pickEstella, a defrocked nun turned governess, lives in a decaying house in an abandoned Italian village perpetually threatened by engulfment in a slow landslide. While she is alone of the living, ghosts of the former inhabitants are drawn to her, and they reluctantly relive their sadnesses. There's a nod to Poe's House of Usher in the metaphor of the collapsing structures mirroring Estella's psychological decline.
I learned of Derrida's concept of ⬇️
"The butterfly that shakes the dust from its wings before resuming its flight cares little for the remains of the chrysalis in which it once lived.” ??
"I didn't want to feel unloved. No one should be condemned to see the contempt in the eyes of the one who brought you into the world, to be born, to reach a certain point and a little further than that: all denied. Denied the healing word - 'take care of me because I can't make it on my own.' Denied the chance to reach the source of all beauty. The love that moves the world. While I was moved only by the abyss within."
“I was so convinced that I couldn't be loved that loving me must have been difficult.”
I saw this book on the Feature Table at my local bookshop, and it piqued my interest.
Set in an abandoned Italian village, peopled with ghosts who no longer experience the passage of time, however, their liminal existence is threatened by an impending landslide that will destroy the village.
The Earth is Falling | 
The relationship between Estella and her charge, Marcello, is interesting and, as with much of the book, tinged with the sadness and regrets of what might have been. ⬇️ 1w