The Book of Form and Emptiness

Benny is unnerved by the world after being in Pedipsy, as if “the world outside the hospital felt unreal to him now” (137). He consults a Coping Card on the bus and follows its breathing exercise to overcome the insistent voices he hears. At the library, Benny walks around, getting accustomed to the changes made by recent construction work. He goes to the ninth floor, where there is a strange, short bridge connecting the old library to the newly built portions; the bridge spans a precipitous drop to the basement of the library and the old Bindery. Across the bridge, Benny notices a series of study carrels in a private nook.

The Book interjects the history of the library’s recent expansion and the San Francisco city council’s desire to employ a famous architect. He redesigns the library as well as the Library Square outside, a modern public concourse intended to encourage people to use the library more. As a result, the Library Square becomes home to houseless people.

Benny forms a routine in visiting the library each day, checking out books, and reading them in the ninth-floor study carrel. He discovers that reading stories gives “the voices in his head something to think about” (144). While reading one day, he finds one of Alice’s slips of paper in a book. It reads: “Congratulations. You made it” (144). Benny glues the slip into his notebook, where he has glued the other slips from Alice.

While Benny spends his summer at the library, Annabelle works diligently on monitoring the news. She follows news of climate change, fires, the spread of the Zika virus, and politics. On top of this, she watches Benny’s behavior for any changes, such as further auditory hallucinations or social withdrawal, as instructed by the outpatient Pedispy care team. Even though she now works in monitoring digital news sources, her employer requires her to back-up and keep the news on disks, which adds to the ever-growing clutter in the house.

One day, concerned that Benny might be socially isolated, Annabelle secretly follows him to the library. She finds the ninth-floor bridge and spots Benny sleeping in his usual carrel on the other side. On the bridge, Annabelle experiences vertigo and nearly faints. A passing library patron notices her on the bridge and cautiously approaches, asking if Annabelle is all right. She assumes that Annabelle is contemplating suicide. Annabelle explains that she was merely looking for her son and confides that she is worried about him. The stranger promises to keep an eye on Benny when she can.

Benny begins high school, but he is still being bullied. When the other students find out that he spent part of the summer in Pedispy after stabbing himself in the leg, they bully Benny through text messages and ostracize him from all social groups.

Benny disagrees with the Book that recounting his high school experience is important for the story. He claims that readers will assume that he is bullied without the book going into detail. His response to being ostracized is to speak openly to the other students about Pedipsy and the voices he hears, but when the other students see Annabelle visiting the guidance counselor, Benny notices how they stare at her and criticize her appearance. Though Benny doesn’t want to admit it, he tells the Book he is ashamed of his mother and wishes she had died instead of Kenji. He tells the Book to talk about The Aleph, Alice’s artist name, instead.

After a week in high school, Benny decides that “school [is] detrimental to his mental health” (154). He hacks Annabelle’s email account to forward any emails from the school or his principal to a dummy account he creates. Then, he sends an email from the dummy account under Annabelle’s name giving his principal the excuse that Benny has been readmitted to Pedipsy and won’t be in school for the time being.

Benny takes the bus to the library instead of getting off at his school. Slavoj, who is also on the bus and gets off at the library, tries to get Benny’s attention. He offers to distract the front desk librarians while Benny enters the library so that they do not become suspicious that Benny is skipping school. Benny succeeds in sneaking into the library and going up to the ninth floor, where he can also hide from Slavoj as the study carrel is not wheelchair accessible. Benny receives an email from the principal delivered to the dummy account that states a doctor’s note must be provided to excuse him from school. Benny looks up sample doctor’s notes on the internet to print, forge Annabelle’s signature on, and send back.

Annabelle’s new workday requires her to sit in front of the computer all day, which makes her worry about her health and weight gain. She eats chips and salsa for lunch and dreams of being motivated enough to go to the store and buy salad ingredients. When she returns to her desk, she finds Tidy Magic underneath some papers and, because she can’t remember moving it there, assumes Kenji is sending her another sign. Inspired to clean up, Annabelle takes some of the trash bags containing outdated archives outside. She speaks to her neighbor, the landlady’s son whom she and Benny refer to as No-Good and learns that Mrs. Wong is in the hospital after a bad fall. No-Good accuses Annabelle of feeding the crows and having too much garbage on the property.

Benny goes to the lower levels of the library to print out the fake doctor’s note and worries that both Slavoj and the librarians will notice him. After printing the note and forging Annabelle’s signature, Benny decides to wait before scanning it into an email, reasoning that Dr. Melanie would never respond to the principal so quickly. He returns to the ninth floor.

Distracted, Benny snoops through the books on a nearby carrel and finds a slip of paper left by Alice that talks about Hansel and Gretel. One the back of the slip is a call number. Benny follows the call number to the Cinema section and a book on director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. In the back pocket of the book is a postcard with a piece of art from Paul Klee and a quote from Walter Benjamin. The quote is typed with a typewriter and references the “Angel of History.” Benny keeps the postcard in his notebook.

The Book asks: “What makes a person want so much?” (173). It tries to understand a person’s compulsion towards consumerism, quoting Herbert Hoover’s statement that “want” is insatiable.

The Book returns to Annabelle’s workday. She is distracted by an eBay auction for a snow globe containing Hansel and Gretel figurines she wants to add to her growing collection. A bidding war ensues, which Annabelle wins at the last moment. She hears No-Good knocking at the door; he calls out that he is leaving an official letter from Mrs. Wong ordering Annabelle to clean up her home.

Benny returns to his carrel with books on the artist Paul Klee. He feels he is being watched, which disturbs him because he “like[s] feeling nonexistent” (178). Eventually, he grows tired and falls asleep in his carrel.

Annabelle reads the letter No-Good slid under her door. It says that Mrs. Wong has given her son all landlord responsibilities. No-Good will inspect Annabelle’s house at the end of the month to make sure she is complying with his requests to clean up and pay her bills.

She decides that she needs a break, logs off work early, and goes to the nearby thrift store to feel as if she is socializing with the employees there. She looks through the clothing racks for clothes for Benny but quickly becomes discouraged and unmotivated. One of the employees is unwrapping a yellow ceramic teapot that was recently donated. Annabelle loves it and insists upon buying it. After buying it, she feels comforted.

Benny is woken from his nap in the study carrel by Alice and her pet ferret, TAZ. Alice insists upon being called “the Aleph” in the library, as it is her artist’s space. She explains that the B-man, short for Bottleman, or Slavoj, gave her the nickname in reference to a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. Alice says that she has been watching Benny and accuses him of hiding from Slavoj.

Benny admits that he finds Slavoj unsettling, to which Alice replies that he is a famous poet in Slovenia and isn’t any crazier than either of them. Nervous and unsure but wanting to connect with her, Benny tells her that he hears voices. This leads to him having a panic attack. Alice helps him calm down by keeping a comforting hand on his chest.

Benny recounts the strong emotions he felt when Alice touched his chest. He believes she is the silver-haired girl from the dream he had the night he began hearing voices. He becomes convinced that he is in love with Alice though he doesn’t know what being in love feels like.

Alice notices the Paul Klee postcard in Benny’s desk and explains that it depicts the Angel of History as discussed by Walter Benjamin. Benny asks her about the slips of paper, expecting a deep explanation, but Alice explains that it is merely a public art project she is testing out. She notes that Benjamin’s Angel of History is “caught in the storm of Progress” (193) and that the more problems start piling up, the harder it is to fix them. Slavoj tells her that socialism will inevitably become the dominant social ideology. Annabelle texts Benny, and Benny leaves to meet his mother at home before she suspects that he skipped school.

Annabelle returns from the thrift store happier than when she left: She has purchased a new snow globe. She finds Tidy Magic on the table and is once again surprised that the book seems to be moving around on its own. She believes the book is trying to help her. She begins reading the first chapter, in which Aikon describes how she transitioned from life as a corporate worker to a Zen Buddhist monk.

Aikon once worked for a fashion magazine that required her to constantly be buying new clothes to keep up with the trends. One day, while she was wearing a very expensive tiara as a headband, a crow unexpectedly plucked it off her head. The crow flew over the wall of a temple and dropped the tiara at a monk’s feet. Aikon entered the temple grounds to retrieve her tiara but felt silly doing. She offered the tiara to a nearby girl, who refused it because it was too gaudy. After the encounter, Aikon did not want the tiara either.

Aikon was deeply impressed by the monk and the thought that she was spending too much energy on material possessions. She called out of work for the rest of the week to clear her apartment of all unnecessary things. After tidying up, Aikon returned to the temple and begged the monk to help free her from a life she now finds meaningless. Aikon believes that the crow that stole her tiara was a bodhisattva helping her find her true path in life.