Nothing (a book review, or something like it)

This past weekend, I was rereading The Hunger Games trilogy, or at least the first two parts. I won't go off on a tangent about those books though I very easily could. What I'm writing about is the book I picked up to console myself from the fact that my dad has been in possession of my copy of Mockingjay for the past few months and I couldn't immediately pick it up after Catching Fire. I wanted a distraction.
 
And I got it. Oh god, I got it.

And it did win a Printz honour.

I don't know what I was expecting from Janne Teller's first book for young adults. I'd read the summaries. John Green said he thought it would win the Printz. My friend warned me off reading it, saying it was disturbing*. I reserved it from the library, it sat on my desk for a week and I finally picked it up the first night I'm housesitting and it was dark and I was alone and all I wanted to do is read Mockingjay, even though I've read it three times already.

Time must have passed while I lay on the couch with a blanket, turning pages rapidly and inhaling the language** but I didn't really notice. Afterwards, I stumbled upstairs to bed in a kind of daze and fell asleep to dreams that I don't remember.

Reflecting back on the book, I don't think it's something you can like or dislike. Maybe some people can but not me. I appreciate it and I read it in one hazy blur which must indicate some kind of merit yet it's not a book that you can enjoy. Do I think this book is incredible? Yes. Did I like it? I'm not really sure but probably not.

A summary, I think, is in order: One day, a seventh grader, Pierre Anthon, in a fictional Danish town stands up in class and declares that, "Nothing matters... So nothing is worth doing..." He then leaves the classroom and climbs a plum tree, where he stays during the day for months, pelting his peers with plums and screaming his discoveries of the meaninglessness of life at them as they pass by. Wanting to believe that there actually is a meaning to life, the students realize that they have to get Pierre Anthon out of the tree in order to prove him wrong. They start this task by pelting him with stones and then decide to create a "heap of meaing" in order to convince Pierre and each other that something matters. All the students in the seventh grade class are to contribute something of ultimate value and as the students decide what the others must sacrifice, the heap of meaning quickly takes a sinister turn.

As I said, it's not that I enjoyed the book, it's just that I couldn't stop reading it. Not in the way of The Hunger Games in that I need to know what happened next. Nothing's chapters aren't left dangling off a cliff the way most of Suzanne Collins's are. I guess I just needed to find out if they could convince Pierre Anthon of some kind of meaning which I partially knew they couldn't. I needed to see if they could even convince themselves that their heap of meaning mattered. I also needed to know how far it would go, how much these kids could force each other to give up. It really scared me what they did. Just when I thought things went a bit too far, the next request was even more demanding.

A new word I learned last week is 'visceral' which, in relation to writing, means something that made you feel physically. Yes, I'm talking about butterflies in your stomache and when your heartrate quickens from reading something.

This was the first time since I learned what the word meant that I thought about it in relation to a book I was reading. The writing of Nothing really was visceral to me. Not in a swooning, Peeta is so amazing *sigh* way, but in a gasping, shocked, hand to my mouth, horrified way. I actually clenched my fist and gritted my teeth at several points in the novel. There was a moment when I felt slightly nauseous. And though I'm not condoning the behavior of the characters in any way, I have to admit that reading something that actually makes you feel physically sick is pretty impressive.

The book is about much more than these kids and the way in which they decide to prove that something, anything, matters in life. It existential in that it deals with how people react when introduced to the possibility that there is no meaning to anything. It's about the cruelty of human nature and what horrors a group will force on its members but it's also about a personal struggle of what happens when nothing matters and how hard individuals and groups will struggle against that.

I'm still reacting and processing and I'm not sure exactly what I think but it's safe to say that I was impressed by this book. Horrifyed and jarred but ultimately better off. Nothing has a lot to offer and though it is disturbing at times, as John Green says: "So is life."

*Does it mean I have issues if I say that the disturbing comment made me want to read it more?
**Which should be noted was translated by Martin Aitkin from Danish. Though I don't speak/read Danish I can't judge whether the translation was accurate or not but I do think it was beautiful.