The Postmortal

       The Postmortal by Drew Magary was, to speak frankly, better than most summer assignments that I have encountered but average in the realm of all books I have read. Some parts of the novel were very interesting and compelled me to read on fervently, while other parts I muddled through. Magary did an excellent job of submerging the reader into the emotions John Farrell, the protagonist of the novel. By submerging the reader in John's journey the reader is forced to feel the hopelessness of this new world Farrell is a part of and travel along with him in his journey to become a person he is proud to be. The idea of a journey or a quest is my favorite part of the novel because of its heavy impact on my life and my peers in this stage of our lives.
        The Postmortal presents an interesting concept where Farrell is given more time to take this journey than he ever though possible. This possibility adds more variables to the already complex journey than all individuals are faced with in some point in their life. John is a middle aged man that is faced with many new possibilities because of the cure. These new options differ from following the traditional template of life set out for him by his ancestors. John no longer has to go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, send them to college, retire and enjoy his remaining time in peace with his grandkids. Farrell now has the option to take all the time he needs for himself to figure out who is his before settling down. This new possibility prompts the question of whether more time is a good or a bad thing. For John more time means more mistakes, but time also means more time to make up for these mistakes. Farrell makes many mistakes, through these mistakes he becomes a person that the reader and John himself both despise and though it takes a long time to do so he ratifies the mistakes he has made. He becomes a person that the reader sympathizes with, an individual who's last act is a sacrifice to someone he cares about. By the end of the novel John is ready to die and he has truly accepted all that he has done in his life.
         Everyone must take a journey in life to discover oneself, some say this journey starts when one is born, others believe that it begins when one can make their own decisions, I believe that one's journey truly begins when a person is completely submerged in a new environment with the ability to escape all that one has known prior, for instance when one first leaves home. To me John's journey is a symbol to the journey that myself and my fellow classmates are about to embark on. The cure was a new and foreign thing to John that opened up many possibilities, just like college is to us. College is a new beginning, a time to make mistakes, learn about ourselves, explore every possibility, meet people that will influence our lives forever and hopefully a chance to become someone that is proud of who they are. I feel that my journey through college will be a condensed version of John's journey of life with the cure. His story of consists of many mistakes that make even the reader lose hope of a cathartic ending but the fact that even John's tumultuous story can end happily gives any college student hope that no matter how much one hates college and feels there is no way that college is for them, that in the end it is still possible to look back and be grateful for every up and every down that made you who you are.