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PEOPLE & ARTS Wednesday 25 OctOber 2017

After a best-seller, novelist John Green lays bare his mind

By KRISTIN M. HALL municate with each other
Associated Press — through blogs, poems,
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — texting, or “Star Wars” fan
In the years since John fiction — to make up for
Green’s tear-jerker love sto- their fears of interaction in
ry about two teen cancer real life.
patients became a best- For a decade, Green and
seller in 2012, the young his brother, Hank, a mu-
adult novelist and video sician and author, have
blogger wondered if he been interacting with their
would ever be able to write fans via their YouTube col-
another book. After “The laboration called the Vlog-
Fault in Our Stars” sold over brothers. Along the way,
45 million copies and was they’ve built a loyal online
adapted into a popular community of fans who
film, the pressure was im- identify as “nerdfighters”
mense. and follow the motto of
“I definitely felt like peo- “Don’t Forget To Be Awe-
ple were looking over my some.” Green joked that
shoulder while I was trying he could connect with fans
to write,” Green said dur- “while never leaving my
ing a recent book tour stop basement, which is very
in Nashville, Tennessee. “I appealing.”
think that was the biggest In this July 21, 2015, file photo, author John Green attends the premiere of “Paper Towns” in New “I love being a part of that
reason why it took me so York. community and it’s tre-
many years between books Associated Press mendously invigorating to
was because I definitely felt But unlike Sherlock Homes, infection. When she pushes give it power somehow, me to see their fan art, to
overwhelmed by the scale 16-year-old Aza Holmes back against these intru- when in fact it didn’t,” read their comments and
of things.” can barely see the world sive thoughts, the anxiety Green said. read fan fiction about my
But to the relief of his many outside her own head as increases until she feels no But he also struggled with books,” Green said.
passionate fans, Green is her illness takes her on longer in control of her own how to describe the psy- “I think the emotional ex-
back with his new novel, ever-deepening spirals of body or actions. She con- chological torment of not periences of being a teen-
“Turtles All the Way Down,” repeated thoughts about stantly opens a wound on feeling in control of yourself ager are pretty universal,”
released this month. Green anxieties and identity. her finger to disinfect her- and losing your own iden- Green said.
found inspiration in a men- “That is my experience of self, which escalates even tity in a mental illness. “And I think the questions
tal disorder he lives with but OCD,” Green said. “It does further in the climax of the “It’s really difficult to give it that they are asking —
has long struggled to de- not come with secret de- novel. form or find language for about identity and how
scribe in his writing. tective powers despite the Although Green has been it,” Green said. “That was you acknowledge person-
His female protagonist in convention of the Sherlock dealing with OCD since one of the things I wanted hood in other people and
“Turtles” is obsessive-com- Holmes stories. My experi- childhood, he avoided to write about was how whether meaning in life is
pulsive, like Green himself. ence with OCD is that it writing it into his stories be- much language struggles constructed by us or de-
She’s thrust into the role makes me incredibly unob- cause he was afraid of how in the face of pain.” rived by something else —
of a teen detective trying servant.” it would affect him. The characters in his new those are questions that
to locate a missing billion- Aza’s disorder manifests it- “I think partly because I felt book find different ways are still fairly important to
aire while falling for his son. self as a fear of bacterial like writing about it would and technologies to com- me.”q

Papers believed to be lost in

Holocaust go on display in U.S.

NEW YORK (AP) — The confirmed their signifi- Jewish history and culture
American public is getting cance this year. to be unearthed in more
a chance to view newly The wide-ranging collec- than half a century, since
discovered Jewish docu- tion includes manuscripts the discovery of the Dead
ments that had been pre- by famous Yiddish writers, Sea Scrolls,” said David
sumed destroyed during religious writings, poetry Fishman, professor of Jew-
the Holocaust. and record books of shuls ish history at The Jewish
Ten documents brought and yeshivas. There are let- Theological Seminary, who
over from Lithuania went ters by Sholem Aleichem, went to Lithuania in July to
on display Tuesday at New whose writings inspired the evaluate the documents.
York’s YIVO Institute for “Fiddler on the Roof” char- They are “startlingly large Documents recently rediscovered in Lithuania are displayed
Jewish Research, which is acter Tevye, and a Yiddish in volume, and remarkably at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, Tuesday,
Oct. 24, 2017.
working with the Lithuanian postcard written by the art- diverse in character and Associated Press
government to archive the ist Marc Chagall in 1935. subject matter,” Fishman
170,000-page collection. Another major cache of said. “All of East European Highlights of the Manhat- ings of the solar system and
The documents were hid- historical artifacts was Jewish life passes through tan exhibition, which can an 1883 Russian censor’s
den to protect them from found in the church in 1991. your eyes. It will take re- be seen by appointment copy of a theatrical poem
the Nazis during World War “The troves discovered in searchers many years to until January, include a by Abraham Goldfaden,
II. They resurfaced during Lithuania are the most im- digest and analyze these 1751 astronomy manuscript founder of the modern Yid-
a move in 2016, and YIVO portant body of material in documents.” with descriptions and draw- dish theater.q