Looking for Alaska

Ma olen korra juba maininud, et ma satun viimasel ajal Young Adult raamatuid lugema. Seekord siis sattus pihku (no tegelikult laenutasin raamatukogust e-raamatu) John Greeni "Looking for Alaska". Alaska kui tüdruku nimi, mitte Alaska kui osariik. Lugu jutustab 16-aastane Miles, kes otsustab minna Alabamasse internaatkooli (rikaste boarding school). Otsus, millest ta vanemad kuidagi aru ei saanud, kuni ta neile selgitas:

"So this guy," I said, standing in the doorway of the living room. "Francois  Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last word were "I go to seek the Great Perhaps". That's why I'm going. So I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps." 

Koolis sattus ta ühte kampa oma toanaabri Koloneli (tegelik nimi Chip) ja Alaskaga, kelle kohta võiks olla, et nad on bad news. Bad news sellepärast, et tundus, et nende lemmiktegevus oli suitsetada ja juua. Üks asi, mis raamatus häiris, oligi pidev suitsuteema (nojah, sellepärast ka kaanel suits?). Alkoholi nii pidevalt ja põhjalikult ei promotud. Alaska, kellesse Miles muidugi ära armus, oli üldse omaette frukt. Ma nüüd ei tea, kas huvitav frukt või lihtsalt kergelt cuckoo.

"Why do you smoke so damn fast?" I asked. /.../ She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, "Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die." 

"Well, later, I found out what it means. It's from an Aleut word, Alyeska. It means "that which the sea breaks against", and I love that. But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be. And it was damn far away from Vine Station, Alabama, just like I wanted to be."

Ja nagu Greeni raamatus "The Fault in Our Stars", nii ka selles raamatus arutatakse surma ja elu üle. Kuigi see raamat oli osati "too much smoking, drinking, sex, ... ", siis sellesse pikitud filosofeerimine ja tahtmine näha, kas Miles ikkagi leiab oma Suure Võib-olla, hoidis nina raamatus. Üks küsimus, mis raamatus läbivalt esile kerkib, on "how do you get out of this labyrith?".

"You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never  do it. You just use the future to escape the present."

"It's not life or death, the labyrinth."
"Um, okay. So what is it?"
"Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?"
"What's wrong?" I asked. And I felt the absence of her hand on me.
"Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about."

Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life /.../.