Professor Abacus Abernathe Character Analysis

Billy touched the empty page with a hint of reverence.

––This is where Professor Abernathe invites you to set down the story of your own adventure.

––I guess you haven’t had your adventure yet, said Emmett with a smile.

––I think we’re on it now, said Billy.

By tossing them together, it seemed to Emmett, Abernathe was encouraging a boy to believe that great scientific discoverers were not exactly real and the heroes of legend were not exactly imagined. That shoulder to shoulder they traveled through the realms of the known and unknown making the most of their intelligence and courage, yes, but also of sorcery and enchantment and the occasional intervention of the gods.

­­––[W]ere it in our power to gather up all the personal stories that have been experienced […] around the world and across time, I haven’t the slightest doubt that doppelgangers would abound. […] It is one of the most basic principles of infinity that it must, by definition, encompass not only one of everything, but everything’s duplicate, as well as its triplicate. In fact, to imagine that there are additional versions of ourselves scattered across human history is substantially less outlandish than to imagine that there are none.

––I’ll start in front of the cabinet at FAO Schwarz, he said to himself with a smile. And my sister will come […]. And after Duchess meets me at the statue of Abraham Lincoln, he and I will attend the circus, where Billy and Emmett will suddenly reappear. Then we’ll go over the Brooklyn Bridge and up the Empire State Building, where we’ll meet Professor Abernathe. Then it’s off to the grassy train tracks where, sitting by the fire, we’ll hear the story of the two Ulysses and the ancient seer who explained how they could find their ways home again––how they could find their ways home, after ten long years.

But one mustn’t rush, thought Woolly […]. For a one-of-kind kind of day deserves to be relived at the slowest possible pace, with every moment, every twist, every turn of events remembered to the tiniest detail.

Though Abacus had no infirmities to speak of yet, his world too was shrinking. […] And then […] a little boy from Nebraska appears at his doorstep with a gentle demeanor and a fantastical tale. A tale not from a leather-bound tome, mind you. Not from an epic poem written in an unspoken language. […] But from life itself.

How easily we forget––we in the business of storytelling––that life was the point all along.

Billy touched the empty page with a hint of reverence.

––This is where Professor Abernathe invites you to set down the story of your own adventure.

––I guess you haven’t had your adventure yet, said Emmett with a smile.

––I think we’re on it now, said Billy.

By tossing them together, it seemed to Emmett, Abernathe was encouraging a boy to believe that great scientific discoverers were not exactly real and the heroes of legend were not exactly imagined. That shoulder to shoulder they traveled through the realms of the known and unknown making the most of their intelligence and courage, yes, but also of sorcery and enchantment and the occasional intervention of the gods.

­­––[W]ere it in our power to gather up all the personal stories that have been experienced […] around the world and across time, I haven’t the slightest doubt that doppelgangers would abound. […] It is one of the most basic principles of infinity that it must, by definition, encompass not only one of everything, but everything’s duplicate, as well as its triplicate. In fact, to imagine that there are additional versions of ourselves scattered across human history is substantially less outlandish than to imagine that there are none.

––I’ll start in front of the cabinet at FAO Schwarz, he said to himself with a smile. And my sister will come […]. And after Duchess meets me at the statue of Abraham Lincoln, he and I will attend the circus, where Billy and Emmett will suddenly reappear. Then we’ll go over the Brooklyn Bridge and up the Empire State Building, where we’ll meet Professor Abernathe. Then it’s off to the grassy train tracks where, sitting by the fire, we’ll hear the story of the two Ulysses and the ancient seer who explained how they could find their ways home again––how they could find their ways home, after ten long years.

But one mustn’t rush, thought Woolly […]. For a one-of-kind kind of day deserves to be relived at the slowest possible pace, with every moment, every twist, every turn of events remembered to the tiniest detail.

Though Abacus had no infirmities to speak of yet, his world too was shrinking. […] And then […] a little boy from Nebraska appears at his doorstep with a gentle demeanor and a fantastical tale. A tale not from a leather-bound tome, mind you. Not from an epic poem written in an unspoken language. […] But from life itself.

How easily we forget––we in the business of storytelling––that life was the point all along.