Given this backdrop, I’m far more inclined to think that David is literally in her head than a mere narrative gimmick, and from that basis the next hundred pages or so make little to no sense.Īs for the story itself.

First of all because it’s David, an actual character within the story and second because the novella establishes very early on that David undergoes a transmigration of the soul. I don’t blame Schweblin for inserting him into her head, personifying her inner confusion and stretching the abiding conflict into the more lucid dimensions of a standard, one-on-one dialogue. I’ll always blame my own clubfooted clumsiness on someone else, but here I think I’m justified.Īfter looking around, most readers seem to agree that the David in Amanta’s head is an illusion, a hallucination. So what confused me? To start off with, I got off on the wrong foot. I’ll say one thing: the internal turmoil of this metaphor represents the novella itself, but perhaps it’s me that didn’t see the ‘important thing.’ Things. The sun is a lightbulb, the moon a plate, and suddenly they make sense. Metaphors are meant to enlighten by way of comparison.

‘He doesn’t see the important thing: the rope finally slack, like a lit fuse, somewhere the motionless scourge about to erupt.’ But it didn’t come, and the last line just seemed to obfuscate things further: I liked this, right up to the end, because I was expecting a big reveal, a twist, anything that would suddenly solve the knot and make sense of the million little mysteries at play in this suspenseful tale.

Fever dream samanta