Horror Aficionados discussion
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July 2019 Group Read #1: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Mod
I haven't read this one yet and I put it on my 40 books to read before I turn 40 list (i'm 30 so I got time! lol). I'll have to buy it when I get paid, I haven't got it yet, but i'm definitely planning on joining in! It says it's about 150 pages so if I try I should be able to finish it in a day. I have a lot i'm planning on doing in July too but why not go a bit crazy with reading? *I say before-hand*
I have it, yay, so I will plan on fitting it in!
I have it on my Kindle, time to read it 🤓This summer will be my Shirley Jackson summer 😎
Awesome! I have been meaning to read this for so long. Can't wait to get started.
I've read this one twice and have too much on my plate but I'll be looking in to see what you all think :)
I’m very excited to read this book , I’m on my way to the library to pick it up right now!
Mod
I read it several months ago and enjoyed it, but I won't be reading it again so soon. Happy reading!
I've been wanting to read this one for ages. I think I'll have to join in!
I tried reading this once before and couldn't get into it but I'm thinking it was the slump I was in at the time. I'm going to give it another try with the group this month. :)
destiny ♡⚔♡ wrote: "I tried reading this once before and couldn't get into it but I'm thinking it was the slump I was in at the time. I'm going to give it another try with the group this month. :)"Good luck!
Sittin' on my Kindle and ready to go. It will slide in nicely between The Tribe and The Spirit from the Paperbacks From Hell series. Looking forward to finally reading a classic from this master of the genre.
Pillface wrote: "destiny ♡⚔♡ wrote: "I tried reading this once before and couldn't get into it but I'm thinking it was the slump I was in at the time. I'm going to give it another try with the group this month. :)"..."Thank you!
I've always meant to read this one. Perfect! :)
This book is real fun! The author has a wicked sense of humor. She specializes in tweaking readers through character point-of-view misdirection. So great!
I am up to Chapter 5 at the moment. My favorite scene so far is from Chapter 2 I believe, when Helen Clarke and Mrs. Wright visit, and Helen encourages Constance to socialize, while Mrs. Wright and Uncle Julian discuss the circumstances of the family murder. It was amusing each character's dialogue didn't really seem to be responding directly to another's, but going off on its own tangent.So far the tone doesn't seem to be conventionally horror--there is a lightheartedness to it--though it seems (like much gothic fiction) to be a study in madness. The narrator's childish mindset is either the result of being extremely sheltered and isolated, or the result of her parents' death, if not both. Merricat's games and magical thinking (the stuff about omens and words of protection) is probably the most interesting aspect of the book at this point.
I'm interested to see so many others have already this. Did people enjoy it? I'm curious what its reputation is? I really haven't heard much about it, and its Wikipedia page is fairly bare bones. It seems like The Haunting of Hill House and "The Lottery" have overshadowed Jackson's other works (these are the only two I've read until now).
Andrew wrote: "I am up to Chapter 5 at the moment. My favorite scene so far is from Chapter 2 I believe, when Helen Clarke and Mrs. Wright visit, and Helen encourages Constance to socialize, while Mrs. Wright and..."I ADORED this book. It hasn't yet revealed all of it's secrets. While The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery steal all the glory, I feel that WHALitC deserves to be at the top of the list with them.
Andrew wrote: "I am up to Chapter 5 at the moment. My favorite scene so far is from Chapter 2 I believe, when Helen Clarke and Mrs. Wright visit, and Helen encourages Constance to socialize, while Mrs. Wright and..."Great comments, Andrew! I've only read the first three chapters so far, but I already love it. I'm fascinated by Merricat, especially her relationship with Constance. The scene with Mrs. Wright and Helen was great. I'm really curious to see how this is going to end!
This was 3.5 ☆ for me. It was good, but I just didn't feel a whole lot while reading it. 🤷♀️
Oh dear. I'm on Chapter 9 now. Chapter 8 was a doozie. Cousin Charles is such a despicable person. I love all the ways Merricat tries to get rid of him, though. (view spoiler)
I’ve just finished this today. A solid four stars, I thought that the characters and how they each responded to the loss of family were fascinating. Not a lot of plot and so definitely a book I needed to be in the right mood for but still really good.
The story was very nice. However, I didn’t find it terrifying or disturbing really. The dialogue was fantastic, and the description of surroundings were detailed that I could paint my own picture in my mind. I thought it was alright, but I was expecting it to be a bit more frightening.
I am hoping The Invited is a little more chilling. Also, I will be checking out Wesley’s novel and the suggested In The Scrape.
Just finished this one today, and I gave it five stars. It's not scary, but there's definitely an unsettling element to it, I think. I thought Merricat was really fascinating. It's a great gothic novel for sure. :)
Spoilers ahead!!!Finished up today, took it slow and read one chapter a day. I'm a little disappointed, but just a little.
A reclusive pair of sisters hide away in their self-styled castle, protecting themselves from the cruel and judging world. Lots of fun character play here, esp. when a related interloper arrives. Not a lot happens, there are no twists or final consequences. Life just goes on. We have a narcissistic bad seed who would probably excel at social media today, a poor blame-taker that may or may not have always had social anxiety issues, a sad and harmless tragedy survivor and the typically full of meanness and fear townsfolk. I found them all to be interesting and varyingly horrible in different ways. The cat was ok.
I would barely call this a horror story. I guess one could point to the macabre streak running through the narrator. At the same level, it could be a sci-fi story since there is a lot of talk of living on the moon! I would like to have had a more poignant ending, more than our sisters simply turning into child-eating legends. However, it was well-written, short and enjoyable enough for me to recommend.
Man chapter 8 was really hard to get through! Because of tw: Fire as I have ptsd from being in a house fire years ago. Of course the introduction already spoiled the ending of chapter 8 (I stopped when it started spoiling things) but honestly I think I would have figured it out anyway.
I feel awful for Mary. No child should be punished by being made to go hungry. That's not punishment. That's abuse.
(view spoiler)
Edit: I had Uncle Julian and Charles confused before. I'm not good with names, especially when I haven't been able to sleep.
I finished! And I loved it. Except for when I finished reading the introduction afterwards...I completely disagree with the introduction. But there always is more than one way to read a story.All I could see while reading it was talk of disability and I don't just mean Uncle Julian. The agoraphobia, fear of people, the abuse they suffered from a dysfunctional family. Uncle Charles just after their money. The way the villagers treated them, without actually knowing anything for sure.
I did find it, in a way, terrifying. A quiet kind of terror but all the more terrifying for it. I gave it 5 stars.
Steph [They/Them] wrote: "All I could see while reading it was talk of disability and I don't just mean Uncle Julian. The agoraphobia, fear of people, the abuse they suffered from a dysfunctional family. Uncle Charles just after their money. The way the villagers treated them, without actually knowing anything for sure. I did find it, in a way, terrifying. A quiet kind of terror but all the more terrifying for it. I gave it 5 stars."
I finished it last week and while I did think it was good, it did not leave with me with strong feelings or thoughts. It was a quick, enjoyable read but nothing too profound. I give it 3.5/5 stars.
As far as disability goes, it does seem intended to be a deep-dive into madness, narrated by someone who has lost touch with reality. Merricat kept wanting to believe she was on the moon and that her rituals had real magical power. I'm not sure that I see agoraphobia given that Merricat wandered around the woods all the time and went down to the village. Unless you're thinking of Constance? She had no problem with going into the garden. It may have been a combination of shame and protectiveness for Merricat and Julian that kept her at the house.
Where did you get the suggestion of abuse? That's certainly one possible reason why the parents were killed, but I did not see even a strong implication of that. Maybe I missed something.
(view spoiler)
As far as the villagers, as with "The Lottery," this novel does seem to be about small town prejudice. And while they're certainly horrible--they remind me of Stephen King's depictions of small town cruelty--I'm somewhat unsettled by the class implications. We are supposed to sympathize with the wealthy family hoarding money against the mean poor people? I mean the only people who are nice to them are the Clarkes, who are also depicted as being of the upper class. Something about that just doesn't sit right with me. Yes, poor people can be bad people (obviously) but usually they are the ones getting screwed and the prejudice is against them, not the other way around. Anyone else feel that?
I believe Merricat is a (view spoiler). I believe Merricat had only the provocation of normal parenting.
It was seemingly, like, (view spoiler)
I was under the impression her family wanted Merricat to learn manners, like using a spoon and fork and not using her hands to eat, or make her bed, or brush her teeth, or not spit on the floor, to not talk back disrespectfully, and other polite responsible things like that.
I think many readers are emotionally mislead by the wonderful author. She has tricked readers into feeling inappropriate sympathies for some characters who deserve no sympathy, and to hate some characters whose seemingly awful criminal or cruel acts hurt the girls. The truth is (view spoiler)
The town is scapegoating the girls most certainly. That is the wonderful author playing with us readers. Even though the town does not have a clue (view spoiler), they should have been better behaved towards the family, yes?
When the town iS finally sympathetic, then they ARE better behaved. Merricat (view spoiler)
Uncle Julian is witless. He is a symbol of us readers, guys.
Andrew wrote: "Steph [They/Them] wrote: "All I could see while reading it was talk of disability and I don't just mean Uncle Julian. The agoraphobia, fear of people, the abuse they suffered from a dysfunctional f..."I got the abuse from them punishing Merricat by making her go hungry, without supper. Making a child go hungry as a punishment is abuse. That shouldn't be a punishment. Children should be punished when they do wrong certainly but not by making them go without food.
Uncle Julian besides being in a wheelchair seems to have Alzheimer's. And Merricat and Constance, a better term might be mentally ill than disabled. But I can only say how I saw it.
Steph [They/Them] wrote: "Andrew wrote: "Steph [They/Them] wrote: "All I could see while reading it was talk of disability and I don't just mean Uncle Julian. The agoraphobia, fear of people, the abuse they suffered from a ..."Uncle Julian was poisoned and almost died. Instead of dying, he suffered brain damage. He does not have Alzheimer's. His brain is wrecked. It is from cellular damage, like what happens from being strangled or from going through a windshield.
aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "Steph [They/Them] wrote: "Andrew wrote: "Steph [They/Them] wrote: "All I could see while reading it was talk of disability and I don't just mean Uncle Julian. The agoraphobia, fear of people, the a..."Oh. Thinking on it though still doesn't change my opinion of the book. Maybe when I re-read it in the future, who knows.
I finished this yesterday not realising it was the July group read! I’m so pleased I’ve finally got around to it. It was incredible. Such wonderfully deranged characters, but with so much heart 💓 It was also quite heartbreaking at times. 💔 Five stars from me 😍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I was very disappointed in this book, because I wanted so badly to love it. Perhaps that is my fault for "putting it on a pedestal" as it were, but I loved "The Lottery" so, so much!(view spoiler)
I guess the biggest problem for me is that this book didn't feel like horror. Jackson just made the victims (Merricat, Constance, and, to some extent, Julian) too personable for me. This book didn't scare me, it just made me sad and angry.
I have known a (view spoiler). There is no way to 'fix' one, and sympathy cannot and does not last long in their company when whatever they might seem on the surface similar to a normal human being collapses in the face of their moments of utter ruthless cruelty, or worse, one who feels killing solves their problems or to get their way or it seems justified to them as a response to other people being mean to them. They have NO sense of proportion. (You trip them on the playground, so they stab you feeling it is what you justly deserved.)(view spoiler)children grow up into less cute, less manageable, (view spoiler)adults. NIMB.
The town's people were awful and hypocrites.
The horror, I think, is "this is us."
Hmm, I don't see evidence of either Merricat being (view spoiler) who had "normal" parenting or that she was abused. We just don't know, and the flashbacks that Merricat has seem to be unreliable. (I don't remember anything about her being sent to bed without supper. Was this mentioned in one of the flashbacks?) (view spoiler)
aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "I have known a [spoilers removed]. There is no way to 'fix' one, and sympathy cannot and does not last long in their company when whatever they might seem on the surface similar to a normal human b..."Well, I don't want to derail the conversation too much from the book itself, but I think the novel is trying to break down that kind of binary thinking. You say it yourself at the end of your post: the point is, "this is us." We can all be horrible people, and there's no line between "normal" and "psychopath" because we can all be fake, we all manipulate, we are all complicit in cruelties we do not like to admit to or think about. It's impossible to live in this kind of world without benefiting off the suffering of others (whether intentionally or not).
I'm not saying there aren't horrific acts and they shouldn't have consequences. But I personally don't ascribe to an us/them mentality, and I don't think Jackson did either. That's the mentality of the townspeople.
I'm also careful about labeling anyone (fictional or real) who commits a violent crime as a psychopath. Firstly, there's not even an agreed upon clinical entity called psychopathy; it's more a legal term. Secondly, I don't believe one has to be a psychopath to commit a senseless or seemingly "irrational" murder. Thirdly, people can commit horrific acts because of a psychotic break (losing touch with reality and/or impulse control), which is not the same at all as psychopathy, and is not the person's fault. (I believe this makes more sense in Merricat's case because of her magical thinking.)
There's also evidence to suggest that what might be genetic propensities for psychopathic behavior are strongly influenced by developmental care and treatment. See for instance James Fallon's book The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain, in which Fallon, a neuroscientist, discusses his surprise at learning that his brain shares attributes with those who committed violent crimes. His explanation of why he did not go down a similar path is that he was very supported as a child, and most of those criminals were not. So while you can't "cure" whatever is going on in the brain of a psychopath (Fallon does exhibit behaviors in the "checklist": he cheats at Scrabble; he puts others in danger for his own gain; he's selfish), you can definitely shape their lives in a big way with how you treat them.
Many psychopaths can love and feel affection towards a person. They simply have little ability to feel much empathy, which can lead to very few internal boundaries. Of course, a nice childhood, or a mild abnormal pathology can make a difference in the amount of self control and self-awareness one has.
The two women need Uncle Julian as cover. Their independence would be threatened if people knew how demented he is. Women are only permitted independent living under control of a male family head of house, generally, during this era.
Under civilized circumstances, binary thinking is abhorrent. However, if one is dying of arsenic poisoning, looking across the table at my family convulsing with bloody froth on their lips, falling on the floor, struggling in burning agony minutes away from certain death, I am very certain I would be too involved with my personal need to survive to worry about my murderer's well-being or how my parents hurt her feelings or her mental ill-health...
Mod
You bring up so many valid points. Obviously there are no "wrong" opinions when it comes to books, but so much of what you said are the exact things I was thinking about during some of my re-reads.
Emma wrote: "I was very disappointed in this book, because I wanted so badly to love it. Perhaps that is my fault for "putting it on a pedestal" as it were, but I loved "The Lottery" so, so much!I always had ..."
So much this, only that's exactly why I loved it.
Andrew wrote: "aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "I have known a [spoilers removed]. There is no way to 'fix' one, and sympathy cannot and does not last long in their company when whatever they might seem on the ..."
These just say what I was thinking much better than I could find the words for.
And the sending Merricat to bed, as a child, without her supper is mentioned on page 34 (in my version-chapter 2) "A great child of twelve, sent to bed with her supper. But she need not concern us." and again on page 94 in her fear of it (chapter 7).
Wow I’m loving this discussion! You guys certainly know how to dissect a book! I’m finding things that didn’t even enter my head in this thread and it’s real food for thought!
I don't like to try to ascribe a diagnosis to anyone in a book. Actually, I don't like to try to diagnose anyone at all, as I am not a licensed mental health professional. I find that throwing around mental health terms--especially ones as damaging and hurtful as "psychopath"--makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about when I definitely don't!Though from what I understand (as Andrew pointed out) "psychopath" is not a diagnosis within the fifth edition of the DSM (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual, basically the mental health professional's guide book), and according to the article "Diagnosing Psychopathy" in Psychology Today: "For the very first time, the APA recognized psychopathy as a “specifier” of clinical antisocial personality disorder in the DSM-5, although psychopathy is still not an officially accepted clinical diagnosis." Individuals who might be specified as "psychopaths" are experiencing ASPD (Anti-Social Personality Disorder). Another specifier under the umbrella of ASPD is "sociopath," and a person who might be called a sociopath exhibits very different behaviors than one called a psychopath. After reading the article "The Difference Between Sociopath versus Psychopath" (also at Psychology Today), I would suggest that Merricat seems to exhibit more traits consistent with sociopathy than psychopathy, as described in the article. Also a key difference noted in the article is that "psychopaths are usually deemed more dangerous than sociopaths because they show no remorse for their actions due to their lack of empathy," and I distinctly remember Merricat showing empathy (perhaps remorse?), talking about how she should be nicer to Uncle Julian and worrying that he was unhappy or uncomfortable.
Also, both articles state that an individual cannot be diagnosed with ASPD until they are eighteen; this makes sense to me, because don't all children at some point exhibit behaviors that, were they an adult, would lead to them being labeled a "sociopath" or a "psychopath?" Before the age of eighteen a child who may (or may not) grow into an adult that experiences ASPD can be diagnosed with CD (Conduct Disorder). The article "Options for Managing Conduct Disorder" at the Harvard Mental Health newsletter presents several options for treating CD, many involving the family (eg parental enforcement of consistent rules, negotiation, rewarding positive behavior, consistent and reasonable punishments, etc). Other interventions involve mostly therapies on an individual basis, as a family, or in a group, and possibly medications (although the article said these "tend to be less effective").
While I understand that Merricat's family would not have had access to or even knowledge of such options, and in fact society as a whole was certainly less knowledgeable and less concerned with mental health as a whole (assuming the setting of the story was the United States in the '50s or '60s), I believe that these articles indicate that someone who exhibits CD as a child and even grows up to experience ASPD as an adult can be treated successfully with just intervention by family members. Further, my interpretation of these articles leads me to the conclusion that a child with CD can be "saved" from an adulthood characterized with ASPD, or at least can be prevented from hurting others or committing crimes.
Even without this information, I believe that no one is undeserving of compassion.
The thing that makes me sad about this story is that I don't see how the townspeople can be reacting to Merricat's personality and actions, and so must be reacting to Constance's personality and [perceived] actions. The fact that the townspeople include Merricat (who presumably just seems odd to them) and Julian (perhaps also odd) in their malice towards Constance (who, if they believe her a murderer, deserves their animosity to some extent) is what saddens me.
The articles I used to get some of this information are:
- "Diagnosing Psychopathy" at Psychology Today
- "The Difference Between Sociopath versus Psychopath" at Psychology Today
- "Options for Managing Conduct Disorder" at Harvard Mental Health newsletter
aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "Many psychopaths can love and feel affection towards a person. They simply have little ability to feel much empathy, which can lead to very few internal boundaries. "I'm not sure about that--aren't love and affection rooted in the ability to feel empathy? I would say truly loving someone is when you'd put their well-being over your own, which requires empathy. In any case, I do feel that Merricat shows empathy for Constance and Uncle Julian, just no one else. But then everyone else seems to treat her badly.
aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: Under civilized circumstances, binary thinking is abhorrent. However, if one is dying of arsenic poisoning, looking across the table at my family convulsing with bloody froth on their lips...
Sure, but we're discussing a character in book, not a real person who poisoned our families! I'm talking about what the narrative is doing (it's going against binary thinking), not what my emotional reaction in real life would be. The beauty of the book is in being able to see ourselves in Merricat, however deranged she may be, not that we're supposed to see her as some kind of monster that we're better than. And I think that's one of the most valuable things about literature, especially horror/gothic literature: being able to see one's self in the Other.
Also, whatever Merricat's personality, the fact is that we don't have enough information to know why she did what she did. If I'm not mistaken, you're claiming she's a psychopath because she did what she did unprovoked. However, we don't know what kind of trauma her parents might have inflicted upon her. They could have beaten her or even molested her, for all we know. My guess is that Jackson kept that ambiguous because she didn't want that to matter: she wants us to empathize with Merricat despite the fact that she's a murderer. Regardless if it was some kind of act of survival/self-preservation, or if it was only because they said mean things, and she just wanted to live out some deluded fantasy life alone with Constance.
Emma wrote: "I don't like to try to ascribe a diagnosis to anyone in a book. Actually, I don't like to try to diagnose anyone at all, as I am not a licensed mental health professional. I find that throwing arou..."Thank you for all this. I do think people have a lot of misconceptions about what it means to be a psychopath, and the relationship between mental illness and violent crime in general.
I'm sure that Jackson was not thinking of a specific diagnosis when she wrote the book--and of course, diagnoses were a lot different back then. Personally, perhaps because I like Jackson's prose and want to see her in a more sympathetic light, but I think her depiction of Merricat uses madness in an interesting way. In the gothic, madness is often related to the decay of once noble families (eg, Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher"), and family dysfunction in general. WHALitC borrows from this while putting us, as readers, inside that madness, since it's from a first-person point-of-view.
One possibility no one's yet mentioned is that Merricat's behavior and way of thinking is the result of her actions and watching her family die. If she was a child, she may have done what she did without fully understanding what would happen, and it left her traumatized. This could explain why she's still so childlike in her thinking; she's stuck in the mentality she was in when she poisoned her parents.
Steph wrote:"And the sending Merricat to bed, as a child, without her supper is mentioned on page 34 (in my version-chapter 2) "A great child of twelve, sent to bed with her supper. But she need not concern us." and again on page 94 in her fear of it (chapter 7)."Ah, found it, the first one at least (it's on p. 45 in my edition). Yes, Julian says Merricat was sent to bed without supper on that night, and Constance says she was always "in disgrace" for being disobedient, and she would take supper up to her later. I'm not sure this bothered her much though, since Merricat laughs after Julian brings it up. But it does establish there was an antagonistic relationship between her and her parents.
Please be sure to use spoiler tags so everyone can read and comment at their own pace. Happy reading!