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nahret 's review for:
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
by Shirley Jackson
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I confess, I suffered through this book. It was my first Shirley Jackson, and I can‘t tell if it was a good introduction to her writing or not. I‘m pretty sure that I‘m the problem, not Jackson. But yeah, I suffered.
Okay, look, I‘m the problem. I like to be able to root for characters. At least for one of them. No such luck here, everybody is horrible. The protagonist is a developmentally arrested 18 year old sociopath, her sister is agoraphobic, her uncle has dementia, her cousin is a particularly vile representative of the patriarchy, and the townsfolk are your run-of-the-mill red state deplorables, who will do violence to anyone they identify as „weird“. Yes, humanity is the horror. We know. Sartre was right.
Also, there is a twist. Maybe. It didn‘t feel like a twist, since it was obvious early on, but then it was discussed in the story as if it mattered. I don‘t know.
Maybe the impact of the story was different in 1962, when the extremely obvious horror of the unwashed masses in red states was not so easily accessible via YouTube. Now, during the second presidency of the orange despot, it might just not hit the same way. Also, as a person of color who is somewhat educated on chattel slavery and colonialism, nothing in the prejudices or the cruelty is new, surprising, or even particularly extreme. So, I was uncomfortable the whole time, and repulsed often, but I did not feel a true sense of horror.
The afterword by Jonathan Lethem suggests that there was some feminist messaging and/or Freudian motives that could be inferred here, but also states that the author, herself, would have soundly rejected the notion. He also sees sexual subtext that I cannot for the life of me fathom.
I‘m not giving up on Shirley Jackson just yet; I have her „The Haunting of Hill House“ on my shelf. But this book here, I‘ll give away, because I never want to see it again.
Okay, look, I‘m the problem. I like to be able to root for characters. At least for one of them. No such luck here, everybody is horrible. The protagonist is a developmentally arrested 18 year old sociopath, her sister is agoraphobic, her uncle has dementia, her cousin is a particularly vile representative of the patriarchy, and the townsfolk are your run-of-the-mill red state deplorables, who will do violence to anyone they identify as „weird“. Yes, humanity is the horror. We know. Sartre was right.
Also, there is a twist. Maybe. It didn‘t feel like a twist, since it was obvious early on, but then it was discussed in the story as if it mattered. I don‘t know.
Maybe the impact of the story was different in 1962, when the extremely obvious horror of the unwashed masses in red states was not so easily accessible via YouTube. Now, during the second presidency of the orange despot, it might just not hit the same way. Also, as a person of color who is somewhat educated on chattel slavery and colonialism, nothing in the prejudices or the cruelty is new, surprising, or even particularly extreme. So, I was uncomfortable the whole time, and repulsed often, but I did not feel a true sense of horror.
The afterword by Jonathan Lethem suggests that there was some feminist messaging and/or Freudian motives that could be inferred here, but also states that the author, herself, would have soundly rejected the notion. He also sees sexual subtext that I cannot for the life of me fathom.
I‘m not giving up on Shirley Jackson just yet; I have her „The Haunting of Hill House“ on my shelf. But this book here, I‘ll give away, because I never want to see it again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Mental illness, Misogyny, Violence, Dementia, Death of parent, Murder, Classism