We Have Always Lived In The Castle - Shirley Jackson - Book Review

  

        

        I had been reading more mysteries and thrillers for the last few months and did not get much of a chance to venture into my favorite genre - horror except for one or two of them. A recent reading on horror was 'The Haunting of Hill House' which is widely celebrated across the literary circles. I loved the writing style followed in the book and the gothic settings and decided to try out one more work of the same author. And hence this book.

        Mary Katherine Blackwood a.k.a Merricat and Constance Blackwood are two sisters living in the big old Blackwood family house along with their uncle who is not in his right mental state. The house and the inmates are totally shunned by the people in the village as they consider the sisters as the perpetrators of a crime that happened which involved the death of all those who resided in the mansion sans the above three. Constance is cautious and quiet where as Mary is more child like and obsessed with spells and superstitions with which she supposedly protects the house and the people inside from the villagers but at the same time daring and observing. Enter a distant cousin named Charles whose intentions seems clear from the start. He has an eye on Clarence and on the family property. Slowly he begins to disturb the day to day activities and the supposed peace and order in the home much to the chagrin of Mary. What follows forms the rest of the story.

        To begin with, Shirley Jackson's style is totally impressive. She has a good command of words and language. With the use of a few words she can effectively imbibe the mood of the story into the reader. Like in 'The Haunting of Hill House', Shirley is successfully able to set the mood of the story by capturing the gothic nature and eeriness of the settings. Contrary to Stephen King who uses lots of words, Shirley is a woman of few words. But effective indeed. The characters and the village reflect the original family and place where Shirley resided (if anyone knows her autobiography this should be interesting). The book starts of in such a way that I was able to relate myself with Merricat but then suddenly the character suddenly steered in a different path. The story told in the voice of Merricat is indeed an interesting choice. We are able to see the world in her own true twisted sense, her imaginary world within the premises that she protects with her spells and superstitions. The contrast between the sisters in interestingly brought out. Julian the uncle even though not being in the right mental state was a really interesting character who throws some light on the background (but hazy indeed). The book was a short read but I was appalled by the way the novel unfolds.

        Spooky, eerie, gothic, twisted are some of the words that we can use to describe the well crafted story. In total, a quick read that mesmerizes people right from the first word.

Note: The famous first paragraph from the book. As in 'The Haunting of Hill House'; here also the first paragraph attracted me a lot.

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.