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Three things I hated about “The Fault in Our Stars”

This summer, like everyone else on the planet, I succumbed to the hysteria and read The Fault in Our Stars.  I laughed, I cried, I was moved.  I really liked this book–except when I hated it.  I know hate is a strong word and good people aren’t supposed to use it, but look:  it’s a lot more fun to write about what I hate than to write about what I deeply dislike.  You get me.

So, here is what I hated (ooh, that’s a rush!)  about The Fault in Our Stars:

  • I hated, hated, hated that they slept together.  Wait, “sleeping together” is a euphemism that muddles the facts on this issue.  Let me rephrase:  I hated that these two minor children went to a hotel room and had sex with each other. I know it was “AugustusandHazeltheCoolest,” I know they were superduper In Love, and I know that they were both soon to be taken by cancer and thus needed to experience the joys of the flesh before returning to the dust of the earth.  But really:  wasn’t it still teen sex?  What’s more, I hated the writer’s seduction of the reader, so that by the time they reached this point in the story, they were happy for the teen sex.  (After all, where is YOLO more applicable than to two dying cancer patients?)

I hated the subtle but powerful message that 1)  teen sex is okay (no, commendable!) as long as you’re In Love, 2) being In Love and Having Cancer makes it extra-okay, and 3) Being In Love, Having Cancer, and being Smart/Witty/Just Generally Cool makes it extrasuper okay.  Subtract the witty dialogue, subtract the heartwrenching illnesses, subtract the dire circumstances, and you still have teen sex, and it’s still wrong.  And I hate that now this same message has been plastered on the big screen.  I realize that teen sex is so common in the media that we barely bat an eye anymore, but maybe that’s the problem.  Maybe we need to get a little more indignant when it’s served up like popcorn to our already hormone-soaked children.

 

  • I hated how ridiculously articulate these kids were for their age.  Okay, I get the author’s angle:  snappy dialogue makes for much better reading than the standard “dude, like, whatever” of teen speech.  However, even the most verbally gifted teens (or adults, for that matter) do not constantly wax poetic the way these young folk did.  And though it did make for dynamic characters, it also made the characters seem much older than they were, which led us straight to Problem #1.

In the author’s defense, he is writing for a teen audience, and most teenagers actually see themselves as this insightful and articulate—they just can’t, um, articulate how, like, articulate they are.  And so August and Hazel give their adolescent audience a voice (i.e., that’s what I was gonna say!)  And while the advanced dialogue is entertaining, it’s a too-common thread, too frequently woven, in the cultural cloth that blurs child- and adulthood.  (See Problem #1.)

 

  • I hated how, through all the talk about dying, living, and loving, the idea of an afterlife or even (gasp!) diety was clearly absent.  Facing imminent death would, I imagine, force the Question of the Ages even upon two “intellectuals” like Hazel and Augustus.  There is one scene at the book’s end wherein Hazel sees children playing outside and has a warm fuzzy about the circle-of-life-in-general, and there are a couple short references to “not knowing” about a hereafter, but that’s about it.

This irked me because Augustus and Hazel are portrayed as the ultimate I.Q. studs, and so their ignorance of all things religious is conspicuous and, in my opinion, unrealistic.  I’ve always noticed that thoughtful people (like Hazel and Gus) tend to think about the larger questions of existence, which leads them to at least contend with the concept of religion.  But popular culture has written a narrative in which intellectualism (put a big fat “psuedo” in front of that) and religious belief cannot coexist.  And Green’s story strictly follows that narrative; these poor souls were zooming toward death’s door without an iota of interest in what might lie behind it.  Regardless of one’s family culture, it seems like the questions would have come up.

It would have been splendidly refreshing to see our heroes, at their life’s end, wrestle with religion, or even the vaguer notion of “faith.”  Even if they concluded a disbelief, chewing on the possibility would have lent authenticity to their plight; it’s what most people facing death do.  But alas, in this book, nothing.  Sad.  And so predictable.

And now for the fun part of my post, ’cause this is what I loved about The Fault in Our Stars:

  • The writing.  It was sharp, interesting, original, and oh-so-readable.  John Green is a genuine talent.
  • The plot.  Two cancer victims in a doomed relationship?  Green makes it work.  Bittersweet in the best sense; sincere but never saccharin.
  • The parents.  I loved (loved!) how tenderly, positively portrayed the parent-child relationships were in this book.  The parents loved their children and the children loved their parents, and their hearts broke constantly for one another.  No dark issues, no raging resentments.  Talk about splendidly refreshing.
  • Hazel and Augustus.  Loved them both.  Despite their inflated oratorial skills, the character development here was outstanding.  You meet them, you hang with with them, you love them, you are devastated for them.  Which is why this young adult book makes grown-ups cry.

And though I scathed some of the messages in this book, I loved some of the others, like how love as a youth can be as real and meaningful as love as an adult.  I believe that.  (But it still doesn’t justify Problem #1.)  I also loved the message that a girl with tubes in her nose can still be beautiful to the boy who loves her.  We need more of that.

Conclusion:  The Fault in Our Stars is just one more twisted, emotionally confusing puzzle in a long line of puzzles that my brain will have to sort out while while I’m doing laundry.

What did you think?  Did you read it?  Are you going to?  Tell me.  (No wrong answers here.  I won’t judge you if you loved the “love” scene.)  (Well, I might judge you a little.  But don’t worry, I won’t say so on this blog.)

I really liked “The Fault in Our Stars”–except when I hated it.

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Posted on by jsmith

Bella Voce

It’s that time of year again,  when my beloved Bella Voce whisks me away from the drone of small town life and catapults me, like a babe in the woods, into the glittering world of the literary elite.  Oh, the cocktails, the schmoozing, the name-dropping and agent-swapping circle of artists and poets!  It’s Genius meets Decadence at its best.

Well, actually, it’s lunch at a hotel in Portland.  But just go with it.

You may remember my last misadventure at Bella Voce wherein I stalked Rebecca Skloot–unsuccessfully–across the hotel ballroom in a desperate attempt to get a picture and a few moments of chitchat.  She somehow (unintentionally, I’m sure) skedaddled away from me and I had to settle for a long-range photo during the book signing, just like everyone else.  And the chitchat?  Forget it–her assistant snapped the shot and moved me through that line like common cattle.  I didn’t exchange a single pleasantry with Ms. Skloot and, truth be told, she didn’t seem all that excited about having me as a fan.  (Go figure.)  And though I always love BellaVoce, the gray February sky that hung over me as I drove home that day reflected my mood just a bit.  I’d spent the afternoon listening to an articulate, matter-of-fact woman talk about stem cell research.  It was interesting; it was informative.  It was moral.  It was what it was.

Fast forward three months to a dazzlingly sunny day in May.  Cruising down the Gorge with my sunroof open wide, I watched the sagebrush turn to rock turn to shrubs turn to trees, the metamorphosis taking place along the sweep of the sparkling Columbia River.  It was one of those rare spring days when the sunshine from the east held steady all the way to the west, and I took this as a bright sign of things to come.  For though I was going to see an author I’d never heard of (Jess Walter) talk about a book I’d never read (Beautiful Ruins), I just knew that this time, I’d get everything right.  The stalking, the photo-opting, the chitchat.  Oh, the chitchat!  My husband says I’m the only person alive who uses that word, but he obviously has no appreciation for the art–or etymology–of the chitchat.  Of course he doesn’t; he’s an engineer.  Engineers don’t understand that chitchat is the fiber by which we weave our cultural threads.  Jess Walter, I’m sure, would.  He may be a male, but he was a male writer.  And that means he’d be capable of chitchat.

I made it to town, parked the car, and ran-walked into the hotel.  I headed for the ballroom where my friend Lisa would be waiting for me, but upon breezing through the open doors, I quickly learned that I had made a wrong turn and instead landed in Italy.  For suddenly I was awash in a sea of blue and green gauziness.  The tables and chairs were covered in white linens and aqua tulle with glassy beads poured over every spare surface.  Enormous Italian landscapes graced the walls which, with the scent of fresh flowers that spilled over the tables, assured every person in the room that they had just stepped inside their dream vacation.  And when the writer approached the podium and began to speak, so we had.  He was that good.  And the day was that dreamy.

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Me with my darling friend Lisa, Bella Voce benefactress and the woman I’ll be in my next life.

Jess Walter was brilliant and funny and fascinating and self-deprecating.  He’s a New York Times bestselling author, a finalist for the National Book Award, has had his novels published in over thirty languages, and yet still lives in his childhood home of (drumroll please…) Spokane, Washington.  An east-sider!  You may remember me joking, in my last Bella Voce post, that the next author I stalked might think I’m “crushing” on him?  Fifteen minutes into his speech, those words became prophetic.  He had me at “Spokane.”

Jess Walter was brilliant and funny and fascinating and self-deprecating.

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He talked about his latest book, Beautiful Ruins, which is set between 1960s Italy (hence, the ballroom decor) and modern-day Hollywood.  Can you think of anything more fun to read this summer?  I can’t—and I can’t think of anyone more fun to listen to than Jess Walter.  When his lecture (comedy routine) was over and the Q&A session wrapping up, Lisa leaned over to me and whispered, “Are you going for a signing again?”

“Are you kidding?  I’m not just going for the signing; I’m going to meet him, and talk to him, and get my photo with him, and run off with him.”  Wait.  Did I say that last part out loud?

“What?”

“Um, I’m going to get my picture with him.”

Before Mr. Walter had even stepped down from the stage, Lisa had cleared a beeline for me straight to his person, around which numerous middle-aged women were already clustering.  We approached him from behind and, in a gesture diametrically opposite to that of Rebecca Skloot (who, you may recall, kept walking away from me), Mr. Walters turned around and said “Hello there!” with a wide smile, as though he’d been expecting us both.  Lisa wasted no time in stepping back a few feet with her camera and telling us to pose.  That woman is efficient, I’m telling you.  She knew that just a few misplaced seconds and a determined assistant could snatch away our subject and foil my plans.

“Oh, you want a picture?” Jess asked me.

“Um, yeah–yes, if that’s okay?”

“You bet!”    And so inside of a minute (that plays out in my mind like a week) we took the photo, we shook hands, we stood and chitchatted.  And at the risk of getting too personal on this blog, let me just say that if things don’t work out with Derrick, I have a solid Plan B.

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Jen and Jess, together for ever a minute

And ladies, it gets better:  he was the one who suggested I hold up the book, so I could remember what the lecture had been about.  Oh Jess…as if I could ever forget!  And then, as Lisa wisely foresaw, he was scurried off to his signing table where a huge line had already formed.  Well past discretion by now, I galloped straight behind him and staked my claim in line.  When my turn finally arrived, he looked up with (what I was sure was) a spark of welcome recognition.

“Well hello again!”

“Hi!”  I may have said this a little too loudly.  “Ha ha–I’m stalking you!  Ha ha!”  My eyes were wide (dialated) and my smile friendly (eager).

“Well, that’s great.  I always wished my stalkers had more energy.”  He was smiling patiently, but wait…did he mean I was coming off as too energetic?  Impossible.  I couldn’t think of anything to say except:

“Well…yeah…I do!  Ha ha!”  This may have been said, again, a little too loudly.  But in true Jess Walter fashion, he  was gracious and smooth and simply asked me a few more questions about myself as he signed my Beautiful Ruins in his beautiful hand.  And what you need to understand is that my book was already signed on the inside cover; that’s a standard courtesy the visiting authors perform for all Bella Voce guests.  Now, however, he would write his own, personal greeting on the title page.  To me.

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And with these fifteen words, Jess Walter transformed me from Stalker to Groupie to Fan to Friend.  In my own mind, at least.  Which is, rather happily, a beautiful ruin of its own.

 

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The Elegance of the Hedgehog and Anna Karenina

So last weekend I finally got around to opening The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a bestselling novel that has been collecting dust under my bed for the last three years—along with a myriad of other bestselling novels that, one fine day, I am going to read.  (One Fine Day—oh, how I love you!)

I can barely put this book down, though I’m forcing myself to on occasion, simply to delay the ending of it.  It’s the same logic that keeps me hanging on to a gift card for a year after I’ve received it because once I spend it, see, I won’t have it anymore.  If I finish The Elegance of the Hedgehog, I will no longer get to read The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and we certainly can’t have that.  Because it is (excuse the pompous word) exquisite.

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The narrative alternates between the voice of a stodgy middle-aged apartment concierge (who, beneath her working class exterior, is a raging intellectual) and that of a brilliant, disillusioned twelve-year old girl who lives in the same building.  They ruminate on life and literature and art and human beings and it is just a riot.  Despite their numerous references to all things high-brow, the characters are deeply human–and hilarious–while they serve up mind-bending insights.  One of my favorites so far is a passage in which the concierge (Renee) describes a scene from Anna Karenina.  This scene finds Levin, an aristocrat who has no need to work his own fields, nevertheless choosing one day to scythe alongside his peasant workers.  Renee writes in her journal:

Levin’s arms and shoulders are soaked in sweat, but with each successive pause and start, his awkward, painful gestures become more fluid.  A welcome breeze suddenly caresses his back.  A summer rain.  Gradually, his movements are freed from the shackles of his will, and he goes into a light trance which gives his gestures the perfection of conscious, automatic motion, without thought or calculation, and the scythe seems to move of its own accord.  Levin delights in the forgetfulness that movement brings, where the pleasure of doing is marvelously foreign to the striving of the will.

russian-reaping

Nice, but what Renee wrote next is what got me:

This is eminently true of many happy moments in life.  Freed from the demands of decision and intention, adrift on some inner sea, we observe our various movements as if they belonged to someone else, and yet we admire their involuntary excellence.  What other reaon might I have for writing this—ridiculous journal of an aging concierge—if the writing did not have something of the art of scything about it?  The lines gradually become their own demiurges and, like some witless yet miraculous participant, I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that I neither knew nor thought I might want to know.  This painless birth, like an unsolicited proof, gives me untold pleasure, and with neither toil nor certainty but the joy of frank astonishment I follow the pen that is guiding and supporting me.

 “I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that I neither knew nor thought I might want to know.” 

Goodness, Renee is on to something.  Isn’t that precisely why we write, to figure out what we think about things?  It’s why, though few people call themselves “writers,” so many of us keep blogs, or even journals.  It’s why we write marathon texts; why we pour our hearts out in emails we know we’ll never send.  Like frumpy and frustrated Renee, we are all trying, with our varied voices and viewpoints, to learn what we never even knew we wanted to know.

And here is what I learned from this passage:  everyone is—or should be—their own kind of writer.  On some level, at some point, each of us is driven to communicate and make our own voice heard.  Some do it with words, some with pictures, others with music.  But when we are truly engaged with it our chosen medium will, like Levin’s scythe, invite us each into that “light trance” and then “move of its own accord.” That is the place where we will learn something that we neither knew nor thought we might want to know.  We can start by reading and looking and listening but, ultimately, we will get there only by writing and painting and composing.   We will get there only by doing.

Everyone is—or should be—their own kind of writer.

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So.  What do you want to know that you never knew nor thought you might want to know?

As for me, I don’t know.  But I think I’ll start writing and find out.