August 2017 Group Read - We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson

[Tom]

I've been looking forward to reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson, for a long time. I'm a big fan of The Haunting of Hill House so can't wait to see what Ms. Jackson has in store for us here.
Let's start tracking down copies so that we can begin reading and discussion in August.

Be careful! This thread does contain spoilers. Fortunately, the book is short and there it lots to talk about once you have finished it,

[Franky]

I also enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House. I have my copy of this book ready to go, but am still finishing another book and will probably start afterwards.

[Nancy, Co-Moderator]

I'll be taking this book with me on vacation & I'll try to keep up --

[Eva]

I just ordered it and I will be joining!
I've wanted to read this book ever since I saw the cover. I love it. That's about 2-3 years ago. I might as well just go for it now :p

[Tom]

Glad you could make it Eva!

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

A very good story!

[Tone]

This book is a small masterpiece - no wonder it has become a classic! I hope that you all will enjoy it as much as I did.

[Eva]

Tom wrote: "Glad you could make it Eva!"

Thanks Tom :D :D

[Alexandra]

Thanks to the group for choosing this and giving me an excuse to read it again! :) Can't ever get enough of Shirley Jackson.

[Tom]

The Guardian included this in their list of Books to Share and wrote the article about it below. You may want to hold off reading it at least until you have found out want the tragic event is.

The Guardian - a house of ordinary horror.

[Vanessa]

This is one of my favorites. I can't wait to see what everyone else thinks of it.

[Patricia]

I'm a newbie-just to this group, not to mysteries and thrillers. I'm so happy to learn new authors and titles. I'll be ordering the book tonight!

[Charlotte (Buried in Books)]

I read this a couple of years ago. I'm interested to see what you all think of it.

[SherryRose]

Me too Charlotte. Without giving anything away I think Shirley Jackson was very good with atmosphere.

[William]

Wonderful little book. Well ordered madness.

[Tom]

William wrote: "Well ordered madness."

I love that line.

[Kristel]

First time I heard about this book and I devoured it. I have to say that the dreadful feeling built in me has not entirely left me. Loved it! Thanks to the group for such a wonderful finding!!

[Tom]

Since most of you appear to have read the book in the past, here are a couple questions to help stimulate the discussion:
1. It appears to me that each of the members of the Blackwood family respond to the family tragedy in different ways. How does each member respond and why do you think that they respond in the way that they do?
2. How does the book's title fit into the story?
3. Does Mary Katherine's narration of the story add to or detract from your understanding/appreciation of the story. How so?
4 Joyce Carol Oates called the book a tale of sexual repression and rhapsodic vengeance. Do you agree with that? Why or why not?

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Mary Katherine is a (view spoiler)[bloodthirsty (hide spoiler)]knight defending her home and her Princess against anybody who is a threat. Her main interest is keeping Constance isolated from everyone as she can reasonably convince Constance to allow. Constance's mental issues help Mary Katherine in meeting her goal. Constance likes being a Princess to MK, imho. MK is 18, but she has been a (view spoiler)[murderous psychopath (hide spoiler)] since pubescence. She struck me several times as being possessive and a bit incestuous. Uncle has dementia or brain damage, same-same, but the sisters use him as a frontman.

At first, Mary Katherine seems like someone the reader should feel sorry for because it appears she is a bullied unfairly and that she is disabled mentally. Her narration eventually shows the bullying may have actually moderated her (view spoiler)[natural inborn vicious nature (hide spoiler)], imho.

[Tom]

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "Mary Katherine is a bloodthirsty knight defending her home and her Princess against anybody who is a threat. "

That interpretation is brilliant! I never thought of it in those terms but it explains a lot, including the title.

[Laura]

I identified easily with Merricat and never thought her evil (or mentally disturbed). From the first I understood myself to be in an enchanted realm where tokens could be buried to ward off harm. I read all of Shirley Jackson when it was published and never thought of the books as mysteries. More as gothic, maybe - fantasies set in conventional-seeming small towns.

[William]

This may be obvious, but I think of Constance and Merricat as being mirror images of each other--the one afraid to act and the other all too impetuously prone to it. We only get glimpses of what life was like in the Blackwood family before the murders, but I get the impression of a little island of dysfunctionality, with the family members grating on each other in their self-imposed isolation. The family had always held the common townsfolk in contempt with that disdain returned as hatred, Uncle Julian refers to his brothers as thieves and I think may have had some unflattering remarks about his sisters in law, though I can't recall the specifics. Constance never utters a single word of remonstrance to Merricat regarding the incident with the sugar and I have to wonder if it isn't something she would have liked to have done herself if she possessed her sister's mercurial will.

[William]

Tom wrote: "William wrote: "Well ordered madness."

I love that line."

Thanks, Tom. Kind of proud of it, myself.

[SherryRose]

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "Mary Katherine is a [spoilers removed]knight defending her home and her Princess against anybody who is a threat. Her main interest is keeping Constance isolated from everyone as she can reasonably..."

I see Merrikat as very sociopathic or even psychopathic. I don't feel sympathetic towards her. She's terrifying and you'd better not cross her. She's a cold blooded killer. Constance enables her. Constance is in submission to her. I think she is agoraphobic because she's afraid to cross her evil sister. It probaby started as a fear of making Merrikat mad, which morphed into full blown agraphobia. Also, she didn't like facing the towns people because of how they looked at her and thought of her.
The book isn't scary but it's quite dark.

[Laura]

I like that living isolated, out of the 'normal' world, is made natural and lovely in this book. Metaphorically it may be understood as how being 'different' does not have to be sad. The only truly awful character is Cousin Charles, and one of my only moments of disbelief came when Constance seemed actually to be listening to him.

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[Charlotte (Buried in Books)]

I found this book really disturbing when I read it. The main thing that upset me was (view spoiler)[the villagers causing further damage to the house after the fire (and actually saying it was shame the girls weren't in the house when it went up - it didn't make things any better when some of them felt guilty about it later on (hide spoiler)]. That had a lasting impression on me.

I really didn't like Merricat either, she wants to keep Constance all to herself.

One thing that I've wondered about though - did Merricat know that Constance didn't take sugar on her dessert? Or did Constance know that she shouldn't on that occasion....

[SherryRose]

Charlotte (Buried in Books) wrote: "I found this book really disturbing when I read it. The main thing that upset me was [spoilers removed]. That had a lasting impression on me.

I really didn't like Merricat either, she wants to kee..."

The mob mentality was so ugly. Sadly, it's not out of the realm of possibility. I got the idea that Merrikat knew that Constance didn't take sugar.

[SherryRose]

Cousin Charles was awful. This is a dark book.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I'm in my 60's. Most of this novel is based on real-life community and relatives' behaviors, in my experience.

[Franky]

I just finished and finally caught up with all the comments. While I was reading this book, I was trying to interpret and make my own guess, but was way off. I was thinking symbolically about the many events and Merricat's narration. I usually read up a little on a book before reading it, but this one I knew to stay away from articles, commentary, reviews, so I was constantly on edge to see how things would end. I'll have to think a little more on this book, but, it was quite impressive with a sense of unsettling atmosphere, and the villagers were quite reminiscent of the community in "The Lottery." And, great article from the guardian about this book.

[Tom]

I agree with you, Franky. I found more similarities between this and The Lottery than I did with The Haunting of Hill House which I would have expected.

[Kathy]

I love all Shirley Jackson stories. The horror in her books come from the characters' actions and reactions to situations. And all the actions, while outside the realm of "normal behavior", I can see happening. (view spoiler)[Even Merrcat's poisoning of her family because of being punished. (hide spoiler)] Great character studies.

[Laura]

The villagers hate the family and enjoy pillaging the house: this is easy to believe. But the villagers' then leaving offerings of food didn't seem believable, except that the author needed a way for food to reach the women. I also wondered why they didn't keep chickens.

[SherryRose]

Shirley Jackson had agoraphobia. Maybe she viewed the outside world (villagers) as hostile. Maybe she would have stayed sheltered if her home was damaged.

[SherryRose]

Laura wrote: "The villagers hate the family and enjoy pillaging the house: this is easy to believe. But the villagers' then leaving offerings of food didn't seem believable, except that the author needed a way f..."

I agree with you. I don't think people woud send food after all that. Even if they did it wouldn't be an ongoing thing.

[Michael]

This is a wonderful book, and I'm happy for any excuse to re-read it. In Merricat, Shirley Jackson perfectly describes the eerily close relationship between childish whimsy and horror that makes this book so chilling and so effective. She's playful even as she's scared--even as she does horrible things--and the playfulness somehow makes it all the more creepy.

I also agree that the similarities between this book, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Lottery are striking in how she describes the banality of small-town evil and the casual nature of people's cruelty toward those perceived to be outsiders.

[Tom]

Sherry wrote: "Shirley Jackson had agoraphobia. Maybe she viewed the outside world (villagers) as hostile. Maybe she would have stayed sheltered if her home was damaged."

This excellent review by Bill Kerwin reveals that there are a lit of autibiographical elements in the novella.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

"Those of you who read novels like autobiographies will find tantalizing tidbits here. The local village resembles Jackson’s North Bennington, Vermont, a place Jackson always felt treated her family as outsiders (college eggheads, Democrats, atheists, Jews) and provided her the inspiration for her notorious early success, “The Lottery”. The two sisters were inspired by Jackson’s two daughters, the placid and cautious Constance by Joanne and the superstitious and daring Merrycat by Sarah. But of course Jackson drew on herself for inspiration too, particularly from her fascination with witchcraft and sympathetic magic and her persistent, crippling agoraphobia. And Cousin Charles resembles her husband, in his critical comments about the housekeeping and his continual concerns about money. (Although husband Stanley was a literary critic, his wife Shirley was the literary cash cow of family, and he once calculated precisely how much money was lost whenever his wife wasted her valuable time composing a letter to a friend.)"

[William]

Tom wrote: "Sherry wrote: "Shirley Jackson had agoraphobia. Maybe she viewed the outside world (villagers) as hostile. Maybe she would have stayed sheltered if her home was damaged."

This excellent review by ..."

Yes. I always read the biographies of authors now. After reading Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series, and discovering how his rocky marriage, and its more mature recovery, so deeply influenced Spenser and “Susan” in his books. You see so many things that were hidden before.

I highly recommend a trip to Wikipedia etc for any books, especially series over a long time, before you start with the first book.

[Tom]

William wrote: "I highly recommend a trip to Wikipedia etc for any books, especially series over a long time, before you start with the first book. ."

Good advice.

[Sally]

Tom wrote: "William wrote: "I highly recommend a trip to Wikipedia etc for any books, especially series over a long time, before you start with the first book. ."

Good advice."

Another good source for series is fantasticfiction.com.

[William]

Thank you, Sally & Tom.

Sally wrote: "Tom wrote: "William wrote: "I highly recommend a trip to Wikipedia etc for any books, especially series over a long time, before you start with the first book. ."

Good advice."

Another good sourc..."

[Franky]

Thanks for the references Tom and Sally. I'm looking up stuff on this book all the time now, as it has really intrigued me.

So, spoilers in discussion are okay then? I had a question that is bugging me, and I'm not sure how to do the block spoilers thing when posting.

[Tom]

Franky wrote: "So, spoilers in discussion are okay then? I had a question that is bugging me, and I'm not sure how to do the block spoilers thing when posting. "

Here's how you do it. Do the following but whenever you see an asterisk (*), take it out.
Put this in front of the spoiler remark: <*spoiler>
Put this after the spoiler remark: <*/spoiler>

You can also put "SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! " and then scroll down a few rows before entering the remark.

Bottom line: This book is so short that I expect most people will have read it before coming here.

[SherryRose]

Tom wrote: "Sherry wrote: "Shirley Jackson had agoraphobia. Maybe she viewed the outside world (villagers) as hostile. Maybe she would have stayed sheltered if her home was damaged."

This excellent review by ..."

Thank you Tom! This is very interesting.

[Franky]

Thanks Tom.

Okay, so (view spoiler)[ did anyone else read this expecting one of the characters to be a ghost? I saw all of this foreshadowing like when Merricat says Charles isn't real, he's a demon, etc. and when she constantly references going to the moon, etc.. Plus the bizzare reactions from family members and members of the village, so I felt like we were going to get this weird twist at the very end with a big reveal. Not to say I'm disappointed, but that was how I was guessing things would go. But, the unreliable narrator explanation pretty much clears it up. I saw a great quote in the very brilliant introduction in my edition of the book about how this book is "supernatural" with out being "supernatural" (paraphrasing here), That was an excellent way to put this reading experience. (hide spoiler)]

To me, the whole food left by some of the villagers didn't seem so weird, just based on the whole bizarre experience of the book.

If I read this book again, I would read it totally differently.

I notice that Jackson also has some humorous memoirs. What a contrast those would be to read after this and "The Haunting of Hill House."

[Tom]

Franky wrote: "Thanks Tom.

Okay, so [spoilers removed]"

That's a really fascination theory, but no, I didn't think that. I tend to just read a book and not try to figure out what's going to happen. That may not be the best way to read a book like this, though, as there is a lot of nuance to Ms. Jackson's writing.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Franky wrote: "Thanks Tom.

Okay, so [spoilers removed]

To me, the whole food left by some of the villagers didn't seem so weird, just based on the whole bizarre experience of the book.

If I read this book ag..."

No. I was mislead about the characters in another way for awhile, though.

[SherryRose]

Franky wrote: "Thanks Tom.

Okay, so [spoilers removed]

To me, the whole food left by some of the villagers didn't seem so weird, just based on the whole bizarre experience of the book.

If I read this book ag..."

Yes, even the cover made me think that way. This is one reason to not judge a book by its cover. I thought the book was well written but I was hoping for a scary book when I checked it out of the library a few years ago. Okay, MerriKat is scary but not supernaturally so.

[Tom]

Sherry wrote: " I was hoping for a scary book when I checked it out of the library a few years ago. Okay, MerriKat is scary but not supernaturally so. ."

Having read The Haunting of Hill House a couple times and still not knowing if the house was haunted I figured that this book would be equally vague on the subject of supernatural phenomena. (view spoiler)[ While I can't think of anything in Castle that suggests a supernatural presence, there still seems to be many viewpoints from which to look at it that one can still be asking if they really saw what they thought they did. (hide spoiler)]

[Bill]

I've been enjoying following the discussions on an excellent book.