The Book of Form and Emptiness

Benny runs down the alleyway. He remembers when Kenji used to bring him to the harbor to watch the container ships coming and going, and they would try to guess what was being transported inside them. Eventually, the alley leads him to a small park he remembers visiting with Kenji as a child. In the park is an extensive homeless encampment. Benny approaches it cautiously. His presence alerts guard dogs, which start barking at him until their owners Jake, Dozer, and Terence (T-Bone), calm the dogs down. They invite Benny to share their dinner of canned rice and beans. Though he feels guilty, imagining Annabelle eating her spaghetti dinner alone, he decides to join them.

Benny admits that he has a hard time understanding people’s vocal and behavioral cues. He compares this to his ability to understand objects in that objects don’t tease, lie, or try to deceive him in any way. Benny trusts objects more than people because they are genuine.

After eating, Benny walks home. Since he isn’t running, Benny notices the threatening figures, drug addicts, and others hiding in the shadows of the alley. He finds Annabelle waiting for him at their back door. Her affectionate hug overwhelms him, and he relies on another Coping Card that describes a practice of self-distancing. It requires Benny to pretend that he is a fly on the wall observing the situation. Benny’s first-person narration switches to third person limited to simulate how he uses the Coping Card. From this perspective, Benny is shown crying in the kitchen and apologizing to Annabelle for causing her teapot to crack.

The Book explains that Benny’s fly-on-the-wall technique is less a coping mechanism and more a normal aspect of adolescence; it connects this coping mechanism with the Bildungsroman genre, which follows the growth of a young protagonist as they come of age.

Benny continues to go to the library instead of school for the next few days. He attempts to read Benjamin’s philosophy to impress Alice but finds the theories too dense to understand. One day, he receives a reminder email that the principal still needs a doctor’s note explaining Benny’s absences. Benny panics, having forgotten to send the email after forging the note. He does so but is still extremely anxious; to escape his emotions, Benny lays his head on his desk and falls asleep.

Following the teapot incident, Annabelle is depressed. She stands in the kitchen, crushing ants with her finger and thinking over a meeting she had with Dr. Melanie the day after Benny cracked her teapot. She discovers that Benny had been lying to Dr. Melanie since his discharge from Pedipsy, claiming that the voices stopped. However, his comment about the teapot’s song signals that he still hears the voices. When Annabelle confronts Benny about this, he says that he lied and didn’t really hear the teapot’s voice. Dr. Melanie suggests that Annabelle spend more time focusing on healing herself and adopting healthier habits so that she can better take care of Benny.

Annabelle agrees that she needs help. She does not have friends but considers Aikon’s book a form of therapy. One of the ants she tries to crush walks over an ad for a Zen massage. Annabelle takes this as a sign and books herself an appointment.

Alice wakes Benny from his nap and teases him about falling asleep while trying to read Benjamin. Benny admits that he can’t understand Benjamin, to which Alice replies that Slavoj can help him. She leads Benny to the fifth floor men’s bathroom undergoing construction. Inside, they find Slavoj with two of the library’s construction workers, both from Slovenia and admirers of Slavoj’s poetry. They are drinking vodka. The workers leave when Alice and Benny enter.

Alice gently remonstrates Slavoj for drinking and argues against his pouring Benny a shot. Slavoj insists that Benny make a toast, but as Benny is uncertain of how to act in the situation, Slavoj makes a toast to “ze voices.” Surprised that Slavoj would mention voices, Benny drinks the shot. Slavoj explains that, as a poet, he hears voices. Any philosopher, artist, or intellectual hears voices, according to Slavoj. When Benny admits that he also hears voices but isn’t a great artist, Slavoj encourages him to compose a poem or ponder a philosophical question.

Benny struggles to come up with a question because he doesn’t trust his perception of reality. He settles on the question: “What is real?” (233). Slavoj takes another shot, upsetting Alice. She believes Slavoj is teasing Benny though Benny disagrees, believing that Slavoj is showing him respect in acknowledging the voices.

Annabelle arrives at the Zen Serenity spa for her massage. While undressing, Annabelle feels shame about her body; so much of her self-confidence relied on Kenji’s affection for her that she has struggled to find comfort in her appearance after his death. She begins to sob during the massage, and her masseuse encourages her to let her emotions out. Annabelle shifts from crying to feeling serenity, then falls asleep. When the masseuse wakes her at the end of the appointment, Annabelle feels she has accomplished something significant and is “the kind of woman who remembers to take care of herself” (239). She returns home and, still occupied with thoughts of Kenji, masturbates to the memory of their first night together. Annabelle wakes the next morning to find the fridge magnets rearranged into a new poem. To her, this signifies Kenji’s continued presence in the home.

Benny describes how Annabelle frantically wakes him the morning she finds the magnets rearranged. She is convinced it is a message from Kenji. The poem reads “smooth as a peach in a dream” (240) which she takes as an intimate reference to how Kenji desired her. Benny doesn’t believe that Kenji’s spirit is moving the magnets; he does not believe in spirits and quickly forgets the incident.

The Book points out that, just as Benny is beginning to question the validity of his reality, he is “oblivious to how [his] mother might be experiencing hers” (243). The Book doesn’t mean to criticize Benny but wants to acknowledge how stubborn children can be in perceiving the emotional lives of their parents.

Benny and Alice begin meeting at the library on a daily basis. She sometimes speaks of her past, having run away from home as a young teenager and phasing in and out of psychiatric and rehab facilities. Mostly, she lives with Slavoj, either outside, when the weather is nice, or recently in an abandoned warehouse. Slavoj gives them lectures in environmental ethics, politics, and philosophy, with an emphasis on how people see the planet as a separate entity that they themselves have destroyed.

One day, instead of meeting at the library, Alice invites Benny to the warehouse. Benny is excited to see Alice; he is truly in love with her. He finds Alice and Slavoj in a backroom, eating soup. He takes a spoon from his backpack, one that he carries around for its gentle and happy voice and joins them. Alice announces that Slavoj has agreed to quit drinking.

Alice shows Benny her studio. She has been creating snow globes that depict the world’s worst natural disasters and environmental catastrophes, such as tsunamis and nuclear power plant meltdowns. She explains she plans to finish one last snow globe, fearing that her work is merely making more material things to “clutter” up the world. She wants to shift her activism towards performance art. Alice lets Benny choose a snow globe for Annabelle. 

Benny chooses the snow globe called “3/11,” which depicts the earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan. He chose it because he remembers watching the news of the disaster with his family.

Benny gifts the snow globe to Annabelle on her birthday but worries that she is unsettled by its theme. He lies and tells her that he made it in science class but quickly realizes that Annabelle doesn’t believe this. They fight. Benny struggles to fill in exactly what happened. His medications tend to leave gaps in his memory, which the Book is able to fill.

The Book explains that Benny is a creative person simply by being alive: “We books are evidence that this is so” (257).

The Book narrates Annabelle’s birthday from her perspective after receiving Benny’s gift. She worries because Benny has never been an overt liar. She knows the crafting materials that must have been used in the snow globe and questions Benny on them; he is unable to answer. The contents of the globe worry her. The disaster is very different from the “cheerful and kitschy and mass-produced" (258) snow globes she has collected so far. This new one makes her collection look “foolish.”

Benny persists in claiming that he made the snow globe. When Annabelle asks him whether he moved the fridge magnets into a new poem again, Benny becomes angry and runs out of the house. 

Benny walks down the alley towards the park and homeless encampment. He finds Jake and his companions, who offer him marijuana. Benny smokes too much and become disorientated; when another homeless man approaches with a bat and threatens Benny, Benny is too high to reason with him. The man hits Benny over the head with his bat.

Annabelle tries calling Benny’s cell phone, but it is still in the house. She calls the police station to file a missing child report. They tell her that it’s too soon to file a report. She must be patient and wait 24 hours for Benny to return. She Googles what to do in this situation, wishing she had a friend to confide in.

Annabelle remembers that No-Good sent her a second letter that threatens legal action and eviction if she does not clean up the house. She believes that if Kenji were still alive, there would be no clutter in the house and Benny wouldn’t be acting out.