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1dfan666's review against another edition
5.0
i want to pace myself when i read shirley jackson; she's only got so many novels and i fear the day when i have nothing new of hers to explore. but she doesn't write anything that's easy to set down! i think i liked this even better than We Have Always Lived in the Castle. she is simply a master of putting the reader directly inside of whatever strangeness she's cooking. i have many Thoughts on this one but nothing that's easily accessible yet. a masterpiece, is all i can say presently.
literarytranquillity's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
3.0
Azt hittem, nagyon fogom szeretni. Annnyira jól indult. Aztán nagy lett a káosz, ami a könyv egyik erénye is, de sokáig nagyon unalmas volt számomra. A vége sem tetszett. :( Az írónő stílusa viszont igen, meg a képzelőereje is csodás, de ez a könyv sajnos most nem jött be annyira.
lee_foust's review against another edition
5.0
Objectively speaking, and all literary merits (that I learned about to get my Ph.D.) considered, this is probably only a four-star novel. Still, I just loved it so much I must give it five and will now proceed to gush here for a few moments over its perhaps slightly subjective merits.
First of all, there is the Shirley Jackson kinda snarky utterly tragic tone in the way her third person narrator describes the novel's characters. I know it sounds like a contradiction, but the more I read Ms. Jackson's fiction the more I sense this deep core of trauma behind the very sophisticated semi-humorous character portrayals. It's been noted that the near parodies of not-so-nice characters of which her novels and stories are peppered signal her misanthropy, 'though I would call it more of a deep-seeded and oft-confirmed distrust of just how horrible people can so frequently be. Apparently the author's parents first introduced her to obnoxious behavior and then the Antisemitism that dogged her husband (to whom this novel of schizophrenia and the horrors of human solicitude is dedicated) at Bennington College, where he was a teacher, kept her awake at night, drove her to substance abuse and over eating, and eventually into an early grave.
While I'm not one to psychoanalyze an author, I find this particular tone of narration, this pathetic mix of pain and loathing in the descriptions of the characters of Jackson's fictions, unmistakably unique and I can only explain it in this way. Not only that but her beloved husband's infidelities and patriarchal treatment of her--controlling the family money even when she earned most of it, apparently depending upon her to do all of the household work (4 children!) despite the fact that her writing earned most of their living--contributed to this unique voice that seems to yearn to love but to be endlessly rebuffed by characters that will simply not behave. In this, The Bird's Nest is the most Shirley Jackson-esque of the five of her books that I've thus read.
To belabor the point, but also as an added proof to the pudding--did I use that wrong?--this particular novel's theme is both how difficult it is to be a single, whole personality in a monstrous world of boring jobs, terrible parents, flawed parental figures, and traumatic experiences as well as how difficult it is to deal with people who crack under those pressures and begin spitting back at the world in novel ways. (And, trying desperately not to spoil anything, the reversal of that process!) It's all pretty brilliantly balanced here. Victims all, oppressors all; it depends on your point of view at the moment.
Even deeper into these themes of the prickly difficulty of loving other human beings, our heroine Elizabeth's spit back at the world consists of splitting into four separate personalities, each more obnoxious than the previous, some because they are too good, or too passive, and others because they are too aggressive, grasping, or childishly wicked. (This is practically Deleuze and Guattari Anti-Oedipus territory [eighteen years before the Frenchmen came up with the idea!], a diagnosis of the twentieth century's generally schizophrenic compartmentalization of behavior--one minute I'm a daughter, then a niece, then an employee, then a guest, then a patient, then... You get the picture. We are all multitudes pretending to be singularities until parts of us drift too far apart and we come into violent conflict with ourselves and begin taking it out on others. (Does this explain mass shootings? As good an reason as any, I should think.)
Here's where the form and style of the novel come in. Objectively it's perhaps a bit clunky to go from third to first person in a novel. I'm giving it a pass here because--despite a couple of pages that cheat--it goes so well with the theme: for what is a multi-charactered novel other than an artistic cover up of an author exploring his or her own multiplicities? If Ms. Jackson had been in my writer's group I would have suggested she drop the third person sections and find a way to put them into other first person voices as well--but it would perhaps have been too tough with so many characters--the protagonist herself is already four! Still, despite using only two first person sections and going third person with the other chapters, the novel was so frequently both delightful and fucking terrifying that I often found my jaw slack with wonder. Some scenes... well, no spoilers, just, you will know them when you get to them. And the ending. Dear God, the ending... Brilliantly subtle and beyond terrifying.
First of all, there is the Shirley Jackson kinda snarky utterly tragic tone in the way her third person narrator describes the novel's characters. I know it sounds like a contradiction, but the more I read Ms. Jackson's fiction the more I sense this deep core of trauma behind the very sophisticated semi-humorous character portrayals. It's been noted that the near parodies of not-so-nice characters of which her novels and stories are peppered signal her misanthropy, 'though I would call it more of a deep-seeded and oft-confirmed distrust of just how horrible people can so frequently be. Apparently the author's parents first introduced her to obnoxious behavior and then the Antisemitism that dogged her husband (to whom this novel of schizophrenia and the horrors of human solicitude is dedicated) at Bennington College, where he was a teacher, kept her awake at night, drove her to substance abuse and over eating, and eventually into an early grave.
While I'm not one to psychoanalyze an author, I find this particular tone of narration, this pathetic mix of pain and loathing in the descriptions of the characters of Jackson's fictions, unmistakably unique and I can only explain it in this way. Not only that but her beloved husband's infidelities and patriarchal treatment of her--controlling the family money even when she earned most of it, apparently depending upon her to do all of the household work (4 children!) despite the fact that her writing earned most of their living--contributed to this unique voice that seems to yearn to love but to be endlessly rebuffed by characters that will simply not behave. In this, The Bird's Nest is the most Shirley Jackson-esque of the five of her books that I've thus read.
To belabor the point, but also as an added proof to the pudding--did I use that wrong?--this particular novel's theme is both how difficult it is to be a single, whole personality in a monstrous world of boring jobs, terrible parents, flawed parental figures, and traumatic experiences as well as how difficult it is to deal with people who crack under those pressures and begin spitting back at the world in novel ways. (And, trying desperately not to spoil anything, the reversal of that process!) It's all pretty brilliantly balanced here. Victims all, oppressors all; it depends on your point of view at the moment.
Even deeper into these themes of the prickly difficulty of loving other human beings, our heroine Elizabeth's spit back at the world consists of splitting into four separate personalities, each more obnoxious than the previous, some because they are too good, or too passive, and others because they are too aggressive, grasping, or childishly wicked. (This is practically Deleuze and Guattari Anti-Oedipus territory [eighteen years before the Frenchmen came up with the idea!], a diagnosis of the twentieth century's generally schizophrenic compartmentalization of behavior--one minute I'm a daughter, then a niece, then an employee, then a guest, then a patient, then... You get the picture. We are all multitudes pretending to be singularities until parts of us drift too far apart and we come into violent conflict with ourselves and begin taking it out on others. (Does this explain mass shootings? As good an reason as any, I should think.)
Here's where the form and style of the novel come in. Objectively it's perhaps a bit clunky to go from third to first person in a novel. I'm giving it a pass here because--despite a couple of pages that cheat--it goes so well with the theme: for what is a multi-charactered novel other than an artistic cover up of an author exploring his or her own multiplicities? If Ms. Jackson had been in my writer's group I would have suggested she drop the third person sections and find a way to put them into other first person voices as well--but it would perhaps have been too tough with so many characters--the protagonist herself is already four! Still, despite using only two first person sections and going third person with the other chapters, the novel was so frequently both delightful and fucking terrifying that I often found my jaw slack with wonder. Some scenes... well, no spoilers, just, you will know them when you get to them. And the ending. Dear God, the ending... Brilliantly subtle and beyond terrifying.
nicolefrailedits's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mgeake's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
m0on_moo's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
marypickfords's review against another edition
4.0
"With my own hands, wearing my own face, walking on my own feet, using my own head [...]".. of course I was reminded of 'the tooth' here..! now i get why SJ didn't care for haas' adaptation but i still love it dearly.
lkedzie's review
4.0
The comparable text is The Sound and the Fury, down to the allusions to The Scottish Play, and in the ways that it has not aged well, here around mental illness. The obvious targets are the but what cards my wool is the too cinematic, too Freudian unveiling the trauma as the undoing of the disorder. It makes for great fiction, but it is not the way the world works. Mental illness (carefully putting to the side the way in which , or whether its presentation here has a lick of connection to reality) is. It is sourceless, affects anyone, and even if a particular variety has a specific origin, unlocking the origin is not Thanks I'm Cured. Though, admittedly, since it is a Jackson special of an ending, there is ambiguity about that.
The particular way that The Bird's Nest is like Sound is in its masterful use of perspective and character interiority. That first major perspective jump, from hate-to-love Wright to Betsy, who, up until that point, is a demon, down to the cursed speech and being bound by twisted rules, is all the emotions. Rolling a slow boil that first justifies every bad impression, it turns tragic, terrifying, and even guilt-inducing. And that is only the first time. That Morgen gets a chapter is a surprise in a surprise.
It is fierce artistry. About the only complaint towards it, which, I concede, is likely intentional, is that at points it makes the action hard to track. More than a movie, I'd love to see this staged, where you can still play around with that but also allow the interplay to flow more naturalistically. Yes, you would lose all sorts of what Jackson is best at, but I would be curious at any rate.
I know that there is some question of whether to consider Jackson a horror writer or not. While most of the time I sweep such questions aside, I think it may matter here more than not, in the sense that I think what intent this novel is written with ought to affect the way in which it is perceived, and in specific whether or not we should forgive its iffy moments.
I do not have an answer to that. But I do think that this is Jackson's form on full display and why she gets considered a horror writer. Much like her #1 fan King, she holds such a tight frame on the prosaic, pedestrian, and domestic, and by being fundamentally about the ordinary, it makes the extraordinary and supernatural feel like it is there. Right now.
Spoiler
functional hypnosis and multiple personalitiesSpoiler
dissociative identity is a contentious diagnosisThe particular way that The Bird's Nest is like Sound is in its masterful use of perspective and character interiority. That first major perspective jump, from hate-to-love Wright to Betsy, who, up until that point, is a demon, down to the cursed speech and being bound by twisted rules, is all the emotions. Rolling a slow boil that first justifies every bad impression, it turns tragic, terrifying, and even guilt-inducing. And that is only the first time. That Morgen gets a chapter is a surprise in a surprise.
It is fierce artistry. About the only complaint towards it, which, I concede, is likely intentional, is that at points it makes the action hard to track. More than a movie, I'd love to see this staged, where you can still play around with that but also allow the interplay to flow more naturalistically. Yes, you would lose all sorts of what Jackson is best at, but I would be curious at any rate.
I know that there is some question of whether to consider Jackson a horror writer or not. While most of the time I sweep such questions aside, I think it may matter here more than not, in the sense that I think what intent this novel is written with ought to affect the way in which it is perceived, and in specific whether or not we should forgive its iffy moments.
I do not have an answer to that. But I do think that this is Jackson's form on full display and why she gets considered a horror writer. Much like her #1 fan King, she holds such a tight frame on the prosaic, pedestrian, and domestic, and by being fundamentally about the ordinary, it makes the extraordinary and supernatural feel like it is there. Right now.
calliecella's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5