Excellent piece! Shirley Jackson was such an accomplished writer of the atmospheric setting! I remember first encountering 'The Lottery' and it has never left me; the pace and language she uses in that story just gives off a sense of unease from the first line.
Thanks so much, Kate! I feel the same way about The Lottery--something about the essence of that writing has never left me. It still gives me chills to think of the ending!
I confess when I read the first lines of Hill House I cried. I think partly because it celebrates the ambiguity of the narrator as hovering between worlds, we don't know whether they are mortal or not. I think at that time it reflected the conflict in my world, the waking and the dream world. And partly because this ambiguity reflects the tension between the reality and dream of Jackson's own life. From the letters in your conclusion it is evident she was committed to creating the world in her book even if it might have been unreal (does anyone know if she actually felt a presence?). But while she was writing, her domestic reality (absolute in this case) as a writer must have been stifling (wrt Stanley, of course I am extrapolating here but I have spent quite some time thinking about Shirley's inner life) and hence the need to dream, to walk alone inside the rigid architecture of the social pretenses a mind like her had to survive in (running in literary circles with a literary critic for a husband).
Am I insane for thinking like this? I have always pictured Shirley's ghost as the katydid that sits just outside the house on the branch of a tree. LOL.
I love your reading of the narrator as "hovering between worlds," because it's just so clear, from the first lines of the book, that we're in some kind of liminal space. Maybe that's why it's so compelling to imagine the katydid as author.
Well, I've already had Hill House on my list and I guess I should bump it up after this so I can come back and read your analysis of the opening paragraph! (I admit I skipped over it because I didn't want to risk getting spoiled!)
I absolutely loved We have Always Lived in the Castle and it's a book I can see myself revisiting soon.
I was meticulously spoiler-free! So, if you want to get into Hill House, all you'll know is the first paragraph (and a few things that caught my eye when I read the first paragraph). I am currently reading it and I'm sooooo excited to hear what you think of it, if you decide to bump it up!
I haven't read any of her work and am now excited to have joined a close read of two!
In "Hill House", I too stumbled on the first sentence's reference to "absolute reality" and the concept of "sanity" as it relates to larks, katydids and a house. Absolute reality is a mind bender since our brains can't ever experience or comprehend absolute reality anyway. And sanity presumes to me a consciousness. I've never heard of an insane lark or katydid. So already, I am drawn in knowing that there will be a play of some sort between the real and unreal and that the otherwise inanimate will likely not be so throughout the book.
In the opening lines to the other book, Merricat's narrative says more by ommission than in the telling which totally draw me in and of course I'm wondering whether the werewolf will figure in to her identity the rest of the story.
I so enjoyed this post and look forward to more!
As an aside, the haunted house and any derelict structure figures in my mind as an alter ego or representation of the inner life of the author or characters. Do you find this to be the case?
In "The Cat Jumps" by Elizabeth Bowen there is a similarlly macabre depiction of a house where everything seems to be alive, breathing, and living. Also. Asimilat play on what's real and what's unreal. And a chilling suggestion that past traumas of places/spaces can affect (and infect) the psyches of its inhabitants. Would love a close read on that one if you're taking requests!!
I love this! Thank you!! And yes, absolutely, haunted houses tend to figure as these large, roomy metaphors for whatever spooky hauntedness is going on inside a person. This is done to varying degrees of success, obviously, but spatial metaphors seem to do a lot of work in literary fiction. (I'm thinking especially of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's absolute masterpiece, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" in which the house, and its yellowing paper wall decor, seem to go beyond metaphor in helping to communicate the mental and psychic strain experienced by the main character.)
I'm a big Bowen fan but have not read "The Cat Jumps" -- so I'll have to add it to my list!
The opening of "We Have Always Live in the Castle" is probably one of my favourite openings ever. I think once I put it in my tinder bio to see what happens (not much as it turned out, because great stuff is lost on the majority of tinder users).
Excellent piece! Shirley Jackson was such an accomplished writer of the atmospheric setting! I remember first encountering 'The Lottery' and it has never left me; the pace and language she uses in that story just gives off a sense of unease from the first line.
Thanks so much, Kate! I feel the same way about The Lottery--something about the essence of that writing has never left me. It still gives me chills to think of the ending!
Note to self: Read the Jackson letters.
I confess when I read the first lines of Hill House I cried. I think partly because it celebrates the ambiguity of the narrator as hovering between worlds, we don't know whether they are mortal or not. I think at that time it reflected the conflict in my world, the waking and the dream world. And partly because this ambiguity reflects the tension between the reality and dream of Jackson's own life. From the letters in your conclusion it is evident she was committed to creating the world in her book even if it might have been unreal (does anyone know if she actually felt a presence?). But while she was writing, her domestic reality (absolute in this case) as a writer must have been stifling (wrt Stanley, of course I am extrapolating here but I have spent quite some time thinking about Shirley's inner life) and hence the need to dream, to walk alone inside the rigid architecture of the social pretenses a mind like her had to survive in (running in literary circles with a literary critic for a husband).
Am I insane for thinking like this? I have always pictured Shirley's ghost as the katydid that sits just outside the house on the branch of a tree. LOL.
I love your reading of the narrator as "hovering between worlds," because it's just so clear, from the first lines of the book, that we're in some kind of liminal space. Maybe that's why it's so compelling to imagine the katydid as author.
Yes! Liminal space is such apt description.
Well, I've already had Hill House on my list and I guess I should bump it up after this so I can come back and read your analysis of the opening paragraph! (I admit I skipped over it because I didn't want to risk getting spoiled!)
I absolutely loved We have Always Lived in the Castle and it's a book I can see myself revisiting soon.
I was meticulously spoiler-free! So, if you want to get into Hill House, all you'll know is the first paragraph (and a few things that caught my eye when I read the first paragraph). I am currently reading it and I'm sooooo excited to hear what you think of it, if you decide to bump it up!
That is *great*, I'll definitely come back to read that section then!
I just wanted to say that I have been convinced to bump it from "tbr" to "current read" after this :D
Yesssss!!!
I haven't read any of her work and am now excited to have joined a close read of two!
In "Hill House", I too stumbled on the first sentence's reference to "absolute reality" and the concept of "sanity" as it relates to larks, katydids and a house. Absolute reality is a mind bender since our brains can't ever experience or comprehend absolute reality anyway. And sanity presumes to me a consciousness. I've never heard of an insane lark or katydid. So already, I am drawn in knowing that there will be a play of some sort between the real and unreal and that the otherwise inanimate will likely not be so throughout the book.
In the opening lines to the other book, Merricat's narrative says more by ommission than in the telling which totally draw me in and of course I'm wondering whether the werewolf will figure in to her identity the rest of the story.
I so enjoyed this post and look forward to more!
As an aside, the haunted house and any derelict structure figures in my mind as an alter ego or representation of the inner life of the author or characters. Do you find this to be the case?
In "The Cat Jumps" by Elizabeth Bowen there is a similarlly macabre depiction of a house where everything seems to be alive, breathing, and living. Also. Asimilat play on what's real and what's unreal. And a chilling suggestion that past traumas of places/spaces can affect (and infect) the psyches of its inhabitants. Would love a close read on that one if you're taking requests!!
I love this! Thank you!! And yes, absolutely, haunted houses tend to figure as these large, roomy metaphors for whatever spooky hauntedness is going on inside a person. This is done to varying degrees of success, obviously, but spatial metaphors seem to do a lot of work in literary fiction. (I'm thinking especially of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's absolute masterpiece, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" in which the house, and its yellowing paper wall decor, seem to go beyond metaphor in helping to communicate the mental and psychic strain experienced by the main character.)
I'm a big Bowen fan but have not read "The Cat Jumps" -- so I'll have to add it to my list!
And I think you'll like the next essay, based on your thoughts about haunted houses...!
Wanted to let you know thanks to this post and a book read along here on Substack of The Haunting of Hill House I'm a fan!
Love this!! Thanks Emily!
The opening of "We Have Always Live in the Castle" is probably one of my favourite openings ever. I think once I put it in my tinder bio to see what happens (not much as it turned out, because great stuff is lost on the majority of tinder users).