Last Words (Book Review)

Francois Rabelais famous last words were: “Blessed are they who die wearing a cloak,” or “Blessed are they who die in the Lord,” (both of which are ways of translating the Latin, .Beati qui in Domino moriuntur.) or possibly they were, “I am greasing my boots for the last journey,” or maybe the one our protagonist lives by –“I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”

Miles Cavalry is obsessed with last words. He reads biography for one specific reason --to learn about the person by the last words they utter. When reading a biography about Francois Rabelais, he hangs on to the idea of finding his own way. He begins his journey by following in his father’s footsteps and attending a boarding school in Alabama, a stark contrast to his loser-ish life so far spent in Florida.

At Culver Creek, Miles is introduced to a new world. His roommate, the Colonel, immediately affixes his ironic take on life by changing the lanky Miles’ name to “Pudge” and showing him around the school, including all five payphones, and the beautiful Alaska’s room.

One cannot help but to become philosophical reading this adventure of love and loss. Like other Young Adult novels, this book reminds us of the triviality of making our first mistakes and carving our lives into the folds of our own biography. Though this book, one can re-learn the language of growing up- ultimately, the language that begs to be listened and attended to.

What struck me so sardonically about this book is the attention to last words and the idea of a, ”great perhaps.” We sometimes forget that, in spite of youthful attentions, the children we work with are biography in the making. It is shocking how terminal the course of a day can be for many of our students and how much more meaningful their own story truly is than we would ever imagine.

Looking for Alaska is wonderful coming-of-age book that can truly help students connect to literature on a personal .if not slightly dangerous level. If we can guide them into their own, “great perhaps” and teach them to improve upon their own decision-making, they can learn from the mistakes made by characters -possibly instead of trying them out on their own. Though there is no guarantee that literature shall save them all, as English teachers, we know that some voices interact; and if we can help to bring that connection home, we have succeeded in a bit of our own, “great perhaps.”

Work Cited: Green, John. Looking for Alaska. NY: Dutton. 2005, 221pp.

Originally Published in NHCTE Newsletter under the name Amanda Klimowicz-Cabeza: http://www.nhcte.org/Adobe%20Newsletter%20Archives/NHCTE%20NewsletterSummer%202008.pdf