59 pages • 1 hour read
Hank GreenAn Absolutely Remarkable Thing
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.
Chapters 9-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
April defines the five tiers of fame as popularity, notoriety, working-class fame, true fame, and divinity—each of which are categorized by how many people know who you are and their average level of devotion to you. After their first video, April reached working-class fame, as enough people knew her for strangers to approach her in public. After the Hollywood Carl video, however, April reaches true fame. This means she can call herself a celebrity because she is recognized so often that it is a legitimate burden.
Andy asks April if always playing the part gets exhausting, and she responds that it feels natural and fun. She sleeps over at Andy’s that night, and Robin has movers take her things from Maya’s apartment while Maya is at work. Putnam advises April to keep posting on social media to build her following and make media outlets hungrier to talk to her. April explains that with sudden success, you know it’s happened, and you see numbers, but you don’t actually have any money. As traffic is blocked on her street, it is eerily silent compared to the city sounds she loves. She realizes she will be sleeping alone for the first time.
When she falls asleep, April wonders how she can make the Dream last longer and walks to the door behind the receptionist robot. There, she finds an office with cubicles and desktops. Each screen has an icon labeled “Game” that, when clicked, displays the image of a six-by-four grid with one different colored block. When she is unable to find anything and gives up, April turns and realizes that the cubicles in the office are laid out in a six-by-four grid. One by one, April visits the desks that each colored block matches until she finds the passcode, which she tells the robot receptionist. She immediately wakes up humming that song again, now with a string of numbers and letters.
When Robin comes over and hears her humming, he asks about the song, and it is revealed that he has been having the dream too. April remembers that Andy and Miranda were humming that song in LA and calls them. Miranda explains that the sequence April received sounds like hex, one of the basic ways computers talk. They decide to figure out who else is having the dream and what it means. April goes back to sleep to explore the Dream. The Dream feels like a museum exhibit or diorama, as there are no people. She enters the elevator and heads to the main lobby, where Carl is in the center. Outside the office building, April finds rows of buildings, including an Arby’s and a church, all with conflicting styles.
Andy calls April, waking her up. They are not the only ones having the Dream and it is spreading fast.
Chapter 10 Summary
Andy explains that the Dream is full of weird puzzles that dozens of online communities are talking about and solving together; it hits April that she is behind. Their conversation is interrupted by a call from Putnam—the president of the United States will call April soon. She switches back to Andy’s line and demands to know everything about the Dream. He believes it started when they messed with Hollywood Carl because he, Miranda, and many others have been having it since. Though no one knows how it spreads, it is exactly the same for everyone. Outside of the office building, there are thousands of buildings, each of a different era and style. Every building has a puzzle, some impossible to complete unless you speak a certain language or are knowledgeable in specific, obscure topics. If you solve a puzzle and tell the receptionist the passcode, you get a string of letters and numbers that resemble hexadecimal. If each piece of code is strung together and input into the right computer, it will make a program that will contain some information. Though it would take years for one person to complete, people have already figured out a couple dozen and are sharing them. April’s heart jumps in her throat when she hears that a person with the familiar screen name, “ThePurrletarian,” completed six.
When her other line beeps, April immediately switches over to speak with the president. It turns out the president will go on TV and talk about the situation in 10 minutes and wants to talk to April first. She isn’t pleased with how April handled herself this week—it is a democracy where citizens have access to their representatives, and April could have contacted her. She requests that April talk to her before taking any action in response to a message from an alien life-form and that it would be appropriate if she shares any other information she has. April lies, saying she doesn’t know anything that isn’t public knowledge. The president gives April her phone number and asks that she contact her immediately if she discovers anything else.
April switches back to Andy’s line, admitting she was just scolded by the president for communicating with aliens on behalf of her country and species without letting someone qualified make the call. She realizes they will make very powerful enemies if they do this again. They silently listen to the president’s televised speech together. The president makes it clear that there is no danger—the Carls appear non-threatening, and the Dream seems to be a harmless call for people across the planet to work together. She shares the discovery that the Carls are hovering micrometers above the ground and are immovable. She ends by saying that the government is working hard to uncover Carls’ mysteries and that all of humanity will have to work together to solve the Dream. Now that the president and scientists have confirmed it, the Carls are officially aliens.
Chapter 11 Summary
April recounts an incident six months prior when she caught Maya illustrating cats. Maya meshed her hobbies of drawing adorable cats and criticizing late-capitalist financialization into a webcomic about anti-capitalist cats called “The Purrletariat,” which gained substantial following and generated revenue. However, for professional and personal reasons Maya liked keeping it a secret. When Andy shared the similar-sounding username of the person who solved six puzzles, April freaked out because it is likely Maya.
April speaks to her parents, who are impressed that she spoke with the president but think that she is right for scolding April. Though they are happy that April is safe, they find it scary that Carl is able to change their brains and create the Dream, and they wonder if their brains have been changed more than they think. April defends Carl, saying the Dream is fun and that Carl is giving humanity a project to work on together. They mention Tom’s upcoming wedding, reassuring April that it doesn’t have to be all about him and that they will make some time for her.
April lowers herself into the news storm—she is linked to the story because she discovered Carl, was the first person to say he was an alien, and was the reason his hand ran away. Everyone is available to talk to April, so she speaks to anyone remotely related to the topic. During one unpleasant interview, April is paired with Peter Petrawicki, the average, middle-aged author of an Amazon book titled “Invaded.” Peter asserts that the Carls are potentially a threatening and invading force, and when April calls him foolish, he questions how it could be foolish to consider the security of Americans when a powerful force shows up and invades their minds. He states that they are wearing armor, came unannounced, violated international and domestic law, and have asked for radioactive materials. Peter asserts that though it serves the president’s purpose to believe them to be peaceful envoys, it makes more sense to exercise caution, as no one knows the Carls’ intent or origin. Historically, it never ends well for less advanced people when advanced civilizations meet them.
After the interview, April and Robin find out that Peter’s 20-page book is the only one in the world about Carl and is the top-selling book on Amazon. Before Carl, Peter was nothing more than a low-level conservative hawk journalist who filtered reality through his ideology; now, Peter has been on the news every day since the Hollywood Carl incident. It stings for April because she realizes that she completely misidentified or ignored what is now a movement. Running out of ambition, April turns her hatred for Peter into fuel. She uses the strategies from his playbook and throws his arguments back at him. Her channels dramatically shift from being wholesome to being political and opinionated. Retrospectively, April realizes that she affirmed him and his followers by engaging with them.
Chapters 9-11 Analysis
As the story’s events are narrated through April’s opinionated perspective, what should have been breaking news in relation to science and discovery almost goes by unnoticed. April doesn’t realize that the Dream is something significant sent by the Carls until she finds out her friends have it too. Then, it turns out that many people who got the Dream from April have been more invested in solving its sequence, leaving April behind. Interestingly, April seems less interested with solving Dream sequences and more with being the first person to discover and complete such things. This is another way in which fame matters more to her than the world around her.
Though the Dream’s purpose is still unclear, it seems to be an intentional gift from Carl. Separated from the story’s themes of fame and crafted personas, the Dream forces people from around the world to work collaboratively to solve its sequences. In direct opposition to the way social media often separates people, the Dream brings them together in the most humane way. It exposes the nature of humanity and the importance of being interconnected but unique individuals, not separate beings that have no choice but to be at odds with each other. While the Dream requires that people use their unique skills and knowledge, it also requires that people utilize these differences in coordinated efforts.
While outlining the tiers of fame, April notes that her rise to notoriety comes after posting the video of Hollywood Carl. What should have been a historic decision made on behalf of mankind is inextricably linked to April May’s persona. When the president contacts her, April is finally faced with the truth that making contact with the Carls without expert opinion was not her call to make. However, it is now unavoidable that she is a part of the narrative, and the president has no option but to request April’s cooperation. April’s fame gives her power and leverage over the president, which seems to be to April’s benefit for the time being but can have disastrous consequences if she makes big enemies.
April faces more consequences as she becomes obsessed with Peter Petrawicki. While she became famous as the quirky and wholesome art student with opinions about fame and the nature of society, it doesn’t take long for an opposing opinion to come into the picture. No matter one’s fame, there will always be different opinions that others would rather stand behind. Just as April speaks to hope and positivity, Petrawicki speaks to a very human fear and uncertainty. April’s first interaction with Petrawicki ultimately sends her into a downward spiral where she uses her popularity as a direct opposition of Petrawicki’s stance, thus eliminating her original wholesomeness.
