From the Bookshelf of On Paths Unknown…

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Shirley Jackson

Start date: December 8, 2015

Discussion: AMERICAN/SOUTHERN GOTHIC

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 4 topics — 174 comments total

AMERICAN/SOUTHERN GOTHIC

We Have Always Lived In The Castle ENDING SPOILERS Chapters 8, 9 and 10.
By Traveller · 79 posts · 222 views

last updated Jan 20, 2016 05:21AM

We Have Always Lived In The Castle Chapters 5, 6 and 7.
By Traveller · 39 posts · 19 views

last updated Dec 18, 2015 09:51AM

showing 2 of 2 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Sep 01, 2013 mark monday rated it really liked it

Shelves: these-fragile-lives, come-of-age, mind-the-gap

...more

41 likes · Like · see review

Feb 22, 2011 Aloha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: a-own, b-ghosts, genre-horror, a-reviewed, z-jackson-shirley

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!

The chants of the children followed Mary Katherine (Merricat) everywhere as she makes her twice weekly excursions into the village. Mary Katherine, Constance, and uncle Julian were ostracized by the town folks when the wealthy Blackwood family gained notoriety after the deaths of several Blackwood family members by arsen ...more

27 likes · Like · see review

Oct 10, 2010 Nate D rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010, favorites

Two sisters and their infirm uncle, sole survivors of a famous tragedy, pull back into the family home and away from the eyes of town. Shirley Jackson is highly skilled in handling unsettling subjective viewpoints, and of telling very understated, psychological versions of classic "scary story" concepts, and this is an excellent example of both. ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

May 25, 2010 J. rated it really liked it

Shelves: childhood-gothic, something-nasty-in-the-wood-shed

Let's say four and a half stars. Shirley Jackson's 1962 novel is in the American-Gothic / Pulp vein, but doesn't deserve either tag so much, as it is original imaginative fiction, steeped in rich, high-relief characterization. Stanley Kubrick or John Huston would have done well by this in a film version... A novel of Manners, more or less, just really atrocious Manners, inexcusable by any standard.

The first person narrative comes from young Mary Katherine, orphaned at an early age and now a sel
Let's say four and a half stars. Shirley Jackson's 1962 novel is in the American-Gothic / Pulp vein, but doesn't deserve either tag so much, as it is original imaginative fiction, steeped in rich, high-relief characterization. Stanley Kubrick or John Huston would have done well by this in a film version... A novel of Manners, more or less, just really atrocious Manners, inexcusable by any standard.

The first person narrative comes from young Mary Katherine, orphaned at an early age and now a selfishly infantile eighteen years old. She's being parented by a permissive older sister who is oblivious to almost everything. The sisters live alone, attended by their housecat Jonas, in their mansion on the hill; the days are full of wandering the grounds, and elaborate, circuitous daydreams...

The day outside was full of changing light, and Jonas danced in and out of shadows as he followed me. When I ran Jonas ran, and when I stopped and stood still he stopped and glanced at me and then went briskly off in another direction, as though we were not acquainted, and then he sat down and waited for me to run again. We were going to the long field which today looked like an ocean, although I had never seen an ocean; the grass was moving in the breezes and the cloud shadows passed back and forth and the trees in the distance moved. Jonas disappeared into the grass, which was tall enough for me to touch with my hands while I walked, and he made small crooked movements of his own; for a minute the grass woulld all bend together under the breeze and then there would be a hurrying pattern across it where Jonas was running. I started at one corner and walked diagonally across the long field toward the opposite corner, and in the middle I came directly to the rock covering the spot where the doll was buried; I could always find it although much of my buried treasure was forever lost. The rock was undisturbed and so the doll was safe. I am walking on buried treasure, I thought, with the grass brushing against my hands and nothing around me but the reach of the long field with the grass blowing and the pine woods at the end; behind me was the house, and far off to my left, hidden by trees and almost out of sight, was the wire fence our father had built, to keep people out...

Each wrenching movement of the plot is so well attended by the coping mechanisms of the characters, each oblique development plausibly graced by girlish games and nicknames that -- well, that the reader has no real idea what's coming, but can't shake the gloom and foreboding involved. Reminiscent of the dreamy-ingenue first-person account in A High Wind In Jamaica, with a similarly unpleasant outcome.

To say more is to give away either the big developments which come as strong shocks, or to reveal the myriad little bits of narrative needlework that anchor this sad & cautionary tale.
Very recommended.

By the way, if you get the edition with the Jonathon Lethem "introduction"-- be aware that it is truly an Afterword, with at least one explicit spoiler spelled out in its otherwise insightful discussion. But maybe Afterwords are no longer 'done' by the upscale commentariat. Whatever the position, it is right about the idea of Mary Katherine's "feral presexual tomboy" voice being the triumph of the work, and that with sexuality so consistently distant throughout the proceedings, the ambiguity formed by its absence creates another distinct & dramatic undertow. ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Feb 08, 2021 Tracy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: murder-murder, adult-fiction, mystery, horror, library-books, borrowed, spooky, spells, gothic

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

7 likes · Like · see review

Nov 23, 2016 Chinook rated it it was amazing

Shelves: america, 500-women

At first I was thinking that this wasn't very freaky. But as time, and pages, went on, the tininess of the world of Constance, Merricat and Julian started to really creep me out. Those townspeople. Creepy Charles. And the way after the big incident that their world contracts even further.

It's almost enough to put me off of sugar. ...more

1 like · Like · see review