In Chapters 2 and 3, Soren’s connections with other people in the library become the text’s primary focus. Chapter 2 focuses on the bonding that occurs between people over their initial experiences of disorientation and despair. Soren commiserates with Betty, for example, over their permanent separations from their earthly spouses. By Chapter 3, enough time has passed that the residents of the library have developed their own culture, and the book’s examination of human connection expands to a societal scale. Exposition provides insight into the complexity of the society that has formed: “By ordering raw intestines to eat, several types of harps had been created by stretching the gut between the bookcases and the railing, or up and down the railing […] Even the barbarians in the stacks across the gap stopped heckling us while the musicians played” (54). The ingenuity required to take the limited resources provided by the kiosks and transform them into the advanced technology of musical instruments, as well as the designation of other groups as “barbarians,” indicates that the people in Soren’s region of the library have developed a distinct culture and group identity. Having established this cultural development, Peck turns back to focusing on Soren’s interpersonal connections.

The millennium-long relationship with Rachel is one of the book’s essential examinations of Human Connection Within the Context of Eternity. All of his previous relationships with women in Hell have been temporary distractions from an eternity of boredom. This distinction is evident in the dismissive way that Soren talks about Sandra, whom he leaves for Rachel. “Sandra was gone,” he observes, “I was glad. It seemed funny that one day I would go to bed in her arms and the next not feel anything, like a switch had gone off” (63). In contrast, Soren is so devoted to Rachel that he does not feel he has words to describe his devotion, writing, “She was so…no, I won’t cheapen it by trying to express it in words and short sentences. I loved her. That is enough” (67). With Sandra and other women, Soren believes that the monotony of eons in Hell will inevitably destroy his relationship: “How do you stay with someone when there are no dreams to build? No purpose to accomplish? No meaning? No meaning—that was the monster that drove us away from one another in the end. Always” (63). With Rachel, however, eternity does not seem so daunting, and he is confident that he would have been content to be in a relationship with her forever.

Despite Soren’s confident assertions of the depth of his love for Rachel, he does not describe their romance in great detail, beyond the conversation that initiates it. Similarly, Chapter 2 presents his first date with Becky in full before succinctly summarizing, “I spent my first two years in Hell with Betty. We had a fun time, but it turned out that other than our night activities we did not have much in common” (51). As an author, therefore, Peck is much more interested in what draws characters together than what they do once they have formed a relationship. Soren forms his connections with both Betty and Rachel through commiseration, lamenting how difficult being in Hell is. With so many similarities between the author’s treatments of the two relationships, therefore, readers are left to interpret for themselves what makes Soren’s attraction to Rachel so much more profound than his attraction to Betty. Whatever the reason for Soren’s deeper connection with Rachel, the firm establishment of that relationship midway through the text allows Peck to spend the later chapters examining what happens when the relationship falls apart.