from The Fault in Our Stars, Augustus and Hazel on a date in the park:
“‘Two things I love about this sculpture,’ Augustus said. He was holding the unlit cigarette between his fingers, flicking at it as if to get rid of the ash. He placed it back in his mouth. ‘First, the bones are just far enough apart that if you’re a kid, you cannot resist the urge to jump between them. Like, you just have to jump from rib cage to skull. Which means that, second, the sculpture essentially forces children to play on bones. The symbolic resonances are endless, Hazel Grace.’”
the symbology of children, representing youth, life at its beginning and primacy, upon bones, representing death, and life after it ends. the duality and juxtaposition of such opposites is obvious. then, you consider the theme of the book: youths with cancer, youths well-acquainted with the very real possibility death, nestled well within it as a potential reality.
additionally, the book, An Imperial Affliction (Hazel’s favorite book) ending mid-sentence randomly, representing how youths with cancer die “mid-sentence” — their life, like the book, ends prematurely, before the full story has a chance to be told. I think that’s genius, and terribly fucking sad of course. I do see a similarity, though, with how Hazel and Augustus never say goodbye — they simply say “Okay,” not giving their own conversations a proper end, just as the book doesn’t receive a proper end, nor the lives of youths with cancer.
this book… the hardship. it just feels so unfair. so unfair that children should have to go through that and yet it happens all the time. it makes me want to go and be there somehow for the sick and suffering? what can I do, what can I possibly do? is there a way to read for sick children? to play with them? I just want to swaddle them and the families with love. And I mean, the parents? How can anyone make it through that? It’s just so so much.
And… it just makes everything else pale in comparison. How can I complain about anything? Anything? I don’t have problems. These people who suffer in this way — everything else becomes a walk in the park. I feel like I need to expose myself to more suffering to gather more perspective as a person.
There’s something about suffering and dark times that makes you long for times that may have appeared to have missed the mark when you were in them. like that saying from The Office — “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”
I need to stop focusing on my suffering and instead see the infinite possibility of this life. Live to the full.
…
edit: another fascinating symbol I just considered — how Augustus always puts cigarettes between his lips, but never lights them. he says something to the effect of “you put the thing that does the killing in your mouth, but you don’t give it the power to do the killing.”
it makes me consider how I’ve often heard that the battle of many cancer patients is often more mental than physical, to an extent. no matter how close they get to death, the power is in their hands to let it do the killing or not (potentially, symbolically, in this school of thought, of an iron will being what overcomes the illness above all else).
it also makes me consider how the power to overcome the illness has to do with the power of the mouth — or the power of word — where the cigarette is placed. we can speak our own refusal to quit, and our own victory, our stubborn will to conquer, into existence.
just another fascinating little symbol from the book I was pondering! my own friend Saida, in her battle with cancer, told me that the book Becoming Supernatural fell into her hands just before her diagnosis, and she was determined to beat it through the power of her will and mind from the very beginning because of its contents — the grand healing power of the human spirit and will.
It really isn’t far off to suppose that human intent, will, and belief can alter patient outcome — the placebo effect, producing literal biological changes simply through what the mind accepts as reality, tells us that this is so. Who is to say that we cannot take control of this and speak what we will into existence? I believe we can.
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 