December Group Read #1-We Have Always Lived in the Castle

[Jon Recluse]

Here's a place to discuss December's Group Read winner, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

Please be cautious of spoilers and enjoy this classic.

Happy Reading!

[Benjamin]

One of my favourites! Looking forward to discussing this with everyone.

[Marie Helene]

Great! I'm about to read The Lottery, then will join the group for We Have Always Lived in the Castle

[Latasha]

this is one of my favorites as well.

[[deleted user]]

I loved The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery!! So stoked to start reading this soon and joining everyone in the discussion :3

[Michael]

Oh, this is such a magnificent choice! I've been wanting to re-read it for ages. Shirley Jackson is such a master, and this, I think, is her very best!

[Tressa]

I like Castle a little bit more than Hill House. Have fun reading it and I can't wait to follow the discussion.

[Layton]

I just read this last week, now I wish I had waited. Great book. Definitely my favorite of the year.

[Char]

I think I'm going to locate my audio of this and listen along with everyone. I loved this story.

[Katerina]

Can't wait to start reading it!

[Kimberly]

LOVED this one! :)

[Latasha]

Char wrote: "I think I'm going to locate my audio of this and listen along with everyone. I loved this story."

i have the audiobook too. i love it.

[Erin]

I LOVE LOVE this book!! Jon, remember I love the classics. I'd love to read this one again this month. :)

[Jen from Quebec :0)]

I have this for Kindle and as an audio, so I am currently listening and reading along atm. I am already 35% into the book, and still well- waiting for the story to really get going. It is a slow burn. --Jen from Quebec :0)

[Will]

I've been looking for an excuse to get round to this for ages. Bought a kindle copy already!

[Latasha]

Yes Jen, it is a slow one.

[R. Leigh]

Howdy, this is my first group discussion as I’ve recently joined—looking forward to it. I started this book yesterday, and finished it today. I don’t normally read this fast—am actually a pretty slow reader—but my wife and I are at a cabin for a few days (am I allowed to link to the website or is that considered some kind of advertising or spam?) for a little vacation, so a lot of time to read. This was also my first read of Shirley Jackson.

I don’t know what I expected of this—I think something with a little more action, or something more visceral. This wasn’t that at all. Castle was definitely a slow burner, but hauntingly beautiful. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that I considered this book unique and interesting in that it seemed to be a story about how a house came to be haunted. I think in fiction (and non, and in our own lives) we come across haunted houses pretty regularly, but I don’t think it’s too often where we’re given such an intimate and emotional backstory, and that’s what this felt like to me. Every time I see an abandoned house in pictures or off the road, I always wonder about the people who lived there, loved there, fought there. That’s what this felt like to me.

General light spoiler about the nature of the narrator, Merricat:

(view spoiler)[ Jackson has done a great job with the unreliable narrator. It took me a while to figure out that’s what I was dealing with. The inconsistencies in Merricat’s character kept building up and I would note them each time until it occurred to me Charles tells Constance “Never mind. Kids always take to me” about half-way through. (hide spoiler)]

I said before that this was hauntingly beautiful. Here’s an example of what I meant by that:

All the Blackwood women had taken the food that came from the ground and preserved it, and the deeply colored rows of jellies and pickles and bottled vegetables and fruit, maroon and amber and dark rich green, stood side by side in our cellar and would stand there forever, a poem by the Blackwood women.

Brilliant. This kind of writing and metaphor that Jackson is a master of is throughout, granting the book a very melancholy feel.

I took a bunch of notes, and there’s a LOT to unpack with this book, but I’ll save them for future contributions in this discussion. This was definitely a novel that sits with you, something you need to think on quietly for a while. I really don’t care for gothics at all, and I’ll still not pick one up usually, but I think I can make an exception for Shelley. I bought the Kindle version of this, but honestly I think it’s quality enough that it warrants a physical copy on my bookshelf.

[Kimberly]

Re-reading this one with the group. There's something very poetic to Jackson's prose that just makes you stop and appreciate the way the words flow. This one is in a class all of its own--I'd have a difficult time categorizing it into a single niche...

[Latasha]

yes! yes to R. Leigh and Kimberly. this book is hauntingly beautiful. I thought so anyways.

[Will]

I'm 20% in and mesmerised by the quality of the prose

[Michael]

One of the best opening paragraphs ever. So much is conveyed in so few words. You get an entire skewed world--and a fantastically unreliable narrator--in six short sentences. And the last sentence just hits you like a hammer.

The prose quality here is sublime.

[Kimberly]

Michael wrote: "One of the best opening paragraphs ever. So much is conveyed in so few words. You get an entire skewed world--and a fantastically unreliable narrator--in six short sentences. And the last sentence ..."

Agreed! (However, the opening paragraph to The Haunting of Hill House gets my vote for BEST opening ever! Since they're by the same author, I'm not sure there's much of a difference--LOL!)

[R. Leigh]

I think part of what makes the first paragraph so effective is that Jackson tells you everything you need to know—you just don’t realize just how much gravity comes with those few words. It’s not until later on, after small hints dropped here and there like breadcrumbs, that you realize what she’s done with that first paragraph, and what she’s doing. It’s the equivalent of being an Eskimo, and having a salesman come up to you and say “I’m going to sell you a glacier,” and by the time he’s done not only have you bought yourself the glacier, but you’re asking him if he has any more to sell.

[Kimberly]

R. Leigh wrote: "I think part of what makes the first paragraph so effective is that Jackson tells you everything you need to know—you just don’t realize just how much gravity comes with those few words. It’s not u..."

Great analogy...

[Michael]

R. Leigh wrote: "I think part of what makes the first paragraph so effective is that Jackson tells you everything you need to know—you just don’t realize just how much gravity comes with those few words. It’s not u..."

Yes! Exactly. She really tells you everything in that opening paragraph, but you don't quite know what it means until much later. I love that. It's like hiding the truth in plain sight.

[Michael]

Kimberly wrote: "Michael wrote: "One of the best opening paragraphs ever. So much is conveyed in so few words. You get an entire skewed world--and a fantastically unreliable narrator--in six short sentences. And th..."

I agree! It's tough to choose between the two. I do love them both.

[Vavita]

One of the best books I have ever read. I ended up loving Merricat!

[Benjamin]

I can't think of another narrator really like Merricat - she's such a strong, memorable voice. Most of Jackson's other female protagonists (Eleanor in Haunting of Hill House, Natalie in Hangsaman, Elizabeth in The Bird's Nest) are very tentative, uncertain leads - whereas Merricat has none of their existential anguish, and is very definitively herself rather than the fractured psyches Jackson normally prefers.

[Will]

I agree. Strong and very much herself. And she remains the most focussed character through the book

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Jackson is testing the reader: did you see Merricat as sympathetic? Or as a (view spoiler)[psychopath? (hide spoiler)]

I suspect Jackson had a giggle in designing the characters since she knew perfectly well readers would either fall into her trap of being led into accepting the surface ‘wisdom’ of the small-town crowd, swayed by conventional emotion over facts, or readers would see clearly what Merricat really was, making up their mind based on the facts as Jackson explicitly shows us.

[R. Leigh]

Benjamin wrote: "and is very definitively herself rather than the fractured psyches Jackson normally prefers"

Oh I think Merricat is definitely fractured in more ways than one.
(view spoiler)[
Forget the whole 'murdering her whole family' thing, how about how incredibly child-like she acts? She says she's 18 at the start, but she acts and speaks more like an 8-year-old. She's just certain in her fractured state, if that makes sense.
(hide spoiler)]

[Nancy]

Starting this right now.

[Michael]

What I love about Merricat is how she's so playful and childish, and then suddenly you get a line like: "I thought of them rotting away and curling in pain and crying out loud; I wanted them doubled up and crying on the ground in front of me." Whoa!

[Jen from Quebec :0)]

Anyone else see this as a mental health story as opposed to horror? Just me? --Jen from Quebec :0)

[R. Leigh]

Can’t it be both?

[Jen from Quebec :0)]

Touche!

[Nancy]

I am only on page 65. Mary Katherine does not act like an 18 year old. More like an eight or ten year old.

[Shay]

I read this last, I believe. Anyway I did notice how most reviews and discussions were about her being a psychopath or this horriable monster. She did come off to me as having a mental diability. Which yes it is horrific that she did what she did.

[Kimberly]

Jennifer Lynn wrote: "Anyone else see this as a mental health story as opposed to horror? Just me? --Jen from Quebec :0)"

Both! (And beautifully done, imho.)

[R. Leigh]

Shay wrote: "I read this last, I believe. Anyway I did notice how most reviews and discussions were about her being a psychopath or this horriable monster. She did come off to me as having a mental diability. W..."

But if Merricat is a psychopath or some kind of horrible monster, then what about her sister, or her uncle, who both love her and seem to have no issues? Either 1) they're crazy too, or 2) Merricat isn't a horrible psychopath--perhaps she had reason to kill her family. Who knows? In any case, the whole thing is just . . . weird.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

People with mental disabilities have sympathy and empathy. I did not detect either with Merricat, except for a strong affection for Constance and her sister only cares about Merricat. They both are fond of the uncle(view spoiler)[ apparently because he survived and gives them cover. The uncle was poisoned with arsenic and almost died. (hide spoiler)]Because of his injuries and brain damage, he is in a wheelchair. He barely knows what year it is and repeats the same historical research over and over like a tape on replay, which is very like the seniors in my park who have dementia.

[Nancy]

I didn’t think that maybe Merricat had mental health issues or any disabilities. At one point I thought maybe she was rather spoiled. Especially when she imagined (view spoiler)[everyone at the table and imagined them praising her and remarking how much they loved her and even telling Thomas to give her all his food. (hide spoiler)] I think she was just a spoiled brat (view spoiler)[and when she got in trouble and sent to her room without dinner she decided she was going to get back them. For some reason Constance protected her. I feel like time stopped for them and Merricat still acted like a spoiler 12 yr old and Constance retreated into her shell and continued to treat Merricat like she was a little girl. (hide spoiler)]

[Kimberly]

Nancy wrote: "I didn’t think that maybe Merricat had mental health issues or any disabilities. At one point I thought maybe she was rather spoiled. Especially when she imagined [spoilers removed] I think she was..."

I really like the ideas you bring up! I was thinking along those lines, myself. (view spoiler)[Time "did" stop for them, at least as far as Merricat and Constance were concerned. Because this suited both of them just fine, and the Uncle was not a threat in any way, they were able to continue living the 'fantasy" Merricat constructed. (hide spoiler)]

[Will]

I wonder how much her family's treatment of precious Merricat created her imbalance?

It's interesting, as Murphy says, how Charles' arrival - and his attitude - change Merricat's mental state. That's when I started to see her as possibly dangerous.

[Imbunche]

Nancy wrote: "I didn’t think that maybe Merricat had mental health issues or any disabilities. At one point I thought maybe she was rather spoiled. Especially when she imagined [spoilers removed] I think she was..."

But then what about her (view spoiler)[ magic spells (hide spoiler)]? And the way she spoke of things she was not allowed to do? (view spoiler)[ I thought it was Constance who forbade them to do those things, but after the fire it was clear is was not so. She was suddenly no loger 'allowed' to visit the creek for example. (hide spoiler)] She definitely did act very childlish, but I definitely did see her as disturbed in some way as well.

[Laurie (barksbooks)]

I've only just begun my re-listen of the audio but Merricat most definitely feels superior when talking about the horrid townsfolk and how the path was gated so the peasants wouldn't be able to use it and had to walk along the highway. So, yeah, her family definitely spoiled her and made her believe she was better than others. This type of character usually loses me right away but her thoughts (to me) are disturbingly hilarious.

[[deleted user]]

I am finally starting this today! It seems like everyone else is really enjoying it so I'm excited to dive right in.

[R. Leigh]

Bark's Book Nonsense wrote: "I've only just begun my re-listen of the audio but Merricat most definitely feels superior when talking about the horrid townsfolk and how the path was gated so the peasants wouldn't be able to use..."

I'm not sure if she's spoiled though. I mean she is, but I wonder if it's more because she's so child-like. Young children act and think like this a lot (imagining secret worlds and spells and that they're a princess or whatever) and it doesn't necessarily mean they're spoiled.

Given how she acts so child-like in other areas and seems to show a child-like mindset, I think she's more like a child than she is spoiled or mentally disabled. We already know she's an unreliable narrator, and one of the very first things she says at the start is that she's 18 years old. I think that's a lie.

[Latasha]

This thread is a great example of why I love this group so much. I love you guys!

[Nancy]

Imbunche wrote: "Nancy wrote: "I didn’t think that maybe Merricat had mental health issues or any disabilities. At one point I thought maybe she was rather spoiled. Especially when she imagined [spoilers removed] I..."

I think these were the rules she had when she was 12. Merricat kept acting as if she were 12. Constance continued to treat her the same as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if Merricat did not go back to school after her family died.