Lapvona

by Ottessa Moshfegh

Death is like that. Like a beggar that follows you down the road. And kills you.’

There were bloodred poppies growing alongside the road,

Remembrance/Sacrifice

Terror and grief were good for morale,

That was God for him—the kiss of sun.

Was it not the same color as the bandit’s blood?

Blood was the wine of the spirit, was it not?

Had God seen?

The only birds who lived up so high were vultures.

Not a spring rain, but a reckoning.

No lamb had ever been struck by lightning. God could never be so cruel.

first experience of nostalgia: the pain of his past.

Until now, time had had almost no meaning.

He did not like people to see him struggle.

It was as though he had swallowed his son whole and sent him into that darkness.

He found himself praying to his own mind rather than to God.

his ennui like an itch that was only relieved while it was being scratched.

‘I am an object in the room,’ she had told herself. ‘That is all that I am.’

How could a little love cause such a horrendous tragedy?

It was his role to be quiet and accept without question anything that happened at the manor.

Quiet like Jude's lambs, Quiet like death, a figure to be judged.

She did have a haunted kind of look about her.

Dibra took his look of shock for forlorn narcissism.

Misunderstanding him on the slight that she never gave him a chance in the first place - no one has.

‘An intruder?’ ‘A woman? I don’t think so.’

wolf in sheeps clothing 'lambs' - God

Flesh was mortal. God was not.

Just one flame could contain all the evil that has come and gone.

Strange, he thought next, that fire hurts to the touch. Fire gives light. Shouldn’t the darkness hurt instead?

Physical vs. Emotional pain.

fine parchment made of the skins of lambs

v nearly died from choking on a lamb lambs & jude / Lambs = Jesus Christ. full circle he is capturing his near death on the skin of lamb.

Perhaps God liked her best, she thought, because she asked for so little.

Let me be a human. Let me see the world and go naked. Maybe life is more interesting that way, with Luka or without.

What did a blind horse signify?

"A blind horse symbolizesvulnerability, dependence, and a life lived by faith rather than sight, often requiring guidance from others.The concept can also represent someone working diligently without worry about surroundings, as in the phrase "don't worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon," and can signify a life of following a greater power's will when relying on faith and guidance from unseen forces." The people of Lapvona?

Of all those at the manor, he was the only one to appreciate that the horse had found its way home without sight. That was loyalty.

The people remained loyal to V regardless of the atrocities he put them th/ as well.

‘Lucky for Lapvona that her lord is so generous,’

*eyeroll*