103 pages • 3 hours read
Rodman PhilbrickThe Last Book In The Universe
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Girl with Sky-Colored Eyes”
On his way home, Spaz cuts through the Maximall, which is an old dilapidated place that used to be full of trade stalls “piled high with jewelry and fancy clothes and mysterious gizmos and lots of shiny things nobody really remembers anymore” (22). Now there are a few stalls, but they’re secured and only used by serious traders. As he walks, he notices a takvee (Tactical Urban Vehicle), or one of the armored, cyber-driven vans used by proovs. Six teks (Technical Security Guards) emerge from the takvee to clear the way for a young female proov who is around 14 to 15 years old.
Proovs always stand out because of their height, beauty, and health. Generally speaking, they dislike “normals” because they serve as reminders of the existence of imperfection. Spaz cannot stop staring, and a tek stops him and brings him to the proov, who asks for Spaz’s name and tells the tek to “provide for him” (24), meaning give him a small bag of provisions. To Spaz, her actions should make him hate her, but he can’t because he understands that nobody can help wanting to be perfect.
Spaz goes home to the Crypts, where he has a small cube with a chunk of foam for sleeping on. There are no locks on the doors because the Bangers like to feel in control. Spaz watches 3Ds, or hologram movies, because he can’t handle watching probes. No one bothers to steal the 3Ds because they are outdated. He puts on an action 3D featuring a man named Coley Riggins, who Spaz idolizes. He’s seen this film many times and knows the plot by heart, but he can’t seem to get into it this time because he keeps thinking about the “future” Ryter mentioned: “Future. That’s like a time that doesn’t exist yet. A world full of people who haven’t been born yet, doing things that nobody’s thought of yet” (26). He eats some of the proov girl’s food and thinks about Ryter’s “secret things” (20), which he writes about in his book. Spaz finds himself still curious about the "scratch marks" (26), or writing, and considers going back to the stacks to find out more.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Three Rules for Billy Bizmo”
Billy arrives with a group of the Bangers at Spaz’s cube while he’s still sleeping to pick up the loot he stole from Ryter. Lying to Billy, Spaz tells him the loot he took was all the Ryter has, failing to mention the “pile of papers” (28). The men notice Spaz’s surplus of edibles right away. Billy questions how Spaz got them, and Spaz is compelled to tell him about the proov girl. Billy acknowledges knowing about her and says she is looking for a “charity case” (28), describing her as a “slummer” (29), or a proov who seeks out normals. He warns Spaz against associating with the girl, as any friendship is forbidden, and he would be killed by the proovs if he tried.
Billy has three rules, which he gets Spaz to divulge: "Always believe Billy.[…] Always obey Billy. […] Always speak true to Billy" (30). Before he leaves, Billy seems delighted with Spaz, allowing him to keep the edibles. Spaz is skeptical and afraid that he’ll face death or be thrown out of the Crypts, or “disfavored” (30) since he broke Billy’s rules by concealing the existence of Ryter’s book.
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Thing About Bean”
Spaz goes back to the stacks intending to steal the manuscript from Ryter and pass it on to Billy, to set things right. Little Face finds him again, begging for chocolate, and leads him to the old man, who is waiting for him. Ryter remarks that “bad news travels fast" (32). Seeing hope on the old man’s face, Spaz can’t bear to steal his work: “Not today, I’m thinking, I’ll steal his stupid ‘book’ some other day” (32).
Ryter has been thinking about Spaz and wondering about his own story, even though Spaz insists he doesn’t have one. Ryter says that means Spaz just doesn’t think it’s worth telling. He encourages Spaz to begin with his first memory, which is of his adopted younger sister Bean coming to his family unit (made up of foster mother Kay and father Charly) when he was around 4 years old and his immediate and total sense of brotherly love for her. Charly had a bad side; he became fixated on Spaz’s epilepsy being a sign that he was “growing up dangerous” (35) and might infect Bean. Eventually, he kicked Spaz out of the family unit. When Bean tried to stop this from happening, Charly hit her and verbally abused her. Ryter asks if he and Bean’s relationship was ever intimate, or if Charly might have thought so. Spaz says it was not, but his foster father might have felt suspicious.
Spaz’s condition gets explored a bit as they discuss epilepsy and how he is perceived as being "dangerous" (35). Ryter says that “prejudice against epileptics is as old as the human race” (35), telling Spaz that Alexander the Great was also epileptic, as were many great thinkers: “It’s as if the brain compensates by increasing intelligence and ambition” (35). Spaz is ashamed of his condition and overhears people voicing their opinions that he should be "canceled" (39), calling him "a monster, a mistake [that] should never have been born” (36). Ryter insists his curse is actually a blessing because he’s been able to preserve his memories, unlike all the others using probes and sticking needles in their brains, but Spaz doesn’t want to hear it and tells Ryter to "Shut up!" (37) before running away. As he runs, “[s]paz, spaz, spaz” repeats in his head: “[T]he word I hate the most, the word that means me” (36).
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Chapters 4 to 6 present the three remaining key characters in Spaz’s overall narrative. Chapter 4 is dedicated to introducing Lanaya, the young female proov who Spaz meets at the Maximall; Chapter 5 marks the arrival of Billy Bizmo, the latchboss and leader of the Bangers; and in Chapter 6 Ryter encourages Spaz to recall memories of Bean, his younger adopted sister. In this way, the most important characters are all known to the reader before the main adventure has even begun. This follows from the narrative style in which Spaz is recollecting events from his past; the main characters are being revealed to the reader as they are made known to Spaz.
These chapters also reveal two of the main themes in this narrative: the importance of memory and the shape of familial bonds. Both of these themes were touched upon in the first three chapters but are explored in more depth as the narrative progresses. Memory is explored as a concept first when Ryter reveals how unusual it is that Spaz would remember hearing about books as a child; one dimension of Spaz’s character that begins to resonate in Chapters 4 to 6 is his rich memory bank, and how uncommon that is for someone of his age and era to retain. Of course, for Spaz, the clarity of his memories can be accounted for by his inability to withstand probes.
These chapters also push the reader harder into the theme of familial bonds and the shapes they can take, particularly in Chapters 5 and 6. This is a theme that will grow and continue to be explored by various characters in the narrative. In Chapter 5, one type of family is being explored amongst the Bangers, who look out for each other like brothers and rely on Billy as they might on a father figure. Spaz fears Billy but also looks to him for rules, permission, and acceptance, as a son might operate with a father. Recalling Bean in Chapter 6 also touches upon the more traditional family structure Spaz enjoyed early in his life, with his foster parents Charly and Kay and younger sister Bean: “Her whole face smiled and her little hand came up and tried to grab my nose and that was it, I loved Bean right from that moment and it never changed” (33).
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