Sunday, February 28, 2010

Nothing



Nothing
By Janne Teller
Translated by Martin Aitken
227 pages
16.99

This book makes you think. It is wonderfully written , but the subject matter is heavy and depressing. It's not a feel good book. Pierre Anthon is a Dutch 7th grader who decides life is meaningless . It all means nothing. So he climbs up a plum tree to train for the role of nothing. There he sits eating plums and yelling at his former classmates that "Meaning is relevant and therefor meaningless" and " the minute you are born you start to die"
His Classmates arent real fond of that. They decide to show him that life has meaning so he will come down and stop harassing them. They decide to do this by putting together a pile of stuff that has meaning to them . They pressure eachother to give up important things. soon the things become harder and harder to give up. A coffin. A prayermat. A certificate of adoption. A finger. Innocence.
It's probably not worth 16.99 but maybe its worth cheaking out from the library. Its really easy to read but it like makes you depressed. It does not have a happy ending. I mean this is a book that could give you thoughts of suicide. It makes you think.