I, too, finished all of MLiM because I couldn't wait to enjoy the whole thing, though I will try to stick to only discussing the beginning here. The beginning, like Middlemarch itself, was a bit slow to get into and was not my favorite part, but it did set up the balance between biography, memoir, and lit crit that really crescendoed over the course of the book.

Let's see-- I remember learning about *themes* and different types of conflict, and making a conscious and painful effort in my earlier years to get into Greek myths and epics. While I think I enjoy them much more now than I did when I was younger, I would not profess to be an expert the way I (embarrassingly) tried to do in English class. Then I read Les Miserables and got quietly sad about everything for awhile. The early teenage years were a time of extremes.

Also, say what anyone will about the myriad "problems" therein, but Ayn Rand? Anyone else get that weird teen fixation on Ayn Rand books?

Ooh, had not heard of this house before, what an interesting story (however fabricated it may be) and now I'm definitely going to go check out the let's play videos!

I think one of the big draws to these stories of haunted houses, houses where something bad happened and where bad things *continue* to happen even after the original occupants are long gone! is the idea that the *house* was bad... not the occupants. That's what shivers the most, to me, out of stories like The Haunting of Hill House and Amityville Horror; the idea that, for unknowable reasons, there are some spaces on this earth that one just shouldn't occupy.