44 pages • 1 hour read
Chloe BenjaminThe Immortalists
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaPart 4, Chapters 31-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “Place of Life, 2006-2010 – Varya”
Part 4, Chapter 31 Summary
The novel moves back to the time just after Daniel’s death. Varya visits Mira in Kingston and sees all of Daniel’s research in his study. Varya tells Mira the story of Bruna Costello and cautions against sharing it with Gertie. Varya notes, “The truth might change Gertie’s perception of her children, children who weren’t alive to defend themselves” (290). We also learn that Eddie is cleared of all charges in relation to Daniel’s death.
Varya reveals that she did not have to attend a conference during that Thanksgiving. Instead, she stayed away because she knew Daniel’s prophesied death date was approaching, and “She did not know what would happen that day, did not think she could stand to witness it” (290-291).
Varya thinks back to her history with mental illness. It was not until she was 30 that she was diagnosed with OCD. She had always been anxious, but all of her rituals and fixations became worse after visiting Bruna.
During graduate school, she sleeps with a visiting professor and becomes pregnant. She mentions planning to get an abortion at Planned Parenthood, and the text does not make it clear whether or not she goes through with the procedure.
Part 4, Chapter 32 Summary
Varya spends the entire week with Luke as he follows her through her days in the vivarium. Luke helps with the work and plays games with the monkeys. They eat lunch together on Thursday, and Luke asks if she ever has moral qualms about using the monkeys in the trials. Varya responds, “This research is worth it. This animal’s life is simply not as valuable as whatever medical advances that life can serve” (298).
On Friday, Luke asks Varya for a drink after work, and she accepts. They drink wine, and Varya becomes drunk. Luke tells her about his family and the cherry farm he grew up on. Varya begins to talk about her family, sharing how each of her siblings died. Luke expresses sympathy, saying Klara’s name even though Varya hadn’t mentioned it. Varya leaves.
Part 4, Chapter 33 Summary
Varya sleeps in her car and wakes up Saturday morning. She returns home, showers, and sleeps. In the afternoon, she goes into the lab. Frida has been put into isolation, and Varya goes in to see her and talk to her. Frida has been plucking her hair out, and she had previously bitten her own thigh.
While Varya is talking to Frida, Luke comes in. He takes a picture of Frida in the isolation tank. Varya gets angry, demanding he give her the camera. She realizes he is not a real journalist and demands to know who he is. Luke says, “You named me Solomon” (308).
The novel now reveals that Varya did not get an abortion. Instead of keeping her appointment at Planned Parenthood, she walks away and has the baby.
Part 4, Chapter 34 Summary
As Varya runs out of the lab, Luke pursues her. He admits to posing as a journalist and threatens to sell the photos to PETA unless Varya talks to him.
They go to her condo, and Luke records the conversation. He begins by asking about his birth and the surrounding circumstances. Varya answers directly, sharing information about the father and relating that Gertie is the only person who knew about it. When asked why she gave him up, she says she was afraid “Of all the things that can go wrong when people are attached to each other” (316). Since then, Varya has not had a relationship.
She offers Luke Saul’s gold watch, but he refuses. Luke opens up Varya’s refrigerator to reveal individually packaged meals, and “an Excel spreadsheet with each meal’s caloric count, as well as its vitamin and mineral content” (319). Varya has been practicing calorie restriction on herself.
Luke confronts Varya, saying this method is not worth the longevity if life is not enjoyable. He reveals that he had responsibility in his own older brother’s death. His brother Asher was working in a grain bin, and Luke was supposed to keep a look out and go for help if something went amiss. Asher sunk into the grain and died.
Varya tells Luke to leave then tries to drive after him but fails. She goes to the lab and observes Frida in her cage, and “she scrabbles shamelessly at her own bone, the flesh around it a mangled gash of blood and tissue” (323).
Varya carries Frida into the kitchen, trying to get her to eat food. Frida eats a bit then throws up. Varya cradles her in her arms, and Frida bites her on the chin.
Part 4, Chapter 35 Summary
Instead of calling the vet, Varya ends up sleeping in the kitchen with Frida. She does not contract any disease from the bite, and Frida is sent away from Drake. Varya is allowed to resign from Drake voluntarily because, “In feeding her, Varya nullified Frida’s data and compromised the analysis as a whole” (327). Varya calls Luke the night of her resignation, and he tells her to call him back the next day.
Three months later, Varya meets up with Robert. He has been running a contemporary dance company with his partner in Chicago. Though he has HIV, he has been able to remain healthy with the help of drugs.
Part 4, Chapter 36 Summary
Varya sees a cognitive behavioral therapist. She continues to communicate with Luke, and the pair “exchange snail mail, photos and postcards and other small things” (338).
After work one night, Varya goes to visit Gertie with Ruby, who is spending two weeks there. Ruby is now a rising senior at UCLA, and she spends two weeks every summer visiting Gertie. She “plays mah-jongg with the widows and reads to Gertie from the books in her literature courses” (337).
Ruby performs a magic show to the delight of all the residents. During the show, Varya tells Gertie about Bruna and her predictions. Gertie responds by saying, “So you went to see a Gypsy. No one’s stupid enough to believe them” (340). She urges Varya to live her life and forget the predictions.
Part 4, Chapters 31-36 Analysis
These chapters extensively explore the theme of repression through Varya’s character. She suffers from OCD and lives her life in a very controlled and repressed manner. Varya lives by, “all the rituals that safeguarded every hour, every day, every month, every year” (293). Thus, Varya does not experience life fully; rather, her rituals control her. One significant ritual involves food: She painstakingly restricts her calories in an anti-aging effort. She also represses her emotions and sexuality. She does not have an orgasm until the age of 27. As a result of this sexual encounter, Varya becomes pregnant and has a child. Instead of opening herself up to the experience of motherhood, she gives the child away and swears her mother to secrecy. She tells no one else about this part of her life, effectively suppressing a significant and traumatic experience. Opening herself up to sexuality proves to be a dangerous scenario that she cannot control, so she does not have another relationship after Luke’s birth. In this way, she represses most of her essential human drives.
These repressive practices directly relate to the emotional undercurrent of fate in Varya’s life and the lives of her siblings. She notes, “She still feared she might catch or transmit something terrible, as though her luck was both bad and contagious” (291). Thus, by cutting herself off from the experiences of the world, she attempts to insulate herself from fate. Varya makes herself a victim of fate, believing that it has power in her world: “she doesn’t think it’s absurd to believe that a thought can make something come true” (295). Varya feels very guilty about the deaths of her siblings. She wishes she had reached out more to Simon and Klara. In addition, she blames herself for Daniel’s death, believing that if she had been present on the day his death was predicted he might not have died.
However, the author ultimately uses Varya’s character to challenge the nature of fate. By the end of the book, Varya gives fate less power. After leaving Drake, Varya begins to take part in life, pushing her fear away. She begins eating and seeing a therapist. Additionally, she builds a relationship with Luke and reaches out to Robert. She effectively decides to stop repressing elements of her past and directly engage with them. Varya explains, “The worst has happened, and amidst the hollowing loss is the thought that now there is much less to fear” (328). Thus, Varya has made it through significant trauma and now feels she can face the world with courage. She decides her own fate by making her own choices and refusing to let fear rule her. She comments on the legacy her mother, a Holocaust survivor who embraced Jewish ritual throughout her life, left to her children: “the freedom of uncertainty. The freedom of an unsure fate” (341).
