At the end of chapter eleven, Asher's parents moved back to their apartment in Brooklyn after years in Vienna. The first sentence of chapter twelve basically sums up how he feels. He said, "They had lived years without me." I think that he may feel as though he isn't as much part of their lives as he was a couple years ago. He continues on to say, "They possessed a language of shared experience in which I was none existent." It seems as though Asher has grown jealous of the maturation of his parents' relationship.
Asher's father also attempts to understand Asher's art and art in general in chapter twelve. He read the articles in the paper that were about Asher. I think this is an important part in the book because it demonstrates that Asher's father cares about him enough to make the effort to comprehend his passion. I think that this act of support is crushed when Asher decides to allow his nude paintings to be shown at his next show. His mother had clearly told him that his father wanted to visit one of Asher's shows, but he wouldn't go if there were paintings of nudes. Asher didn't exactly choose the nude paintings to be shown, but he didn't stop Jacob Kahn or Anna Schaeffer from taking them to use.
At the end of this chapter, Asher decides he wants to travel to Europe over the summer. He informs his father that he will visit Florence and Rome, Italy, and Paris, France. I think that this is definitely extremely ironic that Asher should decide to travel to Europe after his parents have returned from living there. When the move to Vienna was first proposed, Asher was completely against it. Even when he tried to stay in Vienna for a couple of months he got very homesick and was sent home. This demonstrates how Asher has matured over the course of the novel.
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