Chapter 11 Summary

The narrator returns next day with blankets, and a testy Ishmael proposes returning to the deferred question of the story enacted by the Leavers - but not on the basis of mere curiosity. The narrator resents charges he is not using his brain and demands why learning a story all but extinguished is not a waste of time. Why, Ishmael demands, is it worth studying the Takers' story? The narrator says everyone should know it so they can stop blundering, destroying, and inventing insane Thousand-Year Reichs. Knowing the Leavers' story is worthwhile because one cannot give up a story, as kids in the 1960s-70s try to do. They fail because one cannot stop being in one story until another story is there to be in. The narrator doubts people will want to hear the Leavers' story, because they do not know it...