nostoat's Book Journey

I am of a very strong suspicion that Henry is bleeding cash and is about to loose it all behind the scenes:

1. If in the past they’ve rented lovely summer homes in the middle of high society why have they instead now come to the moors, alone? - the suggestion he’s now a part of landed gentry (elite) insinuates he’s got incredible wealth, but I have a feeling that he may have always had this manor as an inheritance but not cared to make use of it until forced to as he can’t afford something better (given its state of disrepair) - when they arrive at the Sheffield station Henry refuses to have them stay one night at a hotel and travel on to the manor the following day - his steelworks are reporting increased injury, i hypothesise due to cost-cutting measures

2. I feeling like the bleeding cash and rotting house will serve as an extended metaphor for their relationship - In the obvious way an angry sky slowly deteriorates an empty house, Henry’s resentment chips away at their marriage as they continue to have no children - Henry places all the responsibility on Lenore to be pregnant, as he places all the responsibility on her to fix up the manor - and with what money you ask? with what swimmers? Henry’s inability to provide money for the family’s lifestyle coincides with his inability to conceive (I’m presuming but I mean…)

I was sad for Lenore as she boards the train at St Pancras pondering if this will be a new chapter in their relationship.. yeah girl it will 🥀

Cora may swear until blue in the face that she and Henry are not having an affair, but if Henry’s goal is not to have her positioned as a second wife by the end of the book I’ll eat Carmilla’s hair.

Cora is younger and so maybe naive to how Henry is positioning her - he obviously wants her father’s help but why go through Cora to get it? He truly couldn’t get an audience alone? Doubtful. I’m sure he intends to court her as soon as he’s rid himself of Lenore. This diamonds absolutely are for her.

Speaking of, I was curious where we were going with the pastilles but was not expecting Henry to have poisoned them. Any one else? It’s a twist on the illness the narrator in Carmilla (book) gets, which I like.

Lastly, ok maybe Henry isn’t bleeding cash like I predicted? But he’s defrauding investors in his pitch to them for money which is screaming desperate.. I remain unconvinced he’s not almost broke.

That’s now two women that Carmilla has led Lenore to witnessing weird incessant hunger! Clearly Carmilla is pushing Lenore to find herself for the first time.. ever. I think I like the scene with Molly more just because eating hair is so bizarre but wanna know what others think 😛

The scene where they reach a fork in the path and Carmilla is forcing Lenore to pick one and she breaks down because she can’t.. I fear many a woman’s experience. Since she was a child she’s been forced to set aside her own wants for others and she is now incapable of recognising her own wants/hunger, let alone doing anything to satiate herself.

Although, I did think it was a curious decision that when Cora is telling Lenore to ignore Carmilla as they’re going to return to the manor, and that she’d find her own way back, that then Lenore was steadfast in saying no to Cora, because she realised she did want to find Carmilla. Something minor that shows a slight shift in her character maybe?

Cora may swear until blue in the face that she and Henry are not having an affair, but if Henry’s goal is not to have her positioned as a second wife by the end of the book I’ll eat Carmilla’s hair.

Cora is younger and so maybe naive to how Henry is positioning her - he obviously wants her father’s help but why go through Cora to get it? He truly couldn’t get an audience alone? Doubtful. I’m sure he intends to court her as soon as he’s rid himself of Lenore. This diamonds absolutely are for her.

Speaking of, I was curious where we were going with the pastilles but was not expecting Henry to have poisoned them. Any one else? It’s a twist on the illness the narrator in Carmilla (book) gets, which I like.

Lastly, ok maybe Henry isn’t bleeding cash like I predicted? But he’s defrauding investors in his pitch to them for money which is screaming desperate.. I remain unconvinced he’s not almost broke.

It is night. I lie in bed fixed in place. I do not recall the moment moving from sleep to wakefulness, but I am here, eyes open and fixed on the soft velvet folds of the red canopy of my four-poster bed. Dust lies thick, and a spider climbs amongst it like a hermit in a wasteland. I cannot move. This is the first thing of which I am certain. It is as though thought and action have been severed as cleanly as a knife through meat. My body is not my own. The second is that there is a presence in the room. I cannot quite say where. A sense of a shadow in the corner, just at the edge of my vision—and then it shifts, drifting towards me, changing from haze to a smoky form the height of a person. That is when the fear begins. As the shadow advances, I mean to edge away, wanting the safety of a solid wall against my back, but I cannot move. I am helpless. A cold rush floods my veins.

this feels like such an accurate example of sleep paralysis, i'm wondering if that was something the author was drawing upon for this scene. and if so, i'm wondering if that is going to play into how the "shadow" is going to be portrayed throughout the book, as some sort of sleep paralysis demon

In Chapter 19, when Lenore says this about her marriage to Henry:

There was a trade: new money for old blood.

... My instant thought was Why did it take me this long to connect this back to her line in chapter 1 when she says...

I was good for nothing but blood.

Her blood, as in her bloodline, that's helped Henry to a higher position in society. To Henry, that's all she ever was to him.

Oh, the layers are just so damn good.

It’s giving wuthering heights so far. Like if Mr. Lockwood had a repressed wife and Cathy’s ghost became her lesbian lover

"He calls me clever, tells them all how lucky he is to have a wife intelligent enough to understand his endeavors and to provide such gracious and insightful support. I understand what is truly important, he says. I am not like other women who demand flattery and coddling. Essential, he calls me, and my heart rises."

damn this got me frowning and not because I'm mad; I only feel a heavy sadness because this is so reminiscent of how women irl cling to the barest minimum kindness tossed at them and run with it to absolve their shit husbands (as lenore immediately does in the next paragraph). kat dunn has done such a good job of portraying this with an almost cruel accuracy.

No. You are not some hysterical woman. That is your great strength: you are more like a man emotionally 😡🤬💢 Henry STFU!

I remember this having a moment on social media a while back and im pretty sure I was interested so I picked it up at the library. I am going in blind though because I cant remember what its about..

Chapter 5: "No. Henry will not send away my guest. He is wrong. This is my house." Again, she is claiming her sexuality, her autonomy, as her own. As a sickness seems to take over her own body, Carmilla challenges her, " You think yourself a tool, needed only when useful. You are wrong...Don't you love this house?...All the crumbling mess of it. I thought it a wreck that consumed you, but now I see it's magnificence. This place is wild. It is defiant and difficult and free. Do you not love it for that?" Since chapter one we have seen Lenore's internal misogyny, her war against her own body that houses her but cannot home a child, her self harm through sweet candy until her teeth ache and her stomach hurts. Carmilla compares her to a house without function. What would sex be like without the expectation of giving life? Carmilla asks her to look inside herself and see the beauty in being childless, a woman, in existing. Chapter 6: "Throw them away. They're disgusting." Carmilla is obviously disgusted but not by Lenore's sweets, by her shame. I believe this is her way of telling Lenore to stop being ashamed of herself and hiding her true feelings. "I would have you all to myself," Carmilla states. "I can enjoy Carmilla to myself. What a thought. Do I enjoy her?" Chapter 7: "There are open rents in the walls where rotten plaster has been dug out, gaps in the floor where wood-wormed boards have been pried up, the walls are bare of art or hangings, the furniture covered in dust sheets." As the question of Henry's loyalty comes to light the art, the portrait, is removed from the walls. I believe we are being shown Henry's decision. As she grows worse in illness her body, her house, is trying to tell her what she does not want to hear, what she does not want to accept.

OHHHHH so he's cheating AND plotting her murder😍 I was silly to assume it would be one or the other!! I was hoping she'd eat Cora, rather than let her fall off the cliff but OH WELL

HANG HIM IN THE TOWN SQUARE

Editing to clarify: not PLOTTING her murder, actively in the PROCESS of murdering her