The Fault in Our Stars: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

As the plane lands, Hazel looks out the window and notes that the Netherlands seems sunk into the ocean with little rectangles of green surrounded by water.

They take a cab into Amsterdam. Hazel notices the differences of Amsterdam compared to Indianapolis. The row houses lean precariously toward the water in the canal. There are bicycles, and coffee shops everywhere. She thinks about how wonderful it would be to live in a place where everything had been built by the dead. The cabbie notes that most people come to Amsterdam for the Red Light District, but he says that Amsterdam is not a city of sin, but one of freedom, and in freedom, most people find sin.

They get out at the Hotel Filosoof. Hazel explains that the hotel rooms are named after Filosoofers (philosophers) and that she will be staying in a room named after Kierkegaard. Augustus will be staying in a room named after Heidegger. Hazel finds a basket full of presents from the Genies in her room, including an orange Holland t-shirt, wooden shoes, and chocolate.

Hazel decides to take a nap, but tells her mother to go enjoy the Vondelpark (a famous public park in Amsterdam) across from the hotel. She falls asleep, and wakes up a few hours later. She finds Mrs. Lancaster sitting in a chair across from the bed. Hazel asks her mother how the park was, but her mother reveals she didn't go. Hazel feels bad, but her mother tells her she will go out that evening while Hazel goes out to dinner with Augustus. Hazel is surprised that her mother is not coming to dinner. Her mother tells her that Van Houten has set up a dinner at a place called Oranjee in a fancy part of town. She tells Hazel the dinner will be very romantic.

Hazel notes that it might seem crazy that her mother would let her go out into a foreign city with her 16 year old boyfriend alone, but this freedom is a side effect of dying. She can’t run, or dance, or eat certain things, but in the city of freedom, she is among the most liberated of its residents.

Hazel puts on a sundress and does her hair until she looks like mid-2000’s Natalie Portman. Augustus arrives wearing a black suit with a blue shirt and a thin black tie. He tells Hazel she looks gorgeous. Hazel ties to talk, but can’t get the words out of her mouth. Finally she says she feels underdressed. Mrs. Lancaster then tells Augustus he looks extremely handsome.

While they wait for the tram, Hazel asks Augustus if the suit is one that he wears to funerals. He says no, that the suit he wears to funerals isn’t nearly as nice as the one he has on. An older man on the tram offers them his seat, and Hazel and Augustus watch out the window as the trees drop seeds that look like “miniature rose petals drained of color.” The older gentleman tells them that it is spring in Amsterdam, and the trees “throw confetti to greet the spring.”

When Hazel and Augustus arrive at the restaurant, the waitress greets them excitedly, calling them “Mr. and Mrs. Waters.” The waitress gives them champagne, and they have a toast. Hazel looks out over the canal, noticing boats of all shapes and sizes floating on the water.

Another waiter arrives and takes their orders. He tells them that Champagne has been compared to “bottled stars” and when Augustus asks for another glass, the waiter says, yes, they have bottled all of the stars tonight. The trees continue dropping “confetti” and the waiter brushes one off of Hazels shoulder, frustrated. Augustus can’t understand how the beautiful falling seeds could perturb anyone. Hazel notes that people get used to beauty and it is not longer beautiful. Augustus tells her he has not gotten used to her beauty.

Hazel thanks Augustus for the trip, but immediately thinks that she doesn't want to be a grenade. She immediately realizes that Augustus knows what he is getting into, and it was his choice. Augustus asks her to recite the line she recited on the airplane. She recites a different line about human voices waking the speaker of the poem, and then drowning.

Their food arrives and they are blown away by how good it is. As they eat, a boat moves past in the canal, and a blond woman raises her glass to them and shouts something in Dutch. Augustus shouts back that they don't speak Dutch, so the lady yells in English, “The beautiful couple is beautiful.”

After dinner, Hazel notes how everything is perfect, but it doesn't feel right. She knows that the trip and the dinner are “cancer perks”. After a while, Augustus tells Hazel the suit he is wearing is one that he had bought for his own funeral before his cancer went into remission.

Augustus asks Hazel if she believes in the afterlife. Hazel says that she doesn't. Augustus responds by saying that he does with confidence. Hazel notes that she has always thought of heaven as an “intellectual disengagement”, but Augustus is smart, and he believes. Hazel asks him about his fear of oblivion, and he tells her that he fears “earthly oblivion”, that he won’t be able to do anything meaningful with his life to be remembered for. Hazel grows upset with his obsession with dying for something heroic. She tells him its mean to believe that the only lives that matter are the ones that are lived for something and die for something. After a moment, Augustus apologizes. She realizes in that moment, that Augustus is really in love with her, and that makes her like him more.

After leaving the restaurant, Hazel and Augustus take a walk. They talk about An Imperial Affliction, and Hazel is surprised about how much thought Augustus has given the book. They sit on a bench by the canal and Hazel notes that Amsterdam is a city that should be under water, but they made it exist. She compares herself to Amsterdam, and thinks Dr. Maria thinks of her as a “half-drowned anomaly.”

Hazel asks Augustus about Caroline Mathers. Augustus puts a cigarette in his mouth and tells her he met her at the hospital during treatment. He says that you sound like a bastard if you don't romanticize the dead and make cancer patients sound heroic. He says that cancer kids are not any more special than regular kids; they are just dying. He tells her that Caroline’s brain cancer changed her personality, causing her to laugh at his prosthetic, tell the same jokes about him over and over, have outbursts. He says he did not blame Caroline, but it was not easy. Hazel tells him that she does not want to do what Caroline did to him. He tells her not to worry, that it would be a privilege to have his heart broken by her.