Typing up my book club notes

On the Title Page, the authors are actually Sarah and Harvey rather than Caitlin, which I thought was cool.

There’s a question of whether Sarah is a reliable or unreliable narrator. The Editor takes a trip out to verify the information that Sarah wrote, implying that her writings are accurate from corresponding information, the tree, the carvings, the description of the house. But Sarah herself says she has an unreliable memory, tells a tall-tale to Amanda when they first meet, and writes that she’s just using childlike metaphors when she describes her dream.

I thought it was interesting that the editor makes a ‘pilgrimage’ to the farmhouse before she can publish the book, where Sarah has to take a journey to the underworld to retrieve Harvey’s manuscript. Both characters have this weird trade they need to make with the world.

Sarah refers to her epilepsy as madness, adding onto the question of if she can be believed or not.

The ‘ghost story’ or the Kelpie story or the Selkie story - Sarah sees a naked woman in the water who then disappears beneath the water. She relates her to a painting of a kelpie. Foreshadowing for what’s going to happen with the red tree? Suggestions of things lurking beneath the surface?

Sarah hears a story about ‘the previous tenant’ in town. The stranger is willing to tell her that there is a secret, but not what the secret is. Foreshadowing?

Sarah relates Amanda to a demon indirectly - “recorded for future demonologists”

Sarah calls her dream about Amanda “a child’s alligorical, symbolic horror.”

Sarah and Amanda meet on Friday the 13th

Amanda suffers from night terrors, which she later passes on to Sarah

Amanda symbolically makes chimeras, which Sarah calls “sublime, grotesque, and beautiful”

I wrote in my notes “the typewriter and tree as symbols of continuity” and don’t remember what that was about. Continuity between Harvey and Sarah?

Suicide

The horse-shoe above the passage in the basement becoming an hourglass symbol that’s then connected to black widows - I like that it’s an effective warning sign for Sarah that she nevertheless ignores.

I wrote in my notes “dreams being true and untrue in superposition” and don’t remember what that was about.

Sarah relates her epilepsy to tarantella, the dancing sickness. I get the feeling it’s less elegant.

There are a bunch of examples of Sarah sensing ill omens, but choosing to continue anyway, but she doesn’t accompany Amanda into the tunnel. Guilt leading to self destructive tendencies?

What do you all think? Anything you find interesting or compelling?

Next week aim for page 205, or the page before “Pony” starts? I’ll make a post next Sunday.