47 pages • 1 hour read
Robin Sloan, Rodrigo CorralMr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A 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 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: Maximum Happy Imagination
Kat agrees to meet Clay for lunch and their discussion turns to the Singularity, “the hypothetical point in the future where technology’s growth curve goes vertical and civilization just sort of reboots itself” (58). While Clay is dubious, for Kat, the Singularity also represents the possibility of immortality and the chance to accomplish things not possible within a normal human lifespan. She thinks the most exciting thing about the future is the way our brains will change and argues that while the hardware of our physical brains hasn’t changed in thousands of years, the way our brains operate—the software—has. She attributes these changes in part, to writers. “They say that Shakespeare invented the internal monologue” (61), she says, but thinks that “now it’s programmers who get to upgrade the human operating system” (61). To change the subject, Clay shows her his updated model of the bookstore and the pattern of borrowing he has discovered. Kat is very excited by this and suggests they need more data, which Clay should provide by bringing the store’s logbooks to Google.
Chapter 8 Summary: The Smell of Books
Clay tries to figure out how he’s going to get one of the logbooks out of the store without Penumbra noticing when the owner himself walks in. He is in a strange mood and tells Clay that it is thirty-one years to the day that he took the shop over from his mentor, Al-Asmari. When he mentions that the place has not changed as much as he thought it would, Clay suggests bringing in more popular fiction to attract customers. Penumbra is surprised, as he had assumed young people didn’t read anymore. Then, narrowing his eyes, he asks Clay if he owns a Kindle. Clay does and shows it to him, despairing of the short battery life which, Penumbra muses, is one advantage regular books have over e-readers. Returning home that night, Clay tells Mat about his plan to sneak a logbook out of the bookstore and Mat offers to make him a replica. All he needs are detailed photographs of the book.
Chapter 9 Summary: The Peacock Feather
Clay’s friendship with Kat continues and he is disappointed when he has to turn down an invitation to a party at her house because of work. He jokingly suggests that he could attend via video-chat, which Kat agrees to, on the condition that he has to drink. At first, their experiment goes well but as he witnesses an increasingly intimate conversation between Kat and her friend Trevor, Clay becomes uncomfortable and jealous. Conveniently, at that point he is forced to turn his attention back to the shop to attend to Rosemary Lapin, the only woman he knows who borrows from the Waybacklist. Clay is anxious to return to Kat’s party, but even after he has retrieved her book from the Waybacklist, Lapin browses the “normal” bookshelves at the front of the store. She eventually picks up a Danielle Steel hardcover, pays, and says “Festina Lente” as she leaves, as of the Waybacklist customers do. Attempting to return to the party, a frustrated Clay realizes he’s been muted and that “This exercise in telepresence…does not have a point” (73). Just a few moments later, however, Kat calls to him through the speakers and takes her laptop—and Clay—into her bedroom, telling him she wishes he could have attended in person before falling asleep. Buoyed by this, Clay takes the pictures of the logbook that Mat requested and waits nervously for Penumbra’s arrival, feeling like a spy.
Chapter 7 – Chapter 9 Analysis
Clay and Kat’s discussion of the Singularity, the possibility that technology will become more intelligent than humans, prompts a somewhat philosophical discussion about the relationship between technology and humanity. Kat’s discussion of the human brain in terms of hardware and software, while a useful analogy, suggests that she conceives of human beings as machines and her interest in immortality can be read as an extension of this. For Kat, immortality offers the opportunity for people to fulfill their potential. Her desire for knowledge is rapacious and, in order to satisfy it, she wants to overcome the limitations of mortality, enabling people to learn and achieve much more than they are currently able. While he is inspired by her enthusiasm, Clay is more dubious about the prospect of immortality, a skepticism that persists throughout the novel.
The question of technology is also raised by Penumbra, who asks Clay whether he owns a Kindle. Despite his suspicion of them, Penumbra’s interest in e-readers marks his openness to change. In fact, this attitude is further suggested by his somewhat melancholy remark that the store has not changed as much as he thought it would since he took it over. By acknowledging the existence of e-readers, the novel also points to the fact that technology will not necessarily do away with books, but that it can instead change the way people read books or even enable them to read. However, the limitations of technology are also touched on in Clay’s attempt to attend Kat’s party remotely. His inability to interact with Kat as freely as he would in person is a source of frustration and suggests that, while these forms of communication are useful, they cannot entirely replace physical proximity. Interestingly, it is his desire to pursue a relationship with Kat that motivates Clay to take a logbook and become more deeply involved in the mystery of the bookstore.
