At the beginning of last summer, I decided to read John Green's The Fault in Our Stars as my beach book for the AP English summer reading assignment. I tried to analyze it like I would analyze a script at the Yale School of Drama; I was super detail-oriented, trying to pick out the most minuscule things about location and connections back to history, and blow them up in attempt to force a worldly meaning out of them. I eventually got bored of that and essentially wrote my candid opinion about the book in my entries. I really enjoyed the book; it was the only book among the many I was reading for the assignment that was written in the 21st century, ergo it wasn't chocked full of flowery language that is supposed to contain deep metaphors and whatnot, but ends up only being used to show the readers what a big wig the author is. The language in this was blunt and frank. But in the case of this "beach book", it ended resonating more meaning to me than any of those "books of literary merit."
As it happens, with the last entry for the book, I ended up writing a four page rant about "Where is the justice in this world?". I didn't think that Augustus Waters deserved to die, it just wasn't fair, and it didn't help me feel any more worldly, no matter how many meanings could be extracted from his death. I mean, I knew that the book was a tear-machine, but come on John Green goddammit.
I felt the same way at the premiere of TFIOS (for those non-nerdfighting groupies, that is the book's acronym, pronounced Tif-ee-ose). Amazingly enough, it was exactly ten months to the day I started reading the book for my assignment. I sat in a theater filled with girls hysterically sobbing when Hazel Grace Lancaster receives a phone call in the middle of the night that her star-crossed-lover is gone. It didn't matter that Augustus Waters was a fictional character; it was the fact that he of all people died. He, who used to put death between his teeth and not let it kill him, he that would smile and make an entire audience feel a little more relaxed.
As I was driven home by my friend, they talked about how some people they had known had died in the same manner as Augustus Waters, only it took decades and decades of chemotherapy and radiation for it to happen. I made a very asshole-ish comment about not pulling the plug on it sooner if someone was suffering for so long. The simple answer they gave was, "Well, they loved life too much to give it up."
We sat in silence for the rest of the car ride. I was feeling terrible for what I had said, so I didn't want to speak again for fear of once again saying the wrong thing. I knew what I had said was awful, but there was a point I wanted to make. I just had conveyed it in the worst way possible.
What I wanted to talk about was the big picture aspect of the book that I discovered in front of the big screen. The idea of oblivion. Augustus' one desire in life is to be something. He played basketball, tried to live an extraordinary life, when at the end he falls tragically to cancer even before he can enroll in college. There is this incredible scene where Hazel tries to tell Augustus that even if you aren't in all the magazines and newspapers, that doesn't by any means that you aren't extraordinary. It is better to love deeply than widely. Augustus Waters did live a full life because he was able to change the life of Hazel for the better by bringing her out of depression and showing her the capacity of love.
Which is why, in a sad way, it was almost alright for Augustus to leave early. By the time that Augustus had died, he had already impacted a lot of people by loving them deeply. And there is no doubt that the deep love he gave have a ripple effect. Those who were shown love by him will spread the happiness and warmth he gave them. Without knowing it, Augustus Waters may have just made thousands of people happier before he lived twenty years. The little infinity he gave not only Hazel, but Isaac, his family, and everyone else he knew, will be ephemeral.
In a way (and this may be a reach but I'm feeling sentimental so suck it up) this idea to leave a legacy can be connected to my final days in high school. I can't say that I am a legend by any sense of the word (nor is anyone in my grade except for that matter), but that doesn't mean that I or anyone in my class didn't leave an impact on the high school. This entire year, I was trying to amount to something greater than myself. I wanted to get into an amazing college and get the lead in the school musical and beat out my friends in grades and win, win, win. I wanted to be in the papers and use my last year in New Canaan High School to go down in history as an amazing person. But I didn't need that to make an impact, nor did anyone in the class of 2014. We reached out to teachers, taught underclassmen life lessons directly, or indirectly made stupid mistakes that underclassmen can learn by. People might want to borrow our prom dresses we once rocked, or even want to "be as talented" as one of the seniors in the theatre department. When you think about it, many underclassmen (at one point or another) idolized seniors in high school. When I was a freshman, I wanted to be just as cool as the seniors, and they never knew that. The things that go unsaid often last longer than the things that do.
In a way, we all want to leave an impact. But just like Augustus Waters, although we entered this year wanting to accomplish great things or be great, even if we didn't do that, we have created a small infinity in high school by the ripple effect of our small acts of kindness.
I find it kind of sad that I could't realize this whole idea of oblivion until I reached the end of senior year (you could say that I was oblivious to the oblivion! At least I'm trying to be funny here). However, it is only fitting that the book that sparked my interest in AP English be the movie to end my year on a higher note than I have ever imagined.
Okay?
Okay.
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