#amarata

X: Am o inima, dar e amărâtă și rănită.

LITERARY CIRCLE Entry #4 PAPER TOWNS by John Green

April Joy Mosquera, is our discussion director for this novel. He had asked questions about the novel.

1. “As I took those two steps back, Margo took two equally small and quiet steps forward” (p. 5). Do these descriptions still apply to the characters when they reach high school? When the story ends? What changes?

            Yes I agree that a character is moving forward or backward. Obviously, in the beginning, during the scene in question, Quentin literally takes two steps back and Margo two steps forward. That is very literal and therefore easy to interpret.

2. Was the decision for Q to skip graduation a way to show that he is not close to his family?

             If I were like, “You can go either go to your graduate or potentially keep someone from dying”, I would probably choose the latter, whether I know that person or not. In the end he will turn out as a hero, which in all Q’s defense is so widely and deeply celebrated in our culture that it would take superhuman effort to escape it.

  3. Why was not Q in band with Radar and Ben?

             We liked the idea that he really had no built in social network, that he was friends with Ben and Radar but separated from them for large swaths of time while they were doing band stuffs. Instead of actually hearing her when she’s talking, all he’s seeing is himself reflected back, which of course makes him think that he and Margo are perfect for each other.

  4. Does Dr. Jefferson Jefferson change his name to "Dr." despite not actually being a doctor because of the whole theme of the novel about people not actually being who they pretend to be, like Margo not actually being the crazy, adventurous, fun-loving girl she says she is?

         Well, I wanted to write—as I often do—about the relationship between given identities and chosen identities. When you’re a teenager, you have to make a lot of decisions about which of your given identities you’re going to hold onto, and which you’re going to abandon. Like, say you were raised going to church every Sunday. Well, to be honest, you probably didn’t have much say in whether you went to church. But at some point, that WILL be your decision, and that identity will shift from given to chosen.

But there are a billion examples of this in adolescence. And I think that’s why we talk so much about being phony or fake and so on: Teenagers are beginning to realize that these identities are very complicated and fluid, and that can make them feel inauthentic.

So if your name is Jefferson Jefferson and then you go to court and have your name changed to Dr. Jefferson Jefferson, with Dr. as your first name, are you a doctor? Of course you’re not. But then you also are a doctor, because everyone calls you doctor and everyone assumes you’re a doctor. You are something to others but not to yourself, which is an experience a lot of us have as teenagers (and afterward, for that matter).

Margo especially goes through this, because the way people think of her is not at all the way she thinks of herself, and the interior life people imagine her having is wildly different from her actual interior life. So I wanted to use Dr. Jefferson Jefferson as a way of beginning that book-long conversation about whether your you-ness is imposed from within or from without.

  5. Where is the title of the book derived from?

        The title came from fictional cities that exist only on paper. Those ”paper towns” used to be a map drawers' way of copyrighting their maps before there were any proper laws concerning the matter.

  For this entry, I, CHARLENE LOVE AMARATA, was assigned as the Passage Picker. I picked five lines that caught my attention and the reasons why I picked them. Here they are:

“That’s always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they’re pretty. It’s like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste.”

-          Most of the time, we tend to judge other people based on their physical appearance. If we don’t like them physically, we restrict ourselves in knowing them better and that leads us to become prejudice towards them. We should focus more on a person’s personality and not on their physical attributes. Sure, physicality may affect our perception but physical appearance should not be taken as a big deal in interacting with people.

“The town was paper, but the memories were not.”

-          It’s like saying that “Pictures will not change even if the people in it do.” Memories are retained forever. Even if it is already part of the past, the fact that it happened could not be changed.

“If you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all.”

-          Imagination is the key. Small things often start from imagination. The human imagination is really great and it can create great things.

“It is easy to forget how full the world is of people, full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently misimagined.”

-          I believe this line talks about the uniqueness and mediocrity of human beings at the same time. People have different perspectives and it is based on the person’s view on how he/she handles other fellow human beings.

“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.”

-          People are more than what we see. A person may or may not show his being entirely. There are hidden happiness, sadness, etc. that he chose not to show. 

Shiela Mae Estabillo was assigned to b our connector. Read for what she wrote.

          We as a human, of course, have also already experienced the same as being hurt by someone we value most, but taking revenge is not a good thing to do in return. A mistake shouldn’t be compensated by another mistake for unending revenge would be done if no one would let things go. A good revenge is when you let the person that hurt you see that you’re not that affected by what he or she did against you and that you’re happy enough to be bothered by him or her anymore.

Micheal John Otanez was our Character Captain. He had different views on each of the characters. Here it is:

Quentin “Q” Jacobsen- The protagonist and narrator of the story. Has had a crush on on his neighbor Margo since they were kids, however that crush develops into love and before long Q realises he's in love with Margo. Throughout the story he follows clues he thinks Margo, who has gone missing, left behind for him to help him find her. And he becomes obsessed with finding her with his every waking thought being about her.

  Margo Roth Spiegelman- Margo is a self-described Paper Girl who runs away from home only to be pursued by her childhood friend, Q. She plans out adventures in a little black book and thinks that planning out adventures is more fun than actually doing them. Before she ran away, she was one of the most popular kids at her school and somewhat of a leader with the popular kids because of her ability to become anything anyone wanted her to be.

  Marcus “Radar” Lincoln- One of Q’s best friends. In the novel he is constantly editing pages on a website called Omnictionary (which is very similar to Wikipedia). He was nicknamed by Quentin and Ben after the character from M*A*S*H. His parents own the world's largest collection of black Santas. He is in the school band. He assists Quentin in finding Margo.

  Lacey Pemberton - She has been Margo's friend since kindergarten (even though Margo feels Lacey has been judgmental of her throughout the course of their friendship). In the second half of the novel Lacey becomes involved in the search for Margo. She goes with Q to find Margo.

  Ben Starling- He is one of Quentin's best friends. He is in the school band and also helps Quentin find Margo, and in the process, becomes Lacey's boyfriend. Towards the beginning of the book, Ben has an obsession with prom and refers to girls as "honeybunnies".

  Jay Lloyd Caas was our Vocabulary Enricher. Here are the words he picked:

obfuscation n. - it was derived from Latin –ob in the way + fuscus dark brown; which means confusion, darkness, obscurity; To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand.

“She wouldn’t have answered anyway,” I said.  It was dishonest to act like Margo hadn’t participated in her own obfuscation. (Chapter 24)

the most interesting word in the novel for me. I have chosen this word first because it covers the whole book itself. It tells of mystery, the mysterious personality of Margo. Mystery like of something dark is being concealed.

  Salacious adj. - Appealing to or stimulating sexual desire; lascivious.

"We left him eleven messages, each more annoying and salacious than the last. It was after nine o’clock when the doorbell rang." (Chapter 11)

I thought this word means or a synonym of annoying. But when I sought out in the dictionary, I found out that it was nude.

  Deadpanned pp -A person, especially a performer, who has or assumes a blank expression; A person, especially a performer, who has or assumes a blank expression.

“I look like a demented carbonated fountain,” he deadpanned.

I was thinking of this word as lifeless. Yeah, it is. I chose this word because I think I could use this as an adverb for my friends’ mood or probably their strange far away looking out.

   Incontestably   Impossible to contest; unquestionable

"I was incontestably in love with her, and 2. She was absolutely unprecedented in every way, and 3. She never really asked me any questions, so the only way to avoid silence was to keep her talking."

I was arguing with this word, why not UNCONTESTABLE? I have chosen this word because I find it out more cheesy to use in describing one’s love. Hahaha. Eeww. Instead of unreachable, sincere, honest, I have found it more effective. Haha. 

  Fascists/Fascism

a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.

  “A cigarette dangles out of his mouth. A guitar is slung over his shoulder, and the guitar is painted with the words THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS.” (Chapter 12)

I was just curious of this word. 

 Artful Artist are Eddielou Asedillo and Ryan Patrick Elloren. They made a parody of Margo's bitterness. hehehe :)  (IN A SEPARATE ENTRY)

REFLECTION:

                I consider John Green as one of my favorite authors. His wit never failed to amaze me. I have already read all of his books and this book “Paper Towns” is the last one. While reading, I figured out some plot twists that really amazed me just like I did the first time I read his novels (The Fault in Our Stars). Margo and Quentin’s adventure lead me to a different place and Margo’s thoughts about their place as a “paper town” is brilliant. I admire Margo’s character although at some point, I was annoyed by her decision o run away from home. Quentin’s quest in finding Margo is thrilling because no one knows what really happened to Margo. I even thought she committed suicide (good thing, she didn’t!).

EVALUATION: