Chapters 12-14 Summary

Henry and Kwang have dinner at a Korean restaurant. They talk politics, and Kwang says it is sometimes easier to let others construct a favorable image of you even if it isn’t quite true. He discusses the civil rights movement and worries he will not be seen as an ally to African Americans but as a tool of white America instead.

Henry still finds it hard to write anything substantial in his reports to Hoagland. He reflects on his sessions with Dr. Luzan, who had helped him through his son’s death.

Henry and Lelia drive to his father’s house to sort through his possessions. Lelia cooks a pot of lamb stew—Henry’s favorite food. After dinner, they eat cake and begin sorting things. They find a dozen boxes of old family photos. There are some photos of people he recognizes and many he doesn’t. Lelia points out how much Henry looks like his mother. Later that night they make love.

Chapters 12-14 Analysis

Henry and Kwang are becoming closer, making it even more difficult for Henry to exploit the relationship for information; however, as he finds his job more difficult, things are improving between him and Lelia. He’s been seeing her more regularly, and they are falling back into old domestic patterns.

Nonetheless, Henry’s symbolic sorting of his father’s possessions and the old family photographs suggests he still has work to do in terms of self-realization. At one point, he notes that they have made piles of possessions all over the house and are feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of sorting through them. These possessions represent aspects Henry needs to integrate within himself. The house and possessions are like Henry’s own life—in need of sorting. Henry observes that neither of them is very good at sorting. He needs to decide what is worth keeping. The same is true of the family photos. He can still recognize parts of himself in the pictures of his parents. Yet some of the people look like strangers. He has no way of recovering the knowledge of who they might be. They are a part of a past he has lost.