Tonight I’m very obsessed with the idea of reading The Secret Garden as a child as a gateway to a love of Gothic literature. 📚

📚💬 “When I am afraid, I can see perfectly the sensible, beautiful not-afraid side of the world, I can see chairs and tables and windows staying the same, not affected in the least, and I can see things like the careful woven texture of the carpet, not even moving. But when I am afraid, I no longer exist in any relation to these things.” Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Substitute depressed or anxious for afraid here and it’s exactly how I feel.

💬📚 Dropping this quote here so that next time I try to hung it down I’ll find it on my own site and not have to go to GoodReads:

“She strode the earth clad in the invisible armor of their virtual companionship.” Lev Grossman, The Magician King

Finished reading: “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe 📚

Making my pivot to Gothic now that it’s October. (I skipped my usual campus novels in September and stuck with romance.)

This one’s a classic, of course. But I like “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Masque of the Red Death” better.

📚💬 Roderick Usher has sensory integration issues:

“He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive…” - Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”