The Theology of Attention in The Fault in Our Stars: John Green’s Novel Contribution to “Thinking About Suffering”

Abstract

This article describes the theology of attention that unfolds in John Green’s young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars. Using Simone Weil’s “doctrine of attention” as an interpretative lens, I explain how Green uses literary fiction to outline an alternative to abstract theological “solutions” to the horror of child cancer. Through intertextual connections to Infinite Jest and The Brothers Karamazov, Green implies that a focus on individual suffering is the basis for true compassion, translating the theological vision of “attentive love” presented by Foster Wallace and Dostoevsky for contemporary readers.