one like Alaska
One like Alaska (English original title Looking for Alaska ) is the award-winning debut novel by the American writer John Green . The youth novel was published in 2005 by Dutton ( Penguin Verlag ) and was published in 2007 in the German translation by Sophie Zeitz by Carl Hanser Verlag .
The book is about 16-year-old Miles Halter, who is going to boarding school in Alabama. There he falls in love with his classmate Alaska Young, who fascinates and at the same time overwhelms him. As the school year progresses, they slowly grow closer until Alaska is killed in an accident in January. Miles and his friends begin to work out the reason for their sudden death, realizing how important Alaska was to all of them.
Structure and plot
The story is told by protagonist Miles Halter, who looks back on the events from a first-person perspective . He describes individual scenes in detail in chronological order.
The novel is divided into two parts, which are headed in the German translation with Before (orig. Before ) and After (orig. After ). Both parts are again divided into short sections, the headings of which indicate the number of days until or since the central event, the death of Alaska. So the book begins with the section one hundred and thirty-six days before and ends with one hundred and thirty-six days after . However, days and whole weeks are skipped over and over again, which are usually briefly summarized in the following section.
Before
"Now I'm going to look for the big maybe"
The first part of the novel begins with a farewell party Miles' parents throw for their son. The 16-year-old teenager is his native Florida leave to in Alabama the boarding Culver Creek to visit. As Miles expects, only two people appear at the celebration as he is not popular at his previous school.
When his parents asked him why he decided to move to Culver Creek , he quotes the last words of the French poet Rabelais: He would like to go “in search of the great maybe”. Finding and learning the last words of famous people is Miles' hobby.
In Culver Creek , Miles first met his roommate Chip Martin, nicknamed "The Colonel". Miles gets the nickname “Pummel” (orig. Pudge ) from him , “because [...] [he] is a beanpole [...]. It's called irony. ”This is the name the Colonel also uses to introduce him to Alaska Young, with whom Miles falls in love at first sight.
"[...] in front of me stood the hottest creature the world had ever seen in cut off jeans and a pink undershirt."
On his first night, Miles is tied up with tape by some day students and thrown into the lake on the school grounds. The reason for this seems to be that he shares the room with the Colonel. Then Alaska, the Colonel and Miles decide to get back at the perpetrators with their own prank.
As the novel progresses, Miles' affection for Alaska grows, but she has a boyfriend in college . However, she often gives Miles to understand that she has feelings for him too. Alaska asks him to stay at school with her over Thanksgiving and not go home to his parents. Nevertheless, she introduces him to Lara Buterskaya, who comes from Romania and who eventually becomes Miles' girlfriend.
Miles, Alaska, Lara and Takumi, another friend, spend the night in a barn in front of the school premises during a large-scale prank against the day students. In the course of the evening they learned from Alaska that she saw her mother's death as an 8-year-old. Instead of dialing 911, she watched paralyzed with fear as her mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage . Although her father finally forgave her, she feels guilty.
Two days later, the Colonel and Alaska, both drunk, are playing Truth or Dare with Miles . Alaska's first assignment for Miles is “Kiss me.” Later that evening, Alaska calls her boyfriend on the phone and returns to the room, agitated and hysterical. She asks Miles and the Colonel to help her leave the school grounds unnoticed. Despite concerns and without knowing their destination, they help the drunken Alaska drive away in their car.
After that
The second part of the book begins with a general assembly of the school community, at which "The Eagle" (orig. The Eagle ), the contact teacher Mr. Starnes, informs the students that Alaska was killed in a car accident. Miles, who was hoping for the romance to continue, is desperate and blames herself for her death:
“I thought: I am to blame.
I thought: I'm sick.
I thought: I have to throw up. "
After getting over the initial shock, Miles and the Colonel try to find out what happened that night. Both feel guilty about Alaska's death for letting her drive drunk. So they keep secret from the others what happened the previous evening.
Over the next few weeks, they searched Alaska's room, spoke to a police officer who was an eyewitness to the accident, and tried to find out how drunk Alaska was at the time of her death. In doing so, they come to the conclusion that Alaska's accident could have been suicide, even if they see no motive for it.
While the school management is building a playground in memory of Alaska, her friends are playing a prank at the school in her honor. For the "Expert Day", on which speakers from outside the school hold lectures for the students, they hire a stripper who goes by the code name Dr. William Morse gives a lecture on the sexuality of adolescents.
It was only shortly before the end of the school year that Miles and the Colonel discovered, by chance, a connection between Alaska's accident and the early death of their mother: Alaska had placed white flowers on her grave on every day of her death, but this time she forgot the anniversary due to previous events. Desperate about it and about her guilt for her mother's early death, she wanted to make up for it. A motive for the eventual suicide has thus been found. Until the end, however, it is left open whether Alaska's death was really suicide or an accident. In a letter at the beginning of the summer vacation, Takumi reports to the Colonel and Miles that he saw and spoke to Alaska on the night they died. As a result, he now shares the blame for Alaska's death with his friends.
Origin and background
John Green began working on One Like Alaska in the fall of 2001 after working for Booklist , the American Library Association's magazine , for a while . There he came into contact with modern youth literature for the first time and discovered it as his profession. Green says he wrote the book in three to four years, although work was delayed due to the separation from his girlfriend at the time. In addition, he wrote almost the entire novel from an initial draft.
The plot and the characters in One Like Alaska are based in large part on John Green's own experiences in high school . Like Miles, he grew up in Florida. He was also unpopular since middle school and after his first year in high school switched to a boarding school near Birmingham , Alabama, the Indian Springs School , from which he graduated in 1995. According to his own statement, Culver Creek is almost identical to the Indian Springs School in 1995, many of the locations described in the novel can also be found on the grounds of the real model. The prank on the stripper that Miles and his friends play at the end of the school year is based on a very similar prank that John Green and his classmates put on at the end of their school days.
Like Miles, John Green has been concerned with the last words of famous people since his youth . In the epilogue to Eine wie Alaska , Green points out that he specifically selected the two most important last words of the book, those of Rabelais and Bolívar, from several traditional variants each for the story. He also gives the sources of all last words used on his website.
When readers asked what exactly happened to Alaska, Green replied on his homepage that he “doesn't know any more about what happened to Alaska than you know.” He was also aware of this while working on the book . Green leaves it up to the reader to decide whether to rate the death of Alaska as an accident or a suicide.
reception
The novel was received positively by both young readers and critics. Particular emphasis was placed on John Green's closeness to his characters, his fidelity to reality and the fact that one like Alaska is the author's first book.
The US magazine KLIATT compared the story of Miles with that of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger , a classic of American youth literature.
Awards
One like Alaska has won several significant awards internationally. One year after it was first published, John Green received the Michael L. Printz Award for his work in 2006 for special services to American youth literature. In the same year, Eine wie Alaska was also on the list of the best youth books of the American Library Society ALA ( ALA Best Books for Young Adults ), received a Teens' Top 10 Award and was a Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers . In 2005, Eine wie Alaska was also on the shortlist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize .
In Germany, the novel was nominated for the German Youth Literature Prize in 2008, both in the youth book category and for the Youth Jury Prize. The youth jury particularly emphasized the fact that the story was "true to life" and "excitingly written". The jury of the youth book division also praised the author:
"John Green manages a fast-paced and entertaining boarding school story with everything that goes with pranks and secret smokes and drinks. Above all, however, he impressively portrays his classmate Alaska, as a projection surface for all boyish desires and as an iridescent borderline personality. "
In the same year, Eine wie Alaska was also on the shortlist of the Austrian jury of young readers in the age group 15/16 years and on the recommendation list of the Catholic Children's and Youth Book Prize of the German Bishops' Conference .
In March 2007 the novel was awarded the LUCHS of the month, which is awarded by the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and Radio Bremen . Here, too, the jury found that Green was “close to his people's attitude to life” and knew “their very special language”.
Other awards in German-speaking countries included a Bronzener Lufti (July 2007), the title JuBu Book of the Month (April 2007) and, in February 2007, the title Book of the Month from the Institute for Youth Literature . In the US, the book was also named A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age and A Booklist Editor's Choice Pick , and it was part of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection and Borders Original Voices Selection .
Controversy in the US
In the United States , the book has been described as pornographic and repulsive on several occasions for its portrayal of sexual acts. The main characters' handling of alcohol and cigarettes and their behavior towards authorities was also criticized. This was accompanied by demands, especially from parents, to ban the book as school reading.
Various interest groups that oppose the censorship of literature contradicted these efforts to get a ban. According to them, the offending content is important for the narrative and also provides an opportunity to talk about topics such as sexuality and drugs. In addition, what is read as reading in schools should not be determined by a minority. This is solely the task of the trained teachers.
John Green himself has also taken several positions on the allegations that his work is pornographic. He also accused the critics of viewing the offending scenes in isolation and not in the context of the story. He explained in an interview:
“Some people say,“ You wrote a dirty, dirty book. ”But it has a lot of old-fashioned values and even a whole lot of religion. There are some adults who think that the only moral that matters is sexual morality. As a result, they overlook everything else that happens in this book. "
This criticism did not arise in the German-speaking area; the book was unanimously recommended by the publisher and critics for young people aged 12 or 13, while in the USA it was classified in some cases similar, but in some cases as reading for significantly older high school students.
filming
Paramount Pictures secured the rights to the film as early as 2005 . As a screenwriter and director was initially Josh Schwartz , the creator of The OC , effectively, there must be produced the film version of Mark Waters (including Freaky Friday ) and Jessica Tuchinsky. In his video blog John Green announced that the title of the film based on the hobby of the protagonist Famous Last Words (dt. Famous last words will be). In addition, the plot has been changed significantly compared to the book.
In an interview in March 2009, John Green commented negatively about the slow production of the film and said that, given the circumstances, he would “not be angry if the film is not made”. In 2010 the author wrote on his website that the production of the film had been postponed indefinitely. Schwartz's script is excellent, but Paramount Pictures doesn't seem to be interested in realizing it.
On June 26, 2014, Green announced on Twitter that Sarah Polley had been signed as the new director and screenwriter. He himself is a big fan of Polley and is looking forward to her implementation of the book.
In June 2015 it was announced that Rebecca Thomas would now be the director of the film. The current version of the script was written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber , who already wrote the screenplay for Das Schicksal ist ein Lous Betrayer .
In May 2018, the VoD platform Hulu announced that Paramount TV and Fake Empire would produce an eight-part live series under the direction of Josh Schwartz. John Green will be involved in the series production of his book as executive producer with Stephanie Savage , Jessica Tuchinsky , Mark Waters and Marty Bowen . The broadcast of the series Eine wie Alaska began in October 2019. Since January 2020, the series can be seen on the streaming service Joyn.
expenditure
- John Green: Looking for Alaska. Penguin Group (USA), March 2005, ISBN 978-0-525-47506-4 (first edition)
- John Green: Looking for Alaska. Penguin Group (USA), December 2006, ISBN 978-0-14-240251-1 (Paperback)
There are also other paperback editions.
Looking for Alaska has been broadcast in more than ten languages since it first appeared in 2005 .
German editions
- John Green: One like Alaska. German by Sophie Zeitz. Hanser publishing house. Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-446-20853-7 (German first edition)
- John Green: One like Alaska. German by Sophie Zeitz. Hanser series in Deutsches Taschenbuch Verlag , Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-423-62403-9 (paperback)
Audio book
- John Green: One like Alaska. German by Sophie Zeitz, spoken by Andreas Fröhlich . Silberfisch in Audiobook Hamburg, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-86742-642-8 (unabridged reading).
Web links
- John Green's website for One like Alaska
- A Readers Guide to Looking for Alaska (English; PDF; 925 kB)
- John Green: Looking for Alaska at My High School (Video) visit the author at the Indian Springs School , where he some of the locations of Looking for Alaska presents
Individual evidence
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 289
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 7, 9
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 10
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 17f, 27
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 21
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 22
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 38, 40
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 41f
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 109
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 105
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 169
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 140, 169
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 164f
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 179
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 181f
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 25
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 185
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 183
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 186
- ^ A b John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 207f
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 193, 199
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 195
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 215ff
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 239f, 242
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 217, 221f, 243
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 266
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 269f, 272
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 264
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 282
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, pp. 290f
- ↑ a b c d Karen MacPherson: John Green: from bad boy to Printz Award winner ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h biography on the official homepage of John Green.
- ↑ a b c d e f John Green: Questions about Looking for Alaska ( Memento of the original dated December 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i John Green: The Fog is Rising: About Looking for Alaska
- ^ John Green: Advice on Dumb Boyfriends, Going to College, and More Videoblog on YouTube . Retrieved May 12, 2010.
- ^ Anna Minard: How John Green Won the Internet. In: The Stranger. February 28, 2012, accessed on March 4, 2012 : “He tends to shy away from what-parts-of-this-are-real questions to an unusual degree. His first novel, Looking for Alaska, is so heavily based on his own boarding-school experiences that as a bookseller, I once had a customer who'd gone to school with John pepper me with rapid-fire questions about the plot, completely dumbstruck and looking kind of freaked out about how much of it was recognizable to him. But John has always seemed a little touchy about that book and its doomed love interest, Alaska — which probably just fires up hardcore fans' curiosity further. In a Q&A on his website, he answers the question "Did you know an Alaska?" with "That is the rare question that is too personal." "
- ^ A b Indian Springs School: Alumni of Note
- ↑ John Green, Looking for Alaska at My High School (video) Published on YouTube on August 6, 2010. Retrieved August 26, 2010.
- ^ John Green: John Green's Legendary High School Prank ( March 7, 2008 memento on the Internet Archive ) Post on YouTube , published December 8, 2007. Retrieved July 23, 2010.
- ^ A b John Green: Last Words: The Source Notes
- ↑ John Green: Famous Last Words Video Blog on YouTube . Retrieved May 12, 2010.
- ↑ John Green: One like Alaska. Munich 2009, p. 287f
- ^ "I don't know anything more about what happened to Alaska than you do." Sparksflyup.com
- ↑ a b c d German Youth Literature Prize 2008 - statement of the youth jury
- ↑ a b c Hilde Elisabeth Menzel: With the holy seriousness of a teenager . In: Die Zeit , No. 12/2007, for the award of the 241st lynx of the month
- ↑ a b c Paula Rohrlick: Green, John. Looking for Alaska. Published in KLIATT , 2005.
- ↑ 2006 Michael L. Printz Award Winner ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the American Library Association home page
- ^ A b c John Green: Looking for Alaska Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ 2006 Best Books for Young Adults with annotations ( Memento of the original dated February 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the American Library Association home page
- ↑ German Youth Literature Prize - Nominations 2008 - Youth Book
- ↑ German Youth Literature Prize - Nominations 2008 - Prize of the Youth Jury
- ↑ a b German Youth Literature Prize 2008 - statement of the jury for the youth book section
- ↑ List of recommendations for the Catholic Children's and Young People's Book Prize 1979 to 2008 ( Memento of the original from September 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Homepage of the JuBu crew under Archive - 2007 - Book of the Month - April 2007
- ^ A b c John Green: I am not a pornographer. Declaration by the author on January 30, 2008 on his homepage
- ^ A b John Green: Banned in My Hometown: What's a Kid to Do. ( Memento of the original from June 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Blog post from September 29, 2009
- ^ A b Joan Bertin, Chris Finan, and Jonathon Welch: Looking For Alaska Challenged At Depew High School. ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Letter to the Superintendent and Members of the Board of Education of the Depew Union Free School District.
- ↑ from: Karen MacPherson: John Green: from bad boy to Printz Award winner. ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The original quote is: "Some people say, 'You wrote a dirty, dirty book.' But there are very old-fashioned values and even a lot of religion in it. There are some adults who think that the only kind of ethics that matter are sexual ethics. So they miss everything else that is going on in the book. "
- ^ John Green: One like Alaska on the homepage of the Hanser Verlag
- ↑ Looking for Alaska at Barnes & Noble
- ↑ Looking for Alaska ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the homepage of the Penguin Group
- ↑ Interview with Josh Schwartz at Buzzsugar
- ↑ John Green's video blog
- ↑ Mark Bazer: John Green - The Interview Show Part 2 ( Memento of May 9, 2013 on the Internet Archive ) Published March 18, 2009. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
- ↑ John Green: Movie Questions ( Memento of the original from June 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 25, 2010.
- ↑ http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/24/rebecca-thomas-direct-adaptation-john-greens-looking-alaska
- ↑ Natalie Jarvey: John Green's 'Looking for Alaska' TV Series From Josh Schwartz Set at Hulu. In: The Hollywood Reporter . May 9, 2018, accessed May 11, 2018 .
