she lived in that book for three months read it a half a dozen times never put it down never went anywhere without it and in the way of all beloved books it became a kind of totem and symbol by which she could chart the course of her own life see this here is my mountain and god period and in this way she transforms her existence with its stretches of unmarked days and ceaseless study and feverish scribbling into a kind of traditional narrative see the arc and the rising action and the denouement she feels great relief to say the least at having fit her existence into the narrow confines of a written world .