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alacarte's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.75
kessler21's review against another edition
5.0
Honestly, I don't know quite what to say. I just finished the book and am still pondering it. Am I sad, horrified, disturbed, disgusted, moved? Maybe all of the above.
Shirley Jackson's stories always effect me deeply, leaving me pondering people, society, and life. Her stories stick with throughout the years and I always revisit and find their effect is still as strong. And this story is no different.
I leave this story asking myself, "Who really were the insane ones?"
Shirley Jackson's stories always effect me deeply, leaving me pondering people, society, and life. Her stories stick with throughout the years and I always revisit and find their effect is still as strong. And this story is no different.
I leave this story asking myself, "Who really were the insane ones?"
ibn_nas's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
eliseabril's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
mc_psychotherapy's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
2.75
morbidplot's review against another edition
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
bucephala's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
spenkevich's review against another edition
4.0
Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea?
Oh, no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!
A cliche in American horror films is to include children singing a song that is seemingly innocent at first, but gnaws at the nerves with a haunting sadism. We watch children, young and naive, signing and spinning in a corn field bathed by an autumn dusk; the cliche works because it is an image that we welcome through our front door for it’s familiar and idyllic pastoral sentimentality only to discover an intangible fear clawing out from within. It’s the murky pool from which the maggots of urban legends crawl forth and every town has one. There is the house on the corner children dare one another to touch, the homeless man we hear bears a horrific curse, the school basement where we are told a student once hanged themselves and still roams about (two of the three existed in my childhood town). Often these legends are purely of the imagination, yet occasionally there is a seed of truth. Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle focuses on the subjects of the urban legend seed, and holds the reader captive in their reclusive reality. The reader however, will not wish to leave this literary bondage and will likely find themselves sitting up flipping pages late into the evening. Two young woman and their ailing uncle are the sole occupants a mansion set off from the town, the sole survivors of a family poisoning that reverberates through the town with rumors and speculative fear. Castle is a chilling late-night walk through the haunted forests of human consciousness, a gripping psychological horror ripping through the idyllic American classic feel of the novel to expose the Gothic terrors that drench the New England landscapes.
We always fear what we don’t understand. What makes Castle work so well is it’s familiarity and it’s warmth, an unexpected aspect to this chilling portrait of misanthropy. The novel humanizes the subjects of the townsfolk’s fear and revulsion, and it does so without apology by not skirting the issues of murder and isolation. Jackson sets the reader into this world without making them feel ill at ease through her style, a familiar embrace of tone and structure which recalls the small town American classics. It seemed to follow the format of a book you would read for high school literature, opening with a riveting first chapter that quickly yet eloquently set all the pieces in play while feeding you exposition hidden in the sugars of plot and leaving you gasping with questions you can’t wait to have fulfilled. Then it is followed by a second, lengthier chapter where an overarching conflict is introduced, typically through a minor conflict in plot where more exposition is unveiled through the banter of characters. It’s this sort of nostalgia for high school classics that immediately opens your heart to the book, but not just in structure but the plot, setting and characters as well. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is the first to come to mind. Like Lee, Jackson tells her story from the viewpoints of a young, tomboyish girl and wraps her tale within the folds of local politics and society. Here we have Mary Katherine, or Merricat as she is often referred, a girl of eighteen akin to a feral cat. Her and her sister Constance are embedded in the local society, but from a view on high being born into a family of wealthy landowners. Merricat, despite her disgust for her deceased relatives, continues their looking-down-the-nose opinions of the locals as filth except hers is one of violent hatred.
"I can't help it when people are frightened," says Merricat. "I always want to frighten them more."
Merricat has many reasons beyond her better-than-thou upper-class upbringing to sadistically sneer at the townsfolk. They hate her and her older sister, reviling Constance for allegedly getting away with mass murder, they hate their family for former wounds caused by the snobbish and cruel father, and they take their disgust out with ridicule. Eventually, as events transpire, the sisters take on a sort of legend for their reclusive behavior and disregard for the company of villagers, being said to eat children among other things. The sisters are a symbolic repression of women and all things not aligning with the social norms of any age, damned into either shame or blissful solitude as rumors take wing and transform into hellish mythical beasts.
Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.
By focusing on the sisters and viewing the world through Merricat’s childish and imaginative mind, we gain a unique perspective on the society. The children signing sadistic rhymes of horror films are in this perspective are the well-to-do well-wishers that feign friendliness towards the sisters. Both sides of this coin are seemingly innocent moments cloaking something sinister. When the disgust of the townsfolk reaches a violent climax, the sisters are further forced out from society towards a perspective that even the legitimate kind gesture must be ignored as to forever remove themselves from such a volatile society.
Returning to the Merricat’s mind, it is her twisted perspective that most brilliantly colors the social portrait. For her any deviation from her comfortable normality is seen as threatening—a parallel to the social standards of the town that see their deviation as threatening—and Merricat feels imbued with magical powers that ward off such demons.
It is fitting that Jackson would choose New England as the setting for her novel, a novel that if it weren’t for the mention of cars could be set in nearly any New England era. The novel recalls the witch hunts of the area in all its Gothic sensibilities. What better place for a chilling tale told in the American wilderness. It is also reflective of the obdurate beliefs of a conservative catholic New England that so threatened Jackson and her Jewish husband that Jackson developed extreme agoraphobia.
While out on my delivery route, I listen to a lot of NPR. This fall the Diane Rehm show did a segment on Jackson’s [b:The Haunting of Hill House|89717|The Haunting of Hill House|Shirley Jackson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327871336l/89717._SY75_.jpg|3627], a quintessential literary haunted house novel that I so loved in college. Comically, and much to the chagrin of the guests—two people well versed in the life and literature of Jackson—Ms Rehm openly hated the novel, even sighing when callers would label it as ‘wonderful’ or ‘genius’. At one point, the two guests agreed that We Have Always Lived in the Castle was Jackson’s strongest work of fiction (which places it even higher for them than her short story The Lottery, which is a staple of any American college student’s required literature courses)¹. I immediately made an unofficial stop to a used bookstore I'd recently discovered (I have a least one bookstore for route that I rotate through) and purchased a copy of Castle. It did not disappoint. It was a fine friend to have riding shotgun amidst the landscapes disrobing themselves of their fall colors that passed outside my van windows every day. Castle is an exquisite psychological tale of trauma and terror that your heart is sure to welcome in and grow fond of as it hides it’s dagger behind it’s back.
4/5
There had not been this many words sounded in our house for a long time, and it was going to take a while to clean them out.
¹ Guest [a:Judy Oppenheimer|75549|Judy Oppenheimer|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], author of [b:Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson|1458440|Private Demons The Life of Shirley Jackson|Judy Oppenheimer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375198160l/1458440._SX50_.jpg|1449253], added that her favorite of any Jackson book was [b:Life Among the Savages|12331353|Life Among the Savages|Shirley Jackson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386606290l/12331353._SY75_.jpg|2683066]Living With the Savages, Jackson’s memoirs about raising children. You can listen to the entire segment here.
Oh, no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me.
Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!
A cliche in American horror films is to include children singing a song that is seemingly innocent at first, but gnaws at the nerves with a haunting sadism. We watch children, young and naive, signing and spinning in a corn field bathed by an autumn dusk; the cliche works because it is an image that we welcome through our front door for it’s familiar and idyllic pastoral sentimentality only to discover an intangible fear clawing out from within. It’s the murky pool from which the maggots of urban legends crawl forth and every town has one. There is the house on the corner children dare one another to touch, the homeless man we hear bears a horrific curse, the school basement where we are told a student once hanged themselves and still roams about (two of the three existed in my childhood town). Often these legends are purely of the imagination, yet occasionally there is a seed of truth. Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle focuses on the subjects of the urban legend seed, and holds the reader captive in their reclusive reality. The reader however, will not wish to leave this literary bondage and will likely find themselves sitting up flipping pages late into the evening. Two young woman and their ailing uncle are the sole occupants a mansion set off from the town, the sole survivors of a family poisoning that reverberates through the town with rumors and speculative fear. Castle is a chilling late-night walk through the haunted forests of human consciousness, a gripping psychological horror ripping through the idyllic American classic feel of the novel to expose the Gothic terrors that drench the New England landscapes.
We always fear what we don’t understand. What makes Castle work so well is it’s familiarity and it’s warmth, an unexpected aspect to this chilling portrait of misanthropy. The novel humanizes the subjects of the townsfolk’s fear and revulsion, and it does so without apology by not skirting the issues of murder and isolation. Jackson sets the reader into this world without making them feel ill at ease through her style, a familiar embrace of tone and structure which recalls the small town American classics. It seemed to follow the format of a book you would read for high school literature, opening with a riveting first chapter that quickly yet eloquently set all the pieces in play while feeding you exposition hidden in the sugars of plot and leaving you gasping with questions you can’t wait to have fulfilled. Then it is followed by a second, lengthier chapter where an overarching conflict is introduced, typically through a minor conflict in plot where more exposition is unveiled through the banter of characters. It’s this sort of nostalgia for high school classics that immediately opens your heart to the book, but not just in structure but the plot, setting and characters as well. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is the first to come to mind. Like Lee, Jackson tells her story from the viewpoints of a young, tomboyish girl and wraps her tale within the folds of local politics and society. Here we have Mary Katherine, or Merricat as she is often referred, a girl of eighteen akin to a feral cat. Her and her sister Constance are embedded in the local society, but from a view on high being born into a family of wealthy landowners. Merricat, despite her disgust for her deceased relatives, continues their looking-down-the-nose opinions of the locals as filth except hers is one of violent hatred.
I would have liked to come into the grocery store some morning and see them all, even the Elberts and the children, lying there crying with the pain and dying. I would then help myself to groceries, I thought, stepping over their bodies, taking whatever I fancied from the shelves, and go home, with perhaps a kick for Mrs. Donell while she lay there. I was never sorry when I had thoughts like this; I only wished they would come true.Merricat’s opening chapter is unabashedly honest, but doesn’t quite read like a confession but more as matter-of-fact. Like a cat—it is fitting that Merricat is always accompanied by a loyal and almost-too-human cat as if it were a children’s novel—Merricat is the sort to look you straight in the eye while she destroys the furniture. Which she will do time and time again out of spite.
"I can't help it when people are frightened," says Merricat. "I always want to frighten them more."
Merricat has many reasons beyond her better-than-thou upper-class upbringing to sadistically sneer at the townsfolk. They hate her and her older sister, reviling Constance for allegedly getting away with mass murder, they hate their family for former wounds caused by the snobbish and cruel father, and they take their disgust out with ridicule. Eventually, as events transpire, the sisters take on a sort of legend for their reclusive behavior and disregard for the company of villagers, being said to eat children among other things. The sisters are a symbolic repression of women and all things not aligning with the social norms of any age, damned into either shame or blissful solitude as rumors take wing and transform into hellish mythical beasts.
Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.
By focusing on the sisters and viewing the world through Merricat’s childish and imaginative mind, we gain a unique perspective on the society. The children signing sadistic rhymes of horror films are in this perspective are the well-to-do well-wishers that feign friendliness towards the sisters. Both sides of this coin are seemingly innocent moments cloaking something sinister. When the disgust of the townsfolk reaches a violent climax, the sisters are further forced out from society towards a perspective that even the legitimate kind gesture must be ignored as to forever remove themselves from such a volatile society.
Returning to the Merricat’s mind, it is her twisted perspective that most brilliantly colors the social portrait. For her any deviation from her comfortable normality is seen as threatening—a parallel to the social standards of the town that see their deviation as threatening—and Merricat feels imbued with magical powers that ward off such demons.
All our land was enriched with my treasures buried in it, thickly inhabited just below the surface with my marbles and my teeth and my colored stones, all perhaps turned to jewels by now, held together under the ground in a powerful taut web which never loosened, but held fast to guard us.An old book nailed to a tree, for example, becomes a totem of power to her. When it falls so does her feeling of security. She is the wild human consciousness repressed, regressed and full of animalistic defensiveness.
It is fitting that Jackson would choose New England as the setting for her novel, a novel that if it weren’t for the mention of cars could be set in nearly any New England era. The novel recalls the witch hunts of the area in all its Gothic sensibilities. What better place for a chilling tale told in the American wilderness. It is also reflective of the obdurate beliefs of a conservative catholic New England that so threatened Jackson and her Jewish husband that Jackson developed extreme agoraphobia.
While out on my delivery route, I listen to a lot of NPR. This fall the Diane Rehm show did a segment on Jackson’s [b:The Haunting of Hill House|89717|The Haunting of Hill House|Shirley Jackson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327871336l/89717._SY75_.jpg|3627], a quintessential literary haunted house novel that I so loved in college. Comically, and much to the chagrin of the guests—two people well versed in the life and literature of Jackson—Ms Rehm openly hated the novel, even sighing when callers would label it as ‘wonderful’ or ‘genius’. At one point, the two guests agreed that We Have Always Lived in the Castle was Jackson’s strongest work of fiction (which places it even higher for them than her short story The Lottery, which is a staple of any American college student’s required literature courses)¹. I immediately made an unofficial stop to a used bookstore I'd recently discovered (I have a least one bookstore for route that I rotate through) and purchased a copy of Castle. It did not disappoint. It was a fine friend to have riding shotgun amidst the landscapes disrobing themselves of their fall colors that passed outside my van windows every day. Castle is an exquisite psychological tale of trauma and terror that your heart is sure to welcome in and grow fond of as it hides it’s dagger behind it’s back.
4/5
There had not been this many words sounded in our house for a long time, and it was going to take a while to clean them out.
¹ Guest [a:Judy Oppenheimer|75549|Judy Oppenheimer|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], author of [b:Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson|1458440|Private Demons The Life of Shirley Jackson|Judy Oppenheimer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1375198160l/1458440._SX50_.jpg|1449253], added that her favorite of any Jackson book was [b:Life Among the Savages|12331353|Life Among the Savages|Shirley Jackson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386606290l/12331353._SY75_.jpg|2683066]Living With the Savages, Jackson’s memoirs about raising children. You can listen to the entire segment here.