The Fault In Our Stars: John Green - a review

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you

become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” 

     Such was my zeal when I heard about 'The fault in our stars'. As John Green continues to be one of my favorite authors and his book 'Looking for Alaska' my favorite book till date. But as always high hopes never land you as expected. I found myself struggling to like the book by the end of it. But as rightly quoted in the book itself - 

“The world is not a wish-granting factory.” 

And true that! I would not say my favorite author lived unto my expectations which frankly would be inhuman after his first work, but he managed to provide a good book that made me appreciate my weirdness a little bit more.

“You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.” 

Many said a lot of times about this book that it’s not a cancer book, it’s just a book about people who happen to have cancer. That…is a nice sentiment. And I wouldn’t necessarily call The Fault in Our Stars a “cancer book.” But if you avoid “cancer books” because of the things that are in them, namely…well, cancer…then this book isn’t going to be any different for you. It’s still extremely depressing, it’s still characters being forced to realize their own mortality, and it still has the kind of plotl ine that gets progressively more hopeless, because…that’s what cancer’s like. So if you avoid cancer books for those reasons, then yes, this is a cancer book.

That's the thing about pain...it demands to be felt.” 

One thing John Green consistently succeeds at (which is my favorite thing about the book) in this book is the depth of the thoughts of the two main characters, Augustus and Hazel. The way they approach and consider their lives and their circumstances are fresh and unlike anything I’ve read before, and they’re so heartfelt that you are sort of forced to step back from the text and realize that John Green is the one thinking all these thoughts. All the things Hazel and Augustus think and say about the nature of identity and how it relates to circumstance, the purpose of existence, the effect you can and should have on those around you, etc. are the realistic and intensely personal thoughts of these dying teenagers brought to life through the mind of a healthy adult male.

I think it takes an extreme amount of skill to portray the kind of thoughts a completely different person would be having in a completely different circumstance than you in a way that rings true, and ultimately, that is the true challenge of any writer.

“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.” 

Although not-a-cancer-book but the book still is around the characters who try really hard to focus on things less important than their cancer stricken lives but still come around to it again and again. I appreciate the effect that tragedy and mortality have on a character and on a reader, but it somehow becomes the heart and soul of the book and things that are actually impressive about the book - namely the thoughts and ideologies of the characters takes a sidetrack. 

“Without pain, how could we know joy?' This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.” 

      The main character Hazel keeps talking about her favorite book in the book - 'An Imperial Affliction' which suffers from a cliffhanger ending. The characters chase the writer all the way to Amsterdam in order to know what happens to the characters in the book. What I liked about 'Fault in our stars' is that John Green made a connection between both these books really well but unlike the cliffhanger in 'An imperial affliction', he made sure that the readers have a hint of what would happen to the characters within the book. But that still leaves a lot to the reader's imagination. And I like such challenges! 

Favourite Book Quote - 

“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” 

A couple of days before Augustus dies, he asks his blind best friend to write his eulogy and edits it for him - 

“Augustus Waters was a self-aggrandizing bastard. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he had a heart as figuratively good as his literal one sucked, or because he knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any nonsmoker in history, or because he got eighteen years when he should've gotten more.'

'Seventeen,' Gus corrected.'I'm assuming you've got some time, you interrupting bastard.'I'm telling you,' Isaac continued, 'Augustus Waters talked so much that he'd interupt you at his own funeral. And he was pretentious: Sweet Jesus Christ, that kid never took a piss without pondering the abundant metaphorical resonances of human waste production. And he was vain: I do not believe I have ever met a more physically attractive person who was more acutely aware of his own physical attractiveness.'But I will say this: When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him.'

P.S. I love a book for its quotes and there was a picture for each and every quote. :)

http://nj-bibliophile.blogspot.in

“ANIMAL FARM” By “George Orwell”

Animal Farm

Supremacy can drive anyone crazy and this is the theme of George Orwell’s 

short novel, which eloquently and vividly describes the reason of failure of “communism”. Orwell himself exclaims” it is the history of a revolution that went wrong”.

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing” ― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Animal farm” is an ironic story where in the beginning the animal’s patience was tested till the breaking point. Afterwards they rebel and drive out Mr. Jones, their master. At that juncture, they have dreamt to have a state of their own based on the foundation of equality and respect. But with time, the whole system breaks down due to the tyranny of pigs.

“The only good human being is a dead one.” ― George Orwell, Animal Farm

Revolution has good start with “seven commandments” and a motto of “generating self esteem among fellow animals”. Whether feeble or strong, plain or intellectual, it is ensured that all got equal opportunities in terms of living with contentment and enjoying life.

“Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.” ― George Orwell, Animal Farm

But under the leadership of domineering pig, Napoleon, pigs go on height of craziness. They go on delivering absurd commands, killing fellow animal beings. The shrewd napoleon has also chased out snowball who works for the goodwill of animals. The pigs make others believe that snowball is responsible for all evil happenings. Squealer, a brilliant orator who can anytime swing the argument to his side, manages to alter all the seven commandments. The story teaches us how the pigs, once a four leg comrades turn into dictators .The story has parallels with history of soviet reign. We can identify napoleon as Stalin, snowball as Trotsky, and boxer as simple soviet people with “I will work hard “as answers to all questions.

Animalism is a philosophy that Animal Farm adopted to unite the animals against humans. The short form of it is “Four legs good, two legs bad!”. The original commandments are:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

Gradually, absolute power corrupts the pigs and they start to break their own rules and hide their manipulation by altering the rules:

1. No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets.
2. No animal shall drink alcohol to excess.
3. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.

All laws are replaced with “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”, and “four legs good, two legs better!” as the pigs become more human.

The downfall of communism was due to the concentration of power in selected hands which hampered the dissemination of resources among the masses. The whole story is aptly concluded by the last line “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which”.

‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini

“There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

 'The kite runner' ;before reading, it was one of those books for me that you see everywhere. On the shelves, in a bookstore, lying by the bedside of a friend, bookshelf of your room-mate, on random flipkart advertisements in the mail, but somehow it just kept getting ignored, tagged as commonplace, never really got lured enough by it to read it. But then came a day when I ran out of books and finally picked it up from my room mate's shelf for a light reading on the flight. 

“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Guess what? When people say "Try this! I swear it will change your life" mine changed half way through the book.

It became those books that got into my head and took a long time to get out. This is a powerful, raw, emotional and honest novel. A good part of the power of the Kite Runner comes from its relevance and importance to today’s world. 

'The Kite runner" is a tale of betrayal and redemption that rises above time and place while simultaneously remaining firmly anchored against the tumultuous backdrop of modern Afghanistan. The Afghanistan that very few of us know or even care to remember; at a time when its streets and people were not ravaged by the mania of religious extremism and war; when it was (believe it or not) a country of prosperity and liberal thought.

“You're gutless. It's how you were made. And that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is... God help him.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

The story deals with themes of sacrifice, loyalty, father-son relationships, betrayal and eventual redemption. All the characters have their own secret sins and regrets, and as the novel progresses time manages to unearth even the most deeply buried ones.

“A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

It is a pretty famous book and a well known story, so I don't feel the need to summarize the story in the review. As to what I felt about the book - I found the book morally challenging. There are characters in the book that have been immensely praised by the narrator, infact they have been given such a powerful image that you would not dare question them on moral grounds. But later part proves whatever they did was out of guilt.

“True redemption is...when guilt leads to good."

“And this is what I want you to understand, that good, real good, was born out of your father's remorse. Sometimes, I thing everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“After everything he'd built, planned, fought for, fretted over, dreamed of, this was the summation of his life; one disappointing son and two suitcases.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“For you, a thousand times over” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

You also come across a character who is selfless, no matter what the situation is. It makes you wonder, makes you question, makes you doubt and eventually makes you feel disgusted with yourself. Which is a part of what happened to the main character in the book and the connection that you you form with the main character by relating it to your own life at this moment is priceless. Because all of us at some point in our life have been faced with better people who are cruelly good to us, making us question our own virtues.

“A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Readers recognize their own lives in the dirty social secrets and the dignity, integrity and in the end strength of the characters. In one way or another, they’ve been there themselves, and are moved sometimes to tears by this recognition and what the writer has done with his words.

It is definitely one of those books that gets tucked in your thoughts, drives the moral driver in you, maybe not in executing the right turns but atleast helping you realize the wrong ones and feeling the imperative guilt for them. But mostly, this is a book about choices, mistakes and redemption.

“In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Zindagi migzara (life goes on)” 

I found this video online which completely defines the experience I had when reading the book, the thing that I loved about it was the right timing of the quotes :)

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner