Cancer: A Love Story
by Rachel Fox
Who reads books about cancer? Especially when it’s a given that a main character — with whom the writer will do their best to help you fall in love — will inevitably face a long-fought and often-painful death? Cancer rides high in our collective consciousness, as more people every day see its effects in our family members, friends and acquaintances. And it is a frightening foe.
But John Green‘s novel, The Fault in Our Stars, is not intimidated by cancer. Nor does it allow the disease to have complete power over the story: “You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing,” says Augustus, one of the main characters.
Yes, characters will die (and more than likely we’ll weep for them). But as he has done in the past with his novels Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns, Green wins us over with his excellent prose and loveable nerdy characters.
In The Fault in Our Stars, we are introduced to Hazel and Augustus – a reclusive cynical reader and a gushing romantic — both teenage cancer patients.
The book opens with Hazel, a discouraged-yet-brilliant 16-year-old in an ongoing battle with lung cancer. For some reason – a ‘miracle,’ as referred to in the story – she has escaped death, but her cure leaves her with mostly useless lungs and dependent on supplemental oxygen. She meets Augustus — a seemingly optimistic youth whose cancer is in remission — at a support group. In short, each helps the other face the battle with their own mortality and fate.
The story could be over-simplified into merely a tragic love story, but Hazel and Augustus really make this novel. They fall in love over a book, which sounds an awful lot like David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, speculating on the non-existent ending. In a grand gesture, Augustus uses his “Make a Wish” gift to fly them both to Amsterdam to meet the — even more reclusive and guilt-ridden — author, Peter Van Houten.
To some, these dynamic teens might feel over-the-top and unbelievable. And in a way, they are. But as Hazel points out, not many get the plight of the cancer kid.
Teenage romance has so many different color shades and sides. Most do not resemble the heights of Hazel and Augustus’s love or intelligence – but a few can. Teens can be capable of reading Shakespeare or Infinite Jest; or scribbling away words to create stories or poetry to answer the questions troubling them. (I may have known some of those.) John Green and his brother Hank have been cultivating an army of such ‘nerds’ for years – and sometimes it feels that Green writes his novels just for them.
A different romance, or more common characters, and this book would lose some of its brilliance. On the surface, yes, it’s a teenage romance story, yet this story is much more; as is evident by the number of those who are drawn to the novel and now to its film adaptation.
Whether or not we are fighting cancer, many are asking the tough questions that Hazel and Augustus fight throughout this story. We want to know what comes after death – if there is life after death. More than that, we want to know what mark we will leave on the world; on those who surround us. Does our existence have any significance? What kind of life should we experience? Green gives added urgency to these questions, by looking through the eyes of young people whose flames may appear to be snuffed out before their time.
Though Fault in Our Stars might easily be labeled a cancer story, it’s really more about youth discovering their purpose in life — about what kind of legacy they would like to leave, and whether that is a selfish desire.
In the end, Hazel and Augustus abandon the legacy and find that their relationships matter most.
From a letter Augustus writes to Van Houten about Hazel:
“You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world… but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.”
And Hazel, later reading those words:
“I do, Augustus. I do.”
Thus, John Green takes the attention and power away from the cancer, and places it on the love.
And there is our consolation. Though we may lose the characters that he so richly imagines into our hearts, we will find ourselves — as they did — far richer for having loved them.
The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
Publisher: Speak
Date: April 8, 2014
Available at: All major booksellers
Price: $11.00 (hardback), $7.00 (paperback)
