It’s rare that I talk about John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars without making copious use of the word ‘but.’ For example: “It’s a young-adult novel, but it’s really good.” Or, alternatively: “It’s a love story, but it’s not just a love story.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with young adults, love, or young adults in love. (As has previously been established during the Year of Mercy, young adults are awesome.) But the things that work best about The Fault in Our Stars don’t bear much resemblance to the petulant displays of passion that most people think about when they hear the words “teenage romance.”
The reason that adult-adults (and especially Catholic adults) should read it—and the reason that it’s worth considering in relation to the Works of Mercy—is that protagonists Hazel and Gus come closer to achieving a sacramental relationship than the vast majority of most pop-culture couples.
Ultimately, it isn’t very difficult to fall in love with somebody. Especially if the only thing that you’re really looking for is a person to play a role in a story that you’ve already written, because asking someone else to validate your preconceptions is a dreadfully easy thing to do. Truly understanding another person, however—assuming the full weight of their fears and doubts, and offering counsel to them as you attempt to navigate your own—is much harder.
The beauty of Gus and Hazel’s relationship is that, in the brief time that’s been allotted to them, they manage to do this for one another. Both of them respond to their terminal cancer diagnoses very differently. In an attempt to make the most out of his life, Gus tries to live as loudly and forcefully as possible; and, in an attempt to spare her loved ones pain, Hazel makes it a point to live in the smallest of steps.
A lesser novel might devolve into a treatise on seizing the moment, and hinge upon the Gus saving Hazel from herself. The Fault in Ours Stars resists this impulse, however. Instead, it examines the ways in which the couple’s differing philosophies spring from their doubts.
Both Gus and Hazel are afraid of the fate that’s in store for them. Ultimately, it would be very easy for them to spend their entire lives obsessing over the pain and sadness that’s sure to come (as it would be for virtually every human being, sick or healthy). But, thanks to their relationship, they’re able to turn away from themselves and towards one another.
By sympathizing with the doubts of another human being, and doing whatever they can to counsel one another, Gus and Hazel are able to transcend the anxiety that is too often allowed to define the human condition, and realize their full dignity as children of God. Regardless of your age, I would hazard that’s a useful lesson for anybody.
Teresa de Mallorca is the pseudonym of a neophyte who just completed the RCIA program at Holy Name
No comments:
Post a Comment