We Have Always Lived in the Castle: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) [Paperback]

I read this book in one sitting, silently turning page after page, totally caught up in the story.

The story is written in very simple format, unravelling like a favorite and somewhat familiar mystery, and though largely predictable, the slim tome sticks to your hands by some supernatural force, and doesn't release you until the last page is turned and the last word read.

Mary Katherine Blackwood, known as Merricat, the main character, lives with her reclusive sister Constance and their Uncle Julian, the surviving members of a large family that came to a sad end through the consumption of arsenic laced sugar.

The intriguing Merricat tells the story, regaling the reader with her rituals, talismans and magic, but these alone are not enough to counteract the interloper, who threatens her familiar lifestyle, and tries to destroy the strong family unit.

The conclusion was not quite was I was expecting, being of macabre humor and vivid imagination, but was fitting and satisfying.

A haunting but not chilling read.

When I bought that novel, I wasn't expecting anything. Believe it or not, I had never even heard of Shirley Jackson until Amazon suggested her work to me.
The funny thing is, I ended up buying it because the illustration on the cover seemed to call to me.
And I certainly wasn't disappointed at all by that purchase.

The book tells the story of sisters Merricat and Constance Blackwood, who have lived as recluses with their uncle Julian in their family house ever since their parents and Julian's wife died from poisoning six years ago at dinner. Constance, the elder sister, because she was the one who cooked dinner, has been tried for murder and acquitted, however the people of the adjacent village, who have always disliked the Blackwoods, now pick on them constantly, so much that the sisters really have to lock themselves up for fear of intrusion or further harassment.

The story is told by Merricat, in a somewhat paranoid way. Merricat wishes every one from the village dead because of the way they treat her beloved sister and herself. She also wants to live on the moon and constantly brings it up. She likes to bury things or nail them to trees, believing them to have magical powers that keep strangers and misfits away from the house.

Merricat is a very entertaining narrator, because her delusion and her fear of the world, a fear that flirts a bit, as I pointed out before, with paranoia, gives the whole narration a little sarcastic, bitter tone that make it dynamic and full of surprises.
Each and every character but maybe one or two (minor ones) seems to have rather important psychological issues, all of them bearing either over-the-top hysterical or way too quiet personalities that create incredibly entertaining scenes.
There is nothing realistic in that novel, and it is also hard to write an accurate synopsis of it without spoiling the interesting parts. I'm also a terrible reviewer.
It's a pointless book, it starts nowhere, goes nowhere, but it has no pretension of either and it is fantastically entertaining, funny, and if a genie came out of a bottle right now, I honestly think my only wish would be to be able to read that book over and over again without ever remembering it, so I could read it and let it surprise me like it was the first time for the rest of my life.

You want to spend a nice time, reading something that doesn't take all of your reflexion capacities and lets you relax and have an intelligent laugh ?
Just take my advice.
Go buy this.
Now.

When I was in Junior High--what they refer to as "Middle School" these days--we occasionally had book sales to raise funds for various projects like the Prom or the Class Trip. One of the books I selected in those long past days was Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived in the Castle." I was very impressed by her style. I still am!

In the intervening years since high school, I took narrative writing classes to complete one of my degrees, and I can honestly say from that experience that Ms Jackson writes exactly and very successfully as they tell you how to write in such classes. There is a novel introduction; I mean, who can fail to be captured by a paragraph that tells you the narrator should have been a "werewolf" and ends succinctly with the statement that "Everyone else in my family is dead (p. 1)." The author builds mood and character by the use of carefully chosen words that project atmosphere, as when speaking of the village, she says, "The houses and the stores seemed to have been set up in contemptuous haste to provide shelter for the drab and the unpleasant (p. 9)." Already we sense there's something not quite right. Like Shakespeare's much touted Falstaff, however, the character of Uncle Julian adds a touch of levity that gives the tragedy of the story more impact. There is a good deal of detail, but despite this the story isn't just wordy or inflated to fill the requisit 200 pages. The detail makes the town and its residents and the two women in the "castle" much more real, and pull the reader into their story more fully than a more economical treatment would have done.

A thorough delight. Miss Jackson's work still hangs together despite the years.

For THOSE WRITING PAPERS: in narrative writing or English composition. Examine the book for key words that give each character their personality. What does the author tell you without actually telling it to you outright. Were you surprised by the revelations in the book? Were you surprised by the outcome? Compare writers like Edgar Allen Poe, Steven King or Peter Staub with Ms Jackson. How are they similar? How are they different? How is Ms Jackson's work "dated?" How is it timeless?