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Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Immortalists, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fate vs. Choice
Family and Shared History
Obsession
Death, Meaning, and Legacy
Surviving vs. Living
Magic, Religion, Dance, and Possibility
Summary
Analysis
In November, Klara and Raj buy a motor home and head north. They perform in Santa Rosa and Tahoe, then in L.A. Klara hates performing in casinos, where people mistake her for Raj’s assistant and often belligerently call out how she is accomplishing her feats. During the day, while Raj is at pitch meetings, Klara pours vodka into her coffee and reads to Ruby. Before Raj comes home, she brushes her teeth to mask the smell. She no longer has blackouts, but the vodka allows her to keep her thoughts at a distance.
Klara’s obsessive thoughts continue to be so uncontrollable that she turns to alcohol in order to keep them at bay. Meanwhile, she hides her issues from Raj who might otherwise be able to help her work through them in a healthy way. Klara’s frustration with her shows stems from the fact that people are unreceptive to mystery—the very thing she loves most about magic.
Themes
During Hanukkah, Klara calls home and realizes how much she misses Daniel. She has kept Simon’s knocks hidden from her family, as well as the fact that Simon’s death date aligned with his prophecy. The knowledge unsettles Klara. She hadn’t really wanted to know her date of death—she had only wanted to meet the fortune teller. When she marveled over the fortune teller’s charts and calendars, the woman told her they were just for show. She didn’t need props, she said. She just knew. Looking at Klara, the fortune teller knew that Klara understood magic as well.
The fact that Klara knows not only her own death date but also that Simon’s death date was accurate adds to Klara’s anxiety, particularly because Klara wants to believe in the fortune teller’s magic. Affirming that the woman has magical powers gives credence to the idea that Klara, too, has true magical abilities, because the woman expressed confidence in Klara’s magical talent.
Themes
When the fortune teller gave Klara’s prediction, the spell was broken. Klara cried as she went into the alley. Thirteen years later, Simon’s prediction came true—but Klara wondered if she had taken steps that made the prophecy come true. She goes down a spiral of conclusions: if Simon’s death was preventable, then Klara was at fault. If Simon could have died on another day, then the woman may not have magical abilities. And if she doubts magic, then she has to doubt everything she believes, like Simon’s knocks.
Here Klara grapples with how much her own choices added to Simon’s fate, acknowledging that her decision to take him to San Francisco might have sealed his fate more than the fortune teller’s prophecy. Yet this leads her down an obsessive spiral, as she worries that this means that magic isn’t real and that she might not actually be able to communicate with Simon from beyond the grave. Her desperation leads her to a catch-22: she wants to believe in magic and the woman’s abilities, but she doesn’t want to die at 31 years old.
Themes
In May 1990, Klara decides to time the knocks, like the code in Second Sight. Each minute that passes represents a letter: one minute passing means “A,” two minutes means “B,” and so on. She picks up Saul’s gold watch, which she received following Simon’s death, and counts. When the knocks come, they start to spell “ME—” but then Ruby wakes up, and Raj gets up to calm her.
The fact that Simon’s watch passed from Klara to Saul reinforces its connection to mortality. As Klara is the next of her siblings to die, she has become the most aware of her remaining time. The fact that she uses the watch to try to communicate with the dead illustrates her hope that she, too, might be able to live beyond her death.
Themes
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Klara tells Raj that she isn’t happy and wonders if they should get more stable jobs. She and Raj want Ruby to be able to have a house and neighbors and a dog if she wants. Raj argues that Klara is brilliantly talented and that they shouldn’t give up yet. She’s touched by his words, thinking that she’s always wanted to be a bridge between reality and illusion. Raj once again suggests Vegas, saying that she could be great there. He tells her that she’s been doing much better since she stopped drinking—that she’s only weak when she gets in her head. He tells her to focus on what’s real, like Ruby and the show.
Klara again highlights that the appeal of magic for her lies in its ability to bring wonder into the world and to provide alternate visions of reality beyond logic and fact.In addition, Raj suggests that Klara’s drinking doesn’t remedy her obsessive thoughts; instead, they merely cause her to obsess over things that aren’t real—like Simon’s knocks. For Klara, however, Simon’s knocks are real, as magic enables her to be a bridge between the living and the dead.
Themes
Klara tells Gertie and Varya that she’s moving to Vegas. They simply hope that she’s happy. That night, Klara wakes in the middle of the night, hearing Raj’s voice. He is telling Ruby the stories of his father and family—the swamps, the shanties, and his experience being extremely poor. Klara is surprised—Raj never told her about these things. He says that his father would be proud of Ruby and that she should be proud of him.
Like the Golds, Raj also finds comfort in having a shared history with someone. While he is unable to relate to Klara regarding his history and his rise from poverty, Ruby represents a connection to that history. She also builds on the legacy of hard work and mobility that Raj’s father began.
Themes
