The Anthropocene and John Green

 

    John Green is an American author, YouTuber, and podcaster, whose most notable works include The Fault in Our Stars and the educational YouTube channel “Crash Course,” which he founded along with his brother, Hank. I think it’s fascinating that he both writes fiction (and most recently nonfiction) as well as creates educational content. There aren’t a lot of modern creators who have achieved the same level of fame in such different domains. Green’s latest book, The Anthropocene Reviewed, is a series of essays in which Green reviews various things from the Anthropocene, which is the proposed term for our current geological era, on a five star scale. In these essays, Green reviews Diet Dr. Pepper, the “yips,” and meningitis, among other things. It has a loose structure where the things he reviewed came into Green’s life in chronological order, but it is not an account of his life. I personally really enjoyed the book and how it encapsulates the human experience. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55145261-the-anthropocene-reviewed

Green was raised in Florida and hasn’t always been a writer. He used to be a chaplain in a children’s hospital and then later a publishing assistant for Booklist, which is a book review journal. Ironically, Green has stated that he isn’t a fan of the five-star scale (which he used as a book reviewer) because it reduces a work to a single data point and doesn’t leave any room for nuance. It wasn’t until Green was in his late twenties that he began writing his first book, Looking for Alaska. (side tangent: Looking for Alaska is now banned in many schools for “pornography,” which Green has spoken out about. In the world of pornography, Looking for Alaska is unlikely anyone’s first or even thousandth choice, but I digress. Read banned books!) Since then, Green’s written an additional six novels, including The Anthropocene Reviewed and The Fault in Our Stars, as previously mentioned. 

As for his creative process, Green says that he believes all writing is rewriting, even if it’s the first draft. That first draft, he says, is “still an act of translation in a way because you’re trying to use text to bring to life this thing that exists in your mind.” He also says that he has so many drafts and mini-drafts, it can be difficult to quantify them, made even more difficult by the amount of content that is cut during revisions. I think this is a good example of convergent and divergent thinking since Green has ideas, then cuts them down, then has new ideas, etc. He also says that he doesn’t have “capital-i Ideas” and instead has “lower case-i ideas.” For example, Green says that the lower case idea for Looking for Alaska came from “thinking about whether there was meaning to suffering, and how one can reconcile one’s self to a world where suffering is so unjustly distributed.” Then, the little ideas come together and form a book. This is an example of collecting information to use for later, which I think is especially evident in The Anthropocene Reviewed. Some of the most moving essays are connected to things you wouldn’t normally connect them to, but Green did so after collecting ideas over the course of his life so far. Another important part of being an author is dealing with writer’s block, and on that, Green says: “I just give myself permission to suck.” This is similar to the idea that failure is a part of the process, but it isn’t as devastating in my opinion. Allowing yourself to suck at something lets you say, “I can always go back and edit it.” As English teachers have said over the years, you can’t edit something that isn’t written. He also says that he likes to remind himself about something his father told him, which is that “Coal miners don’t get coal miners’ block,” which is a nice perspective to have. To me, I think this idea helps Green as an author remember that writing is just another job. 

For me, The Anthropocene Reviewed was not only a good read but also an easy one. The format makes you feel as if you aren’t reading a whole novel and thus takes some pressure off you as a reader. If you don’t feel like reading, the essays are rather short and easy to read. Green also has a podcast of the same name, if you are interested in the concept but don’t want to read a book. 

Sources:

https://www.johngreenbooks.com/the-anthropocene-reviewed-book

https://www.johngreenbooks.com/bio-faq

https://www.famousauthors.org/john-green

https://www.johngreenbooks.com/where-i-get-my-ideas-inspiration-and-general-writing-stuff