Nothing by Janne Teller is a young-adult book that is narrated by a girl in 7th grade named Agnes. On the first day of school, one of Agnese's classmates Pierre Anthon introduces himself by saying “Nothing Matters” and leaves the classroom abruptly. Agnes and her classmates are left in the classroom in an awkward silence. Pierre does not get a lot of attention from his father, mother, or any other guardian so he decides to sit in a plum tree and live there. Agnes and the rest of the 7th-grade class devise a way to convince Pierre to leave the tree and show him that things do indeed matter. Agnes and all the 7th graders go to the plum tree and give one of their most prized possessions into a heap to try to show Pierre that things matter, they start with an old sawmill. This act starts innocent but takes a dark turn and is eventually ended when a kid named Jon-Johan loses his finger in the heap and tells his parents. Jon-Johans parents are very mad and call the police and they eventually find the heap and this attracts media attention. A museum wants to buy the heap because it is “modern art” and the children agree excitedly. Pierre then tells them that they proved him right because if anything in the heap mattered why would they let it go? This realization settles in throughout the day and eventually makes everyone go mad and attack each other. Agnes wants to get Pierre to tell them to stop because he started it. Pierre agrees and tells everyone they are idiots and walks away. This makes the children go ballistic and kill Pierre violently. They put him in the sawmill set fire to it and kept the ashes of what used to remain.
My reaction to the book was mostly positive because of how the story allows the reader room to think and explore the complexities of the theme of nothing meaning anything essentially nihilism. What made the book interesting was seeing how people couldn't accept another person's beliefs because it conflicted with their own. It made me reflect on how some people today spend a lot of their time protecting themselves from other thoughts. Something entertaining was how the other 7th graders put something in the pile at a time and it was entertaining to see how it started innocent and progressively got dark. The ending was memorable because of how all the children decided to kill Pierre because he didn't agree with them, which was a shocking turn of events for me. Teller depicts the subject of people reacting to other people's foreign ideas that make them have to rethink what they previously knew. I do agree that people should be more understanding instead of persecuting someone like Pierre, who was innocent. When all the kids went crazy and started attacking each other and killed Pierre it reminded me of the scene in the lord of the Flies( By William Golding) where the children kill Simon. In both of these situations, they kill a person to keep their own beliefs and sanity first. This novel can relate to larger issues for example people who are suffering from depression may get told by other people to change the way they think without having proper support from people who understand them. Just like in this book, they refused to understand Pierre because they didn't understand what he could have been going through.
This book shows a lot of sides to people and how far they may go to be in power and not contradicted. The issues of this book are told through a child's lens but can still apply to the adult world. This novel is trying to help the reader understand that other people should be allowed to voice their opinions and you should hear them rather than tune them out for your own sake. This book has shown me that I should be more patient when listening to other people.
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