Summary: Chapter 11

The trio arrives in Amsterdam and takes a cab to the Hotel Filosoof. Each of the hotel's rooms is named for a philosopher. Hazel and her mother stay in the Kierkegaard room while Augustus stays in the Heidegger room. After waking from a long nap Hazel is delighted to find that Lidewij has made reservations for her and Augustus at a restaurant called Oranjee. Hazel puts on her best summer dress and Augustus his most handsome suit. They take the tram to the restaurant admiring the scenic canals, boats, and old architecture along the way.

When they arrive at the restaurant they are ushered to a table outside overlooking the canal. The waiter brings them champagne on the house. The meal is like nothing either has ever experienced, each course more wonderful than the last. At Augustus’s request, Hazel recites the final lines of the “Prufrock” poem she recited part of on the plane. A woman on a passing boat raises her glass to them and shouts something in Dutch. When Augustus yells back that they don't understand, someone else offers a translation: “The beautiful couple is beautiful.” Augustus reveals that the suit he is wearing was originally intended for his funeral. He asks Hazel if she believes in an afterlife. She says “No” but makes it clear she's not totally certain. Augustus says he does. Augustus cites the same line he did on the airplane from An Imperial Affliction and explains his belief in God through it. He says he fears not having a meaningful life and doing something extraordinary, to which Hazel responds with annoyance that it's unfair of him to say that the only meaningful lives are the ones where people live or die for some cause.

After dinner as they walk Hazel asks Augustus what happened with Caroline, hoping to reassure herself that he'll be ok after she dies. Putting a cigarette in his mouth, he says people idealize kids with cancer, but the truth is that Caroline's brain cancer changed her personality. She died slowly over nearly a year, and she progressively became meaner toward Augustus. At the end he couldn't tell where her real personality ended and the effect of the cancer began. Hazel says she doesn't ever want to hurt him like that, but Augustus replies that it would be a privilege to have his heart broken by her.

Analysis

Hazel's and Augustus's dinner together is a significant scene in the novel because of its romance and intimacy. It's not entirely free of any thoughts of cancer, since it's so perfect that Hazel can't forget it's a cancer perk and they do discuss dying and the afterlying. But even so, it's the closest thing to a normal date Hazel and Augustus have yet had. They are able to go out alone and have a romantic dinner with no other motives or concerns besides enjoying their time together. The meal is terrific, and everything is made somewhat magical by the fact that they're in Amsterdam, which is obviously novel to them both. They're also able to drink champagne for the first time. Despite the tension Hazel feels knowing that everything has been arranged because of her cancer, it's still clearly a special event.

The existentialism motif is very prominent in this section. It begins at the start of Chapter 10 with Hazel's questioning of why certain foods are considered breakfast foods. It's a tongue-in-cheek way for the motif to make an appearance, but examining and deconstructing conventions are important parts of the philosophy. The motif is hinted at directly in the names of the hotel rooms in Amsterdam. Soren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, who Hazel's and Augustus's rooms are named for respectively, were prominent philosophers associated with existentialism. More serious existential thoughts and questions appear as well. When Augustus tells Hazel he loves her, he puts it in the context of knowing that oblivion is inevitable. Among existentialism's concerns was how a person can find meaning knowing that he or she may simply cease to exist upon death, and Augustus couches his love for Hazel in similar terms. In doing so he suggests that humankind's inevitable oblivion doesn't prevent his loving Hazel. It's an important point because it also indirectly hints that Hazel's inevitable death doesn't prevent Augustus from loving her either. The existential questions continue during their dinner at Oranjee and after, as they talk about their beliefs in the afterlife and, notably, what makes a person's life meaningful. Augustus implies that one has to do something extraordinary or heroic to give life meaning, but Hazel, knowing she'll likely die without doing either, contends that value doesn't come exclusively from those sources. It's worth noting that they don't arrive at any consensus. Existentialism focused on raising these questions, but there's never been a consensus on what the answers are.

One of the novel's major themes, the realities of terminal cancer, plays a prominent role in this section as well. It appears in instances like the looks Hazel receives as she waits with her oxygen tank to board the plane, but the most notable place it shows up is Augustus's story about Caroline Mathers. August starts his story by bringing up the conventions about kids with cancer—that they fight their illness heroically and never complain, etc—and then goes on to deflate those conventions. Caroline, we learn, did not die a hero inspiring those around her to greater things. The type of brain cancer she had changed her personality, and contrary to the conventions about cancer kids, she became mean and “unpleasant,” as Augustus puts it. Augustus no longer liked her, and he stayed with her out of guilt. He didn't feel he could dump a girl who was dying. What Augustus's story makes clear is that dying of cancer, and particularly that form of brain cancer, is a slow and painful process, not just for the patient but for his or her loved ones as well. His story isn't full of hope and courage but shame and a great deal of pain.

The distinction between “Augustus” and “Gus” becomes more clearly defined in these chapters, and we learn more about his character beyond his “Augustus” persona. We see the first slight chink in Augustus’s façade of heroic masculinity and charm when he reveals that he couldn't bear to deal with people at the gate staring at them. It's an uncharacteristic move for him. Rather than use some dramatic gesture to handle the situation, he essentially hid. Another side of him comes out on the plane. He's visibly afraid when the plane begins to take off, and Hazel, in a reversal of their usual roles, has to comfort him. Once they're up in the air he can't help but show his pure excitement at the fact that they're flying without any pretense. Up until this point in the story, only Augustus’s parents have ever referred to him as Gus. Suddenly, however, Hazel begins to as well as, and she notes the difference between the two personas. She describes the emergence of “surprised and excited and innocent Gus” from “Grand Gesture Metaphorically Inclined Augustus.” It's a less guarded version of Augustus than we've ever seen, and Hazel obviously recognizes as much, and likes it, because she responds by kissing him on the cheek. This unguarded, unperformed version of Augustus remains throughout the rest of the section as he and Hazel talk about death, the afterlife, and Caroline Mathers. “Augustus” is still there, as he makes clear when he suggests he wants to do something extraordinary to make his life meaningful, but there's also a new vulnerability to him that we previously haven't seen.

Chapter 12

Summary

It's finally the day they're scheduled to meet with Van Houten. Hazel decides to emulate the way Anna dresses in An Imperial Affliction. She wears jeans, Converse sneakers, and a t-shirt with a René Magritte print. Hazel and Augustus arrive at Van Houten's address, and when they ring a man with a bloated belly and sagging jowls opens the door. Hazel is shocked to learn that this is Van Houten. Van Houten is rude from the start. He initially denies having invited the young Americans, and pressed further he says his invitation was merely rhetorical. He didn't expect them to actually show up. Lidewij is present during the meeting and admits to having arranged everything. She thought it would be good for Van Houten. As all this goes on, Van Houten, who is incredibly pompous, keeps drinking scotch. Once he is good and drunk he asks crudely if Hazel intended to dress like Anna on purpose. Trying to steer the conversation in the right direction Hazel asks if Van Houten recalls her list of questions. Van Houten replies cryptically, citing the paradox of Zeno’s tortoise, and then inexplicably making a connection to Swedish hip-hop.

Eventually Van Houten’s convoluted logic leads him to prolifically state “some infinities are bigger than other infinities.” He suggests this idea ought answer Hazel’s childish questions. Deeply unsatisfied by Van Houten’s drunken gimmicks, Hazel presses further. Finally Van Houten disavows his novel altogether. He ridicules Hazel’s belief that an author has special insight into his own characters. The chaotic scene comes to a halt when Van Houten accuses Hazel of being dependent on people's pity and a side effect of evolution. Hazel responds by smacking Van Houten’s scotch glass to the floor. As Van Houten demands to know why Hazel’s “silly questions” are so important, Augustus drags her outside. There he promises to write his own epilogue to An Imperial Affliction for Hazel. Lidewij, who has been polite through the encounter, resigns her position as Van Houten's assistant in disgust and follows the young couple outside. There she explains that Van Houten is the black sheep of a family whose wealth dates back to a 17th century cocoa fortune. She says he wasn't always so cruel and alludes that circumstance made him a monster. Attempting to rectify the situation, Lidewij suggests they tour Anne Frank's house.

The tour involves climbing a number of steep staircases. Hazel struggles through it, determined not to give up, though she nearly blacks out climbing the final set of steps. At the top of the house, Hazel and Augustus wonder how Otto Frank, the family’s sole survivor, carried on after his family was gone. Hazel considers Otto Frank’s not being a father anymore. They enter the next room, where a video of Otto Frank speaking in English plays. Augustus says they should team up to hunt down evil-doers around the world and protect the weak. Tales of their exploits will live on as long as the human voice, he says. Hazel looks at him, thinking it's not an appropriate place to kiss but that even Anne Frank kissed someone there. Suddenly they're kissing as Otto Frank speaks behind them, and when Hazel opens her eyes she sees a crowd of people watching them. She worries they're angry, but the crowd breaks into applause and shouts of “Bravo!” After the tour, Hazel and Augustus return to Augustus's hotel room. Hazel tells him she loves him, and they make love for the first time. It's not exactly as Hazel expected, neither as painful or as ecstatic, and they fall asleep together afterward with Hazel's head resting on Augustus's chest.

Analysis

Hazel's meeting with Van Houten emphasizes perhaps more than anything the difference between expectation and reality. This idea appears right at the beginning of the chapter in Hazel's t-shirt, which bears a print by the Belgian painter René Magritte. The print, which shows the image of a pipe, points out that the image is, in fact, not really a pipe. As Hazel explains to her mother, it is strictly the representation of a pipe, not the thing itself. This notion carries through Hazel's and Augustus's meeting with Van Houten as Hazel learns that the idea she'd formed of the author based on his novel doesn't at all correspond to reality. She appeared to expect someone who was kind, sympathetic, and understand her particular struggle with cancer, and what she encountered was a pompous, cranky old man who cared little for her or her illness. What's more, Hazel realizes that just because Van Houten wrote An Imperial Affliction doesn't mean he knows what happens to the characters after the novel ends. The novel exists independently of Van Houten at this point, and the relationship Hazel has developed with the book has nothing to do with Van Houten. What Hazel is disappointed to understand is that her idea of Van Houten and of the characters in An Imperial Affliction were just representations in her mind, much like Magritte's pipe.

Hazel and Augustus reach new levels of intimacy in this chapter. They share their first passionate kiss that's more than a peck on the cheek or lips. Hazel also tells Augustus she loves him for the first time, and most notably, the two make love. Before this point their relationship had been based primarily in emotion. While there was physical attraction between the two, most of their interaction revolved around talking. The move into physical intimacy is a significant step, particularly given the complicated relationship each has with their body. Augustus, for example, has previously joked that 17-year-old guys with one leg are all virgins, which suggests that he's at least somewhat self-conscious regarding his missing leg. That self-consciousness comes up just before they undress, with Augustus showing some discomfort as he prepares Hazel for what his leg will look like. Hazel has her own issues regarding her body. When they kiss in the Anne Frank house, Hazel describes her body as “this cancer-ruined thing I'd spent years dragging around.” The kiss makes her feel for the first time that she likes her body and that it has some worth. Both clearly don't love their physical forms, and yet when they make love both forget about these shortcomings and embrace the physical parts of themselves. Their cancers and whatevers scars each one's cancer has left behind cease to matter. It's their bodies they use to connect with one another, redeeming the body's worth.

The setting of Anne Frank's house carries a great deal of symbolic meaning, as does the fact that Hazel and Augustus share a passionate kiss there. The house commemorates Anne Frank's life as well as memorializing how Anne and many of her family members died. The house is a sad place as a result. It's a reminder of the pain suffered by Anne and of her early death, which is why Hazel initially worries that it's the wrong setting for her and Augustus to be kissing in. But it's also notable that Hazel is young and terminally ill. She is in a way like Anne, who was similarly young and found herself in the midst of a horrible situation. What Hazel's and Augustus's kiss does is to highlight the joy and exuberance that the young experience in moments like first kisses, which Hazel points out Anne herself had in that house. It becomes an affirmation of life in the face of suffering and death, and not just death as represented by the Holocaust, but also death as represented by cancer. It's something like a victory for Hazel, and perhaps for Anne by extension since she and Hazel share those key similarities, and so it makes sense that the crowd would cheer and applaud.

For a brief moment we again see Augustus's desire to do something heroic as he and Hazel tour the Anne Frank house. Augustus is joking when he asks if there are any Nazis left he could bring to justice and says he and Hazel could team up to hunt down evil-doers, but it's also evident from his past actions that this type of heroism holds value for him. The other comments he makes as he and Hazel joke about this notion suggest why it might be so important to him. He says the stories of their exploits “will survive as long as the human voice itself,” which shows his yearning to have others consider his life important and to remember him after his death. Considered alongside how he sacrifices himself in video games and the fear of oblivion he admitted to in the support group early in the novel, it's evident that Augustus believes his life will have meaning only if his death comes as a sacrifice for a noble cause and his memory lives on after him. Given the very real possibility of his dying young, it's not surprising that he places so much value on being remembered, and with his penchant for symbolic and dramatic gestures, it also makes sense that he would want a glorious death.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 778