Oh Burial Rites? Totally get if you couldn't finish it. That woman sure can over work a metaphor!
Oh Abigail.. you know, it wasn't intentional but I DEFINITELY thought of her when I read back over it! Perhaps just because she's shunned, and ends up with a sliver of power and her dabbling in the dark arts!
Liesl? I can only think of The Book Thief. Not sure here.
as English teachers we probably quite naturally write in techniques, and when we read, pick them out and take not.
I'm sure! And as students of literature, and lovers of it. I think I could write before I became an English teacher but teaching it has helped me hone it a bit. The biggest indication of this was when one of my Year 12s pinched one of my pieces from a blog I wrote for them, and wrote it for her creative Sac. Luckily I happened to be the one cross marking and went - hey that piece is familiar! Funny. She got an A on the first marking thank god, otherwise how embarrassing .. 😂 Needless to say she had to resit with her own work.
Yep - Burial Rites, that's the one.
That is an absolutely cracker of a story though, I imagine it provided for many laughs many times over. I used to work with a lady who used to write down the funny shit kids wrote in their creative pieces - and she would pull it out occassionally - it was actually good to lighten the staffroom at different times.
Omg that's a classic.
I always loved the Macbeth analysis: 'he went around butchering like it was his day job'.
Wish I'd kept my funny list..