Stuck On the Puzzle

By: Joana Mariz Tolentino

               “I’m not the kind of fool / who’s gonna sit and sing to you / about stars, girl / but last night, I looked up into / the dark half of the blue / and they’ve gone backwards,” the lyric goes, as Alex Turner goes in Stuck On the Puzzle. “Something in your magnetism / must have pissed them off, / forcing them to get an early night.”

                In an intimate conversation I shared with a friend, a few months back, she told me how, of all the books written by the famed teen fiction author, John Green, Looking for Alaska, she disliked the most. It sparked an argument in me, as it was the best book I’ve read from him so far; so, I asked, “Why so?” Never mind that I find ostentatious hints in some of Green’s works along similar writer, David Levithan and his books Every Day and Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, she told me it was “pretentious”.

               In the lives of many people and, too often, in books and movies, is that one person every protagonist considers as their dear interest. Too often, that particular person enraptures their eyes, making them believe that the former’s persona makes up of what idea they have of a perfect lover’s potential. In Looking for Alaska, Pudge, the protagonist, believes this in Alaska, his romantic subplot.

               Falling in love starts with interest, or what people call as “crush”. Oftentimes, when people notice one thing, they start noticing all others – in some cases, it is platonic; in some others, it becomes romanticized and all that carry probable negativity and common turn-offs become hidden as they start convincing themselves about their crush’s dominating charms. Alaska Young, Looking for Alaska’s female stock character, is a self-destructing woman who constantly breaks the rules, selfishly rats out friends, cheats on every boyfriend she has had, and likes sex beyond anything. What is more, she is an exceptionally smart student and a very good tutor, a strong person who tends to hide vulnerability, and a person of good looks. She is liked by almost everyone; but, above all, liked by Pudge. He sees only her latter description, or, at least, those of which he believes her to be. He, being head over heels Alaska, has had mistaken her from the idea of her.

I have once loved a person so much as to reaching the point that I was hopeful people could see what I saw in him. For a span of 23 months, I was hopeful that what parts of him people disliked him for could change, because, I thought that there was more to him than just an abrasive man; because, he said he loved me and I believed in him; and, I believed in him too much that, when I started giving in to the truth, my heart broke then and there. What I’m saying is: the conceptual admiration of Pudge over Alaska is not far from how people are in reality.

               

               In the book, a character and a friend who they liked to call “the Colonel” told Pudge the depraved sides of Alaska – and that was my favorite scene, the reason why I consider it one of my favorite novels of all time. The Colonel destroys the overly dreamy idea of a romanticized person, a crush, a love interest; The Colonel reverts the idea of “pixie girls” and rescinds what an admirer considers attractive quirks. In real life, our truest friends and family members, who convince us of the toxic a person may bring to you, are The Colonel’s equivalent.

               At past two o’clock in the morning, the brokenhearted sits on the edge of their bed, questioning how loving could bring so much pain, how untrue “all is fair in love and war” is, and how it was possible that one could still adore a person whose hands are wrapped around their neck, or they did the last time they checked. (Arctic Monkeys, 505) At past two o’clock in the morning, at the end of the day, the brokenhearted waits for their toast to pop-up and the smell of Chai tea and their breakfast tells them the misery of being stuck on a puzzle.

             “I have been searching / from the bottom to the top / for such a sight / as the one I caught / when I saw your / fingers dimming the lights / like you’re used to being told that you’re trouble, / and I spent all night / stuck on the puzzle.” (Alex turner, Stuck On the Puzzle)

              Moreover taking people in different perspectives; moreover whether or not we listen to the people who love us, who care for us; and, moreover the blatant reality our hearts and minds chose not to see – we are not permanently fools.

            Love is complicated – it really is; and, it's okay, it happens. The sun will set in time, the pain is only temporary, the puzzle is never a prison. We live, we learn.