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In The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green writes a lot about the phenomenon of life being very fleeting but yet individuals show strong attachments to mere experiences in order to still preserve significance and meaning. In his reflections, nostalgia linked to memory often becomes a recurring motif and one amazing thing Green uses to evoke it is through human senses like taste, smell and sight, specifically, in the essays Lascaux Cave Paintings, Scratch N Sniff Stickers and Diet Dr Pepper, which stood out to me the most. In each essay, we will explore how John Green uses the motif of nostalgia and memory to reveal the tension between individuals desire for things to remain in a world defined by change.

In his essay Lascaux Cave Paintings, Green unravels the motif of memory through visual imagery by connecting his personal nostalgia to historical art that evoked nostalgia. To begin, Green recalles his memories and reflected on his own experiences as he wrote I am extremely happy that my children are no longer three, and yet to look at their little hands from those early artworks is to be inundated with a strange, soul-splitting joy.(pg 35) I think his reflection shows just how joyous and painful it was thinking back on this memory because by saying soul-splitting joy nostalgia becomes paradoxical. Green is honoring yet mourning those moments, revealing how memory can cause a desiring attachment to what cannot be regained. Then, Green goes beyond his personal experiences when he observes the hand stencils left on the cave walls many years ago, to which he notes, To me, though, the hand stencils say, I was here. They say, You are not new.(pg 39) So, for Green these artwork were more than just markings but were a timeless thing that showed presence, evidence that even in a world where nothing stays the same, humans still longed to create marks that did. This essay closes with Green saying This is not the thing itself, but a shadow of it. This is a handprint, but not a hand. This is a memory that you cannot return to. And to me, that makes the cave very much like the past it represents(pg 40) I think what Green was trying to communicate was that memory can bring us close to what once was, but it can never give it back fully. Tying back into the LOI, this reveals how Green uses the motif of nostalgia and memory to reveal our deep desire to hold onto meaning in a world where nothing stays the same.

In Scratch N Sniff Stickers, smell is the human sense that plays a parallel role in triggering memory and nostalgia. Green directly states that One of the things that makes smell so powerful, of course, is its connection to memory.(pg 41) I believe that this alludes to how sensory experiences act as channels, linking the past to the present. He emphasizes this by juxtposing artificial and natural scents,The scent of artificial Spring Rain takes me back to an Alabama dorm room in 1993. The smell of actual spring rain, meanwhile, returns me to the drenching thunderstorms of my childhood in Central Florida.(pg 41-42) Green says. He refers back to very specific moments just based on his recollection of vivid smell. This shows how memory and nostalgia changes fleeting moments into lasting significance. Then he reflects, When I open that ancient sticker book and scratch at the yellowing stickers curling at the edges, what I smell most is not pizza or chocolate, but my childhood.(pg 45) The curling, yellowed stickers are meant to symbolize the transient nature of life, yet the memories they hold still remain. Therefore, through the central focus on memory , Green highlights our desire to hold onto what matters to us even as the world evolves and material things fade. And,nostalgia lets us carry traces of the past, creating continuity into our personal and collective identity over time.

Similarly, In Diet Dr Pepper, John Green shows how taste can stimulate nostalgia and connect individuals to both personal and collective experience. Reflecting on the sodas background, Green notes, When I drink it, I think of the kids at that soda fountain in Waco, Texas, most of whom rarely knew the pleasures of an ice-cold drink of any kind, and how totally enjoyable those first Dr Peppers mustve been.(pg 48) In this moment, soda becomes a passage across time, linking him not only to his own past but also to the lives of people who came before him, allowing him to share the temporary enjoyments they experienced. Green also ties this memory to his personal past and habits, writing, There remains a yearning within my subconscious that cries out for a sacrifice, and so I offer up a faint shadow of a proper vice and drink Diet Dr Pepper, the soda that tastes more like the Anthropocene than any other.(pg 50) I believe this reflection reveals how sensory experience evokes nostalgia while also filling the gap of a deep desire or reflects the ways humans create continuity in their lives by holding onto their small comforts. Green also speaks on the constant pull of memory and desire through saying I dont know whether this feeling is universal, but I have some way-down vibrating part of my subconscious that needs to self-destruct, at least a little bit.(pg 50) In these quotes I think it becomes more apparent that memory and nostalgia are tied to our bodily experiences, what we crave, and our attempts to reconcile past and present. Lastly to add, Green also highlights the human desire to create meaning and cling on to sensory experiences, even in a world where change is always happening.

All together, In Lascaux Cave Paintings, Scratch N Sniff Stickers, and Diet Dr Pepper”, John Green shows the motif of nostalgia and memory highlighting our deep desire to hold onto significance in a world that refuses to remain the same, to which he develops across different sensory experiences. Every sensory experience in each essay becomes a reminder that although time is constantly moving, we can still preserve parts of it whether that’s through art, through smell, or through taste, and that these could all link us to our own memories while also to the broader continuity of collective history.