Quatrevingt-treize Reading Club

I love the idea of her not even being an accurate depiction of herself. It was mentioned somewhere on tumblr that she'd not always been poor, and clearly she's just been through trauma, so in a very real way she's *not* herself, and she hasn't had the time to create a new self, so she's in this liminal space of being between people. (Pilf talked about the forest as a liminal space, and now I am sensing a theme. The old is torn down but there is not yet something new to replace it, and we are thus left with a vacuum. Maybe also something about how we can choose whether to fill that vacuum with horror, as the forest is filled with blood, or with compassion, as the regiment adopts Michelle and her children. I don't know how big a theme personal choice in the face of overwhelming history will be here, but I can see it playing quite a large role.)