I picked up an German school edition english language copy of Looking for Alaska from a public bookcase a few days ago and just finished it. Loved it.
At first I was annoyed by the pencil annotations and highlighter, but in the end I found myself being endeared by the girl‘s personal writing. She seemed to be resonating with it more and more, at first noting „oh no you stupid guy :(„ when Miles puked on Lara, then towards the end when Miles went to Lara‘s room to talk to her again „A certain someone could do the same sometime soon…“ in German, in between a few „yay!!“s, smileys and highlighting some metaphors.
Beneath the passage of the Old Man telling the class about everything falling apart eventually, she wrote „Meine Perlen sollen bleiben“ - „my pearls shall last“. I have no clue what it means. I want to know. I’ll probably never find out and that’s okay.
P.s. when the Colonel gets drunk to test himself with the breathalyzer, there’s a bottle of Mountain Dew that turns into a bottle of Gatorade, right? Or are they meant to be different bottles? It reads like they’re supposed to be same? Are they?? I tried to look it up but didn’t find anything. This I need to know
Thank you for sharing this marginalia with me. It is so lovely to think of people writing on and around my writing, responding to my words with words of their own. I hope her pearls last.
I have no idea if that's a plot hole! I wrote that book (literally!) half my life ago! I remember almost nothing about it! I am just delighted to know it is still finding readers in Germany and elsewhere.
