Reading For Pleasure- Assignment – 1
Submitted by: Yazhini.K Roll.no: 171102067
II B.A English Literature
Novel: Paper Towns
-John Green
The most remarkable, unique, stunning piece of work by teen cherished writer John Green. It is the fourth jewel adorning his crown. He was awarded Edgar award for best young adult fiction of 2008 for this brilliant piece of art. It is a standalone, which revolves around the protagonist Quentin Jacobsen referred as ‘Q’ throughout the novel.
Quentin Jacobson was a dorky high school senior. He was so in love with popular and gorgeous Margo Roth Spiegelman, who lives next door. They grew up as friends but after middle school they got parted. His life was systematic until Margo showed up climbing through the window of his room like a ninja. She took him to an all-night adrenaline-pumping road adventure to mayhem and payback her friends who cheated on her. Q thought his life is going to change after that adventure but Margo goes missing for couple of days , even though it was her usual action but Q thinks she won’t return this time she left clues to her disappearance, like breadcrumbs for Q to follow. But all these lead us to the unavoidable question: Who is real Margo?
The allure of the story resides on the parting of books into three metaphorical titles: The Strings, The Grass, and The Vessel. The Strings revolves on the breaking and irreversible change, The Grass on the making memories of friends and family and at last The Vessel on the journey or the final destinations. Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of grass” and songs of Woody Guthrie acts as the backbone for this novel. It is a book of ideas than a fictional story. The character of Margo is so erratic and ingenious, she doesn’t travel all through the story but the idea of her is the axle of this novel. Writer speaks more about philosophy and discusses the identity of every invidual. “It is easy to forget how full the world is of people, full to bursting and each of them imaginable and constantly misimagnied”- Q’s words.
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It’s a hilarious novel which parody Christian beliefs, and search websites. Comic relief was provided by Ben Starling and Marcus “Radar”. They are friends of Q and were in the school band. Ben was known for his derogatory language and quest for finding a date for prom night. Whereas radar was so intellectual and creator of Omnictionary relatively like Wikipedia. At last Margo was found in a imaginary town Agloe near Newyork. Whether she joins Q to home or not is the story of the novel. The wonderful definition of true self was given at the end by Q as, “When did we see other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in, the light can get out.”
Thus Paper Towns is a stunning and hilarious book. It is filled with metaphors and ideas of human psychology. I hope that anyone and everyone could gain something from this novel.
