This novel was different from the ones we have read before. The narration starts off with a women who is researching a poet. She starts obsessing over him in an almost unhealthy way and creating a life for him. She immerses herself in what she observes to be his life and creates her own voice for him. Around halfway through the novel, the narration changes to the voice she created for him. My overall thoughts on this novel were quite good, I was captivated by her obsession and yearned to see what lengths she would go to to research this poet.

In the novel she wrote “I have to remember never to put in more than is necessary, never overlay, never furnish or adorn. Open doors, windows. Raise walls and demolish them.” While reading this I was thinking that she needed boundaries so she didn’t get lost in her subject – Owen the poet. I thought she might have known of her obsessive tendencies and didn’t want to put them on display. But continuing the book and also reading other reviews I saw another point of view which was that the narrator wrote this so readers could put in their own imagination throughout the book. I wanted to touch on this because I am not quite sure I agree or maybe I just don’t understand. I feel in the book it is quite clear to understand who is narrating or talking at each point and I guess there could be some imagination in regards to the ghosts and who they are or if they are even there, but again this route doesn’t make too much sense to me either. If someone can explain this to me, please do because I am racking my brain trying to understand where is the novel we as readers could insert our own imagination.

I also want to talk about the son, when he asked his mother what her book was about, she replied that it is about ghosts, but then goes on to say that they are not dead. This is a bit of a contradictory answer because how would they be ghosts if they are not dead? This supports my ideas of the fact that the mother is writing about a life she was never able to live. She inserts herself into real life situations such as Owens life, but she calls it a ghost story because it was never real.

Question of the day, what was your take on the ghost aspect of the novel, did you think it was an important symbol/ feature of the book ?