’t think he ever meant to seek out adventure in the way that Alaska does. His “seeking” is passive, better yet, I think it’s observant. He is experiencing things and learning invaluable lessons that are contributing to his maturity even though he’s not learning them first hand. I think Pudge is successful in his mission to move away. He leaves the school year with a completely altered perspective, and he will never be the same again, but he didn’t have to be reckless, let alone adventurous, to do it.
I think the freedoms of youth are idealized too often. I think they’re presented in a way that communicates if you’re not taking risks constantly and behaving as if there’s no tomorrow, as if you’re invincible, you’re wasting that time in your life, but I think that’s completely off. Youth must be embraced, of course, because of how many lessons there are to learn, but there’s not one ideal way to do it. I think Pudge’s method is often criticized by younger audiences, only to be appreciated when those type of people emerge into adulthood unscathed by teenage mistakes. Pudge experiences pain, loss, and true friendship, and I think that the amount of experiencing he did was really all he was looking for.
Another famous last word noted in the novel is from Simon Bolivar where he states, “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!” The novel questions whether the labyrinth refers to life or what comes after. I don’t think there’s a clear right answer, so I’m just going to offer my educated guess. Life is the labyrinth. The labyrinth that teaches you one way to behave in your formative years and condemns those same methods when you reach the magical age of 18 and “become an adult,” or vice versa. It’s the harsh world that seems to intentionally confuse you, leading you along stray paths that look appealing, paths that the world tells you are appealing, that lead to destruction. The only solution then is to trust your instincts, to act in the wisest way you know how. This is something I believe Pudge does to the best of his abilities, and the thing that Alaska fails to do.
-Kansas
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