Synopsis.
The novel I studied is “An Abundance of Katherines” that was written by John Green. This book was published on September 2016 by Dutton and Speak. The genre of this book is fiction. The main characters are Colin Singleton, who is anagram-loving seventeen-year-old boy who is depressed. Hassan Harbish who is Colin’s lazy, funny, and slightly overweight best, and only, friend. Lindsey Lee Wells who Colin and Hassan on their road trip in Gutshot, Tennessee. Hollis Wells, Lindsey’s mother. She is an extreme workaholic. The conflict of this story occurs between Colin and the other Colin when Colin Singleton finds the other Colin cheating on Lindsey. The other Colin threatened Colin if he told Lindsey and Colin was forced to decide to tell Lindsey or not. Though Colin made his decision to tell Lindsey what happened. This lead to her breaking up with the other Colin and a very brutal beating for Colin Singleton and his best friend Hassan.
Colin Singleton is a child prodigy who is fearing he will not grow to become an adult prodigy. After being dumped by his girlfriend, Katherine XIX, Colin is looking for his “missing piece” longing to feel whole, and longing to matter. He hopes to accomplish his goal of becoming a genius by having a “eureka” moment. Over the span of his life, Colin has dated nineteen girls named Katherine, all spelled in that manner. In these relationships, Colin remembers only the Katherine dumping him.
After graduating from high school, and before college, Colin’s best and only friend, Hassan Harbish, convinces him to go on a road trip with him to take his mind off the breakup. Colin goes along with the idea, hoping to find his “eureka” moment on the way. After driving all the way from Chicago to Tennessee, they come across the alleged resting place of the body of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There, they meet Lindsey Lee Wells. After a short time, Colin and Hassan find themselves employed by Hollis, Lindsey’s mother who runs a local factory that is currently producing tampon strings. They live with their employer and her daughter in a rural town called Gutshot, Tennessee. The employment she sends them on is to interview all current adult residents of Gutshot and assemble an oral history of the town. As time passes, Colin finds himself becoming attracted to Lindsey, though matters are somewhat complicated by her on-again, off-again boyfriend Colin. He and Hassan call him TOC which means “the other Colin”. Our Colin, the prodigy, is still chasing his eureka moment, finally finding it in his theorem he created called the Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability. It is meant to determine the curve of any relationship based on several factors of the personalities of the two people in a relationship. It would predict the future of any two people. His theorem eventually works for all but one of his past relationships with a Katherine. It is later discovered by Colin that he had dumped this Katherine (Katherine III), rather than the other way around. The graphs all make perfect sense at this juncture. As Colin’s story is revealed to the reader, we find that K-19 was also the first of the Katherines, “Katherine the Great.” While the back stories of Colin’s life play out, Hassan gets a girlfriend, Katrina, a friend of Lindsey’s. The relationship is cut short when Colin and Hassan catch Katrina having sex with TOC while on a feral hog hunt with Lindsey, her friends and Colin’s father. A fight between TOC and all of the surrounding acquaintances begins when Lindsey finds out that he’s been cheating on her. While recovering from a knee whack to the groin, Colin anagrams the Archduke’s name while in the grave yard to dull the pain, and realizes that it is actually Lindsey’s great-grandfather, named Fred N. Dinzanfar, that is buried in the tomb.
Colin finds Lindsey at her secret hideout in a cave that she had shown him previously, where he tells her the story of every Katherine he has ever loved. Lindsey tells him that she feels so self-centered, claiming that she does not feel sad but instead slightly relieved by TOC’s affair. They discuss what it means to them to “matter” and eventually confess their love for each other. As their relationship continues, Colin decides to use his dating formula to determine whether or not he and Lindsey will last. The graph reveals that they will only last for four more days. Lindsey then slips a note under his door, four days later, stating that she cannot be his girlfriend because she is in love with Hassan. But she leaves a P.S. stating that she is joking. Colin realizes that his theorem cannot predict the future of a relationship; it can only shed light on why a relationship failed. Despite this, Colin is content with not “mattering”. Hassan also states that he is applying for two college classes, which Colin has been trying to convince him to do throughout the book. The story ends with the trio driving to a nearby Wendy’s. Lindsey states her desire to just “keep going and not stop.” Colin takes her advice, as a transcendental and ecstatic feeling of a “connection” with Lindsey, Hassan, and everyone not in the car surges through him. He has finally found peace and happiness via connection with other people, rather than from the pursuit of distinguishing himself from everyone, feeling “non-unique in the very best way possible.”
Tones, themes of the story and issues presented by the Author.
There are many tones in this novel such as happy, insecure, and hopeless. For the first one, happy. Mrs. Harbish shook her head and pursed her lips. “Don’t I tell you,” she said in accented English, “not to mess with girls? Hassan is a good boy, doesn’t do this ‘dating.’ And look how happy he is. You should learn from him.” (chapter 3, paragraph 15) In a lot of ways, Hassan’s mom is right, Colin would be much happier if he didn’t mess around with the Katherines. He couldn’t whine about them dumping him then. On the other hand, we’re not sure Hassan really qualifies as the best sample of happiness; he even admits later on that he’s lazy and should do something else with his life.
The next tone would be insecure. With all the nasty back-and-forth, Colin fought the urge to ask Katherine whether she still loved him, because the only thing she hated more than his saying she didn’t understand was his asking whether she still loved him. He fought the urge and fought it and fought it. For seven seconds. (chapter 5, paragraph 85) That’s a really long time to wait. Oh wait, it look longer than seven seconds to read that sentence. That’s the whole point: Colin is so impatient and needy when it comes to love. He can’t just leave Katherine alone for one minute without asking her if she loves him, which sounds both pretty insecure and pretty annoying. The last tone is hopeless. “Technically.” Colin answered, “I think I might have already wasted it.” Maybe it was because Colin had never once in his life disappointed his parents: he did not drink or do drugs or smoke cigarettes or wear black eyeliner or stay out late or get bad grades or pierce his tongue or have the words “KATHERINE LUVA 4 LIFE” tattooed across his back. Or maybe they felt guilty, like somehow they’d failed him and brought him to this place. (chapter 3, paragraph 7) After he tells his parents about the road trip, he lets them in on a secret: his potential is already wasted. We’re not so sure about that. You can still have hopes and dreams and be an all-star even if you don’t have a huge eureka moment. Too bad Colin doesn’t believe that.
Themes of the story is life, consciousness and existence. Not to go all parental on you, but it’s time to ask some heavy-hitting questions: what do you want to do with your life? What’s the purpose of life? If you’re in high school, chances are your parents are always bugging you about which college you want to go to, or what major you want to take. It’s the norm for us to think about these things when we get to those teenage years, and Colin and Hassan are plagued by these questions too in An Abundance of Katherines. And in true young adult novel form, they come up with different answers to these questions. Colin wants to study, study, study, while Hassan is happy watching TV and doing nothing. The thing is though, both of them start to reconsider their life’s goals and path towards the end of the story.
The first issue that has been presented by the author in “An Abundance Of Katherines” the boy who’s been dumped several times which is Colin Singleton. He feels a desperate need for people to remember and appreciate him. In the beginning of the story, once Katherine the 19th (is what he called her) dumped him because she felt that he was more into being the only smart person around and cared too much about being told how much she cared about him than the relationship itself. As soon as it happened, Colin had felt broken especially since she was his first “actual” love and had dated her for a year and eight months. Hassan who’s Colin’s loyal and dearest best friend, wanted to do anything to cheer him up so he took him on a road trip. Colin thought that no one really appreciated him as a person, and they didn’t care about him after Katherine dumped him. So Hassan wanted to prove a theory that if he went on this road trip with him, it would get his mind off of the break up with Katherine the 19th. Little did he know that he was about to have his whole perspective on himself changed for the better. Hassan and Colin drove to Gunshot, Tennessee and found a extremely attractive tour guide named Lindsey who he automatically grows a connection with. While the tourist started to give both Hassan and Colin the tour on Archeduke, he realizes Lindsey had only dated one person who’s named Colin. Except, her Colin as Hassan calls him “TOC” which means “The Other Colin” is the complete opposite of Colin Singleton. TOC was a jerk lets put it that way. As Colin and Hassan stay in Gunshot, they start to get to know Lindsey better. And Colin, let’s say he’s falling in love again, it’s going to be tough for him since he knows she has a boyfriend. TOC starts to show his true colors as the story progresses. Lindsey finds out that Colin had been cheating on her with the hottie with a body, Katrina. Lindsey is beyond upset as soon as she finds out. Once Colin found out, he relieved Lindsey from those negative feelings that she had. I mean, a break-up isn’t always an easy thing to get over, and Colin knew exactly how she felt. One quote that really stuck out to me through this main issue is when Lindsey tells Colin: “If people could see me the way I see myself – if they could live in my memories – would anyone love me?” That quote stuck out to me because it shows that it’s not just Colin who feels like no one appreciates him or cares about him, but Lindsey does too. And it’s good for Colin knowing that he has someone who also knows how it feels when it comes to someone loving him. That quote and both Colin and Lindsey both show that they lose themselves after a tough break-up. It took Colin a while to be himself again, and he’s willing to help Lindsey get over the break up and be herself again. The next issue is, the journey of getting know ourselves. Are you unique? What makes you, you? That’s one of the big questions An Abundance of Katherines asks us to think about. We’ve got a washed-up child prodigy who wants to matter, but he’s just not sure if he’s unique any more. Then we’ve got Lindsey who’s faked it so much that she’s one big phony most of the time. She wants to fit in, so she pretends to be nerdy, ditzy, southern just to do so. It’s easy to lose sight of who we really are deep down in our cores, and this book is all about questing to get in touch with our true selves. The last issue would be Person vs. Self because Colin is a child prodigy trying to be a genius. Colin wants to do something big with the way he lives his life. Like become a genius. He needs to discover himself and what he’s meant to be here for before he becomes a genius. He’s been dumped so many times throughout his life. He dates girls named Katherine, all spelled in that manner. The conflict is resolved because he comes up with an equation to calculate how long until or why he gets dumped.
Critical Analysis.
The novel I studied is “An Abundance of Katherines” that was written by John Green. This book was published on September 2016 by Dutton and Speak. The genre of this book is fiction. The main characters are Colin Singleton, who is anagram-loving seventeen-year-old boy who is depressed. Hassan Harbish who is Colin’s lazy, funny, and slightly overweight best, and only, friend. Lindsey Lee Wells who Colin and Hassan on their road trip in Gutshot, Tennessee. Hollis Wells, Lindsey’s mother. She is an extreme workaholic. The conflict of this story occurs between Colin and the other Colin when Colin Singleton finds the other Colin cheating on Lindsey. The other Colin threatened Colin if he told Lindsey and Colin was forced to decide to tell Lindsey or not. Though Colin made his decision to tell Lindsey what happened. This lead to her breaking up with the other Colin and a very brutal beating for Colin Singleton and his best friend Hassan.
The main idea of the work is the boy who’s been dumped several times which is Colin Singleton. An Abundance of Katherines follows with Colin Singleton, a prodigy with an obsession for anagramming. Colin has a very specific type when it comes to the opposite sex: he only dates girls called Katherine. And so far, he’s been dumped by 19 of them. We follow Colin as he ventures into the unknown on a road trip with his best friend, Hassan. He encounters all sorts of things on his travels, from feral satan hogs to scrabble. The structure of this novel jumps around and is not in chronological order, it goes to flash backs of Colin’s past and then goes to the future again and does this repeatedly throughout the novel. The novel is third person omniscient and a quote from the novel is “As Hassan screamed, Colin thought, oh right, should have flushed.” which this point of view is significant throughout the book because the reader is not stuck reading about the same person the whole time. Also there is no bias in this novel.
I loved the plot of this book. Normally, road trips just annoy me because it is far too cliche. But, in this book, it really works. A road trip is perfect for Colin, as the ever-changing, exciting and foreign atmosphere is just like him. As the scenery changes, Colin changes as a person. I couldn’t help but see a deeper meaning in this story. On the surface, it is the tale of a prodigy on a road trip, but there is so much more than that. The novel carries some very important messages about fitting in and about trying to see logic in everything. In the hands of some authors, this would become a cheesy parable. Luckily, Green is skilled enough to make it sincere. He understands teenagers, particularly those who are nerdy and socially awkward. This gives the book a friendlier tone, which is great. What I don’t really like about this book is how Colin needs to go through a few heartbreaks and it was all came all the way from those girls named Katherines. Those Katherines should have not left him at the first place for they should have appreciated Colin for loving them so much. But finally, he hurt himself. Nineteen times of heartbreaks for he had fallen for nineteen girls named Katherines.
Dating nineteen girls, all coincidentally named Katherine seems to be a ridiculous phenomenon to a teenager whose age is only 17. This might not happen in reality. Such phenomenon can be considered as something fancy. The author here employs magical realism as he is able to translate his experiences into something that seems to be fictional in his literary work. Through writing An Abundance of Katherines, he was able to inculcate fantastical elements that were drawn from reality. The possibility of dating nineteen Katherines in a span of 17 years is quite remote, but the author managed to turn it into something fictional and at the same time realistic. A major part of this book is The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability. This is a complicated idea that Colin comes up with, and it’s basically a graph that can supposedly predict when and how two people will break up. Personally, I found the idea that love can be graphed really interesting, but it might bore some readers. Luckily, you don’t need to understand the maths to enjoy the plot. The theorem is really just a vehicle to show how Colin is a prodigy, and to help him reach his final conclusion that “The future is unpredictable.” and I do think that the formula is biased. It only represented and summarized only what happened in the past and is not a viable representation of what happens in the future. This can be applied to real life. Sometimes we stick into something objective that we fail to realize that there are missing pieces that we do not consider. We tend to be close-minded and miss opportunities in life. In life, we sometimes have to take risks and modify our own formulas. To conclude, An Abundance of Katherines is a fantastically nerdy coming-of-age road trip that I would recommend to John Green fans and self-proclaimed nerds everywhere, as well as anyone who needs some good life advice.
Recommendations.
Based on the novel I studied, an issue that had been chosen for recommendations is the boy who’s been depressed for get dumped several times which is Colin Singleton. He feels a desperate need for people to remember and appreciate him. A recommendation on this issue is we as a human being we need to know on how to appreciate others most likely to be those people who is close to us such as family and friends by treating them right. Their existence matters. Not until to the point where they desperately need people to remember and appreciate them. We as the people who had known them well, close to them somehow need to understand them more because people who goes through depression needs support as well. Next, talk to them more often. Don’t ignore them because you will make them feel alone until the feel they were born to deserve no one is life. Depression people needs company. A good company. Talk to them about anything as long as they feel they have someone then that is okay. They might need someone to have a conversation with but were so afraid to talk to anyone since they know they will get ignored by the people. Last but not least, as a close friend to the people who goes through depression we need to always cheer them up by not letting them down the same thing Hassan Harbish did. He is the only best friend Colin has. So he took Colin out for a road trip so that Colin can calm himself a little bit.