Hagar Shipley and the blue pen (updated)

We just finished reading Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel. The book follows the story of Hagar Shipley through Hagar's eyes at the end of her life. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

I say "we" because the copy of the book I read, borrowed from the library, is marked heavily with a blue ballpoint pen. Every page is marked. Sometimes entire paragraphs are underlined. Notes are scribbled in the margin. "Irony." "Disoriented." "Important!"

When I saw the notes coming on the page, I told myself I wouldn't read them, but I did. Every time. I couldn't help it. 

It was like watching a movie with someone sitting beside you explaining the obvious plot points. It was like going to a room to be alone, only to find someone else sitting there.

Near the end of the book, I found a clean page. It was so free of blue pen that it was startling. It was on this page I found the line that made the whole shared journey worth it:

"Pride was my wilderness, and the demon that led me there was fear."

Why my blue-penned friend didn't underline this sentence, I cannot say. I traced under it with my finger, and wrote the words "all of us" in the margin in invisible ink.


(UPDATE: Good lord, they made a movie and didn't tell me. One misses a lot, in Parentland.)