Like-luke-likes - Like-Luke-Likes

hmmm

WHO DID THIS.

Beginning of the semester vs now

QUICK PLEASE CAN SOMEONE FIND ME THAT PICTURE OF THE EYESHADOW PALETTE THAT WAS LIKE “DIESEL FUMES” AND “HUEUGH” AND OTHER STUPID ASS NAMES 

There seems to be this widely perceived notion that authors agree with everything they have their main protagonist say and do. I was just wondering if you knew where how this came about, seeing as you and hazel grace are so obviously the same exact person.

Well, authors invite this—or at least authors like me do, by putting so much of our personal selves online and engaging in conversations outside stories, so it’s a little unfair to be like, “Follow me on tumblr and twitter and youtube and instagram, but NEVER TRY TO FIND MY INSIDE MY NOVELS.” As a reader, I find it impossible to ignore the author when they’re someone I know, whether online or off.

Also, we live in a quote culture: We see quotes all day across the Internet, and those quotes almost never come with real context. Like, the protagonist of Katherines says, “What’s the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable?” Now, I don’t think that’s a problematic approach to life, and I hope during the course of the novel Colin comes around to the idea that there’s great meaning and joy in the so-called unremarkable life. (As if anything on this planet overflowing with life is unremarkable.) But as I get older, I find myself less and less annoyed about the inevitable decontextualization that accompanies quotation. If people find something useful, okay. 

It’s so very hard to separate yourself as a person from your work, no matter what kind of work you do. (e.g.: As a high school student, I was disengaged and sloppy with occasional moments of promise, which to me meant that as a person I was disengaged and sloppy with moments of promise. But really, who you are in your job or education is not exactly who you are.) But I am not my work. It is up to other people, if they are so kind as to read and watch the stuff I make, to judge its quality and/or usefulness. The core things I am—a husband, a father, a brother, a son, a nerdfighter, a friend, etc.—are not dependent on my books being any good. Thank God for that.

I don’t think I answered your question. Sorry. The only answer I have to your question is that I believe books belong to their readers.

Can we just STOP with the “Martin Luther King, Jr., Didn’t Riot But He Changed the World” Thing?

First, MLK was relentlessly investigated by law enforcement authorities on suspicion of being a Communist. His supporters were abused and murdered by both civilians and law enforcement over the years. The FBI spent vastly more resources trying to demonstrate that he was causing riots as a paid agent of Soviet Communism than they ever spent investigating the endless murder threats to his life. And, of course, the FBI mounted multiple sting and other investigations to expose and exploit his all too human flaws, particularly his cheating on his wife. His life is hardly a good model of police-citizen relations.

Second, King faced endless, brutal criticism for the peaceful protests he led. Lots and lots of (mostly) white people insisted that now was not the time to protest, that social and political change would best happen at its own pace, over a long period. Heck, has anyone actually read “Letter from Birmingham Jail”? The whole thing is a response to a letter published in the Birmingham paper in which white ministers asked why an “outsider” like King would come to Birmingham to lead protests, leading to his famous response “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.” There is never a convenient time for protest, or an acceptable way to demand change from majorities that like things the way they are. Martin Luther King may be an American saint now. But he wasn’t when he was alive. Let’s not kid ourselves.

Third, is it now required that we all be Martin Luther King? Is it required that we all have the patience to endure endless harassment and violence in order to be “worthy” to protest? Do remember that King himself had largely abandoned the philosophy of nonviolence at the time of his assassination. For example, he was only in Memphis in April 1968 supporting a direct action strike by sanitation workers in the city, an action LOTS of people would have called violently disruptive to the health of the community. His movement only seems beatific in retrospect, through the lens of the rioting and social chaos that ensued his marginalization in the later 1960s and 1970s.  There are no perfect protestors even when there is much to protest.

I do not think the Martin Luther King, Jr., you remember is the Martin Luther King, Jr., who actually lived.