I Capture the Castle in Reading the Classics

Mar 21, 2013 Nicole rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: purchased

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I must confess that the plot of I Capture the Castle did not particularly grab me. The writing, however, and spectacular voice of Cassandra were endlessly entertaining and insightful. I adored the writing and the experience as a whole, even if it did devolve somewhat into the tale of a love triangle.

I suppose it's a bit unfair to hope that it would have dealt with something 'loftier' than love and attraction, but I believe I did anyway. Alas, much of the focus of the storyline is on who loves C I must confess that the plot of I Capture the Castle did not particularly grab me. The writing, however, and spectacular voice of Cassandra were endlessly entertaining and insightful. I adored the writing and the experience as a whole, even if it did devolve somewhat into the tale of a love triangle.

I suppose it's a bit unfair to hope that it would have dealt with something 'loftier' than love and attraction, but I believe I did anyway. Alas, much of the focus of the storyline is on who loves Cassandra and how she feels toward them in return. It is full of plenty of fabulous interrogations of the many and varied emotions of love and jealousy—everything is refreshingly realistic—and I do feel like it would be a valuable tale for the 12+ age group for which it is written to read that sometimes attraction gets mixed up with misery, or pity, and sometimes jealousy makes you hate and love people at the same time, and that's okay, because nothing is black and white, even though so much in this world tries to convince us that it is.

Cassandra's voice is my favourite thing about this book because she is clever, insightful and hilarious. She is also ‘splendidly’ cheeky, for example when the American Neil agrees with Cassandra's suggestion that her sister Rose's dress is nice, but also observes that she knows it, and Cassandra concedes that she was indeed, “knowing it all over the place.” At one other point Cassandra also admits she wanted to ‘brain her’ with a brick.

Unfortunately there is the troubling aspect of Cassandra's father and his violent behaviour that seems to be pardoned because of his tortured literary genius. It was somewhat perplexing that his ‘violent turns’ (though only two actually take place) were excused as being a kind of necessary evil that his wife and children suspect bears some important relationship to his creativity and thus treat it with a bizarre reverence.

The most fabulous thing about this book, however, and the reason I would recommend it, is because it is just so fabulously BRITISH. The food, the castle, the expressions and the village characters. It's like being in a British pub on a rainy day, enjoying tea and perhaps a meal of something simple since, after all, “ham with mustard is a meal of glory.”

I recommend this book if you enjoy:

Sage young narrators
Literature (as a theme)
Britain
Castles
The simple pleasures of life ...more

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