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A review by teresatumminello
Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson
5.0
Reread
More often than not, the covers of Shirley Jackson’s books are wildly inaccurate as to what’s inside.
I didn’t connect with this the first time I read it; maybe I needed a lot of distance from my own seventeen-year-old self. Being in someone’s head, at least as rendered by Jackson, is intense. Natalie describes her state of mind as so close… to the irrational and so tempted by it (page 130)— what she’s experiencing throughout is the process of individuation.
In the first section, as Natalie tries to communicate with parents who are both liberal and restrictive, she narrates a running (detective) story in her head to block out their noise. An incident before she leaves home for the first time seems almost thrown away, but more than once it’s brought back to the reader’s mind, as Natalie tries to suppress it. Here she’s speaking of something else, but a careful reader remembers what happened in the section before: “how perfectly abominable it is to be the receiver of such a thing, how dreadful and horrifying it is to have no choice at all (Page 131)
Natalie is not like the other girls at the exclusive college her father chose for her, and she denies she’s lonely. One girl who tries to befriend her is unsuitable in many ways, as a scary scene at the end of the second section illustrates. Also unsuitable are two popular girls that use Natalie, and the girls’ former friend who’s married to a young professor. A chilling episode of Natalie standing under trees, looking at the houses, thinking her revenge upon campus inhabitants is fantastical, but palpable.
Natalie resists going home for a visit and stays only two nights over the Thanksgiving holiday: The reader discovers why in the third and final section. Themes found in Jackson’s short stories and later novels are also here, including pitting two individuals against the mocking, giggling “beasts” outside the door; and paranoia, which at first seems just part of a game the two are playing.
In the foreword of this edition [a:Francine Prose|12180|Francine Prose|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1249678588p2/12180.jpg] says if she’d known of this novel sooner, she would’ve taught it in her Strange Books literature class. She writes that it shares with the other “strange” books she taught not only oddity but beauty, originality, a certain visionary intensity, and the ability to make us feel as if we have been invited into a private, very intimate world with striking similarities to our world, whatever that might be. She describes how good a writer Jackson is, stating her sentences are “occasionally reminiscent of Henry James.” Over previous Jackson readings I thought of him but hesitated to go there -- nice to have the affirmation. (If you’re not a James fan, don't let that put you off: It’s not that noticeable and I don't mean to overstate it.)
More often than not, the covers of Shirley Jackson’s books are wildly inaccurate as to what’s inside.
I didn’t connect with this the first time I read it; maybe I needed a lot of distance from my own seventeen-year-old self. Being in someone’s head, at least as rendered by Jackson, is intense. Natalie describes her state of mind as so close… to the irrational and so tempted by it (page 130)— what she’s experiencing throughout is the process of individuation.
In the first section, as Natalie tries to communicate with parents who are both liberal and restrictive, she narrates a running (detective) story in her head to block out their noise. An incident before she leaves home for the first time seems almost thrown away, but more than once it’s brought back to the reader’s mind, as Natalie tries to suppress it. Here she’s speaking of something else, but a careful reader remembers what happened in the section before: “how perfectly abominable it is to be the receiver of such a thing, how dreadful and horrifying it is to have no choice at all (Page 131)
Natalie is not like the other girls at the exclusive college her father chose for her, and she denies she’s lonely. One girl who tries to befriend her is unsuitable in many ways, as a scary scene at the end of the second section illustrates. Also unsuitable are two popular girls that use Natalie, and the girls’ former friend who’s married to a young professor. A chilling episode of Natalie standing under trees, looking at the houses, thinking her revenge upon campus inhabitants is fantastical, but palpable.
Natalie resists going home for a visit and stays only two nights over the Thanksgiving holiday: The reader discovers why in the third and final section. Themes found in Jackson’s short stories and later novels are also here, including pitting two individuals against the mocking, giggling “beasts” outside the door; and paranoia, which at first seems just part of a game the two are playing.
In the foreword of this edition [a:Francine Prose|12180|Francine Prose|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1249678588p2/12180.jpg] says if she’d known of this novel sooner, she would’ve taught it in her Strange Books literature class. She writes that it shares with the other “strange” books she taught not only oddity but beauty, originality, a certain visionary intensity, and the ability to make us feel as if we have been invited into a private, very intimate world with striking similarities to our world, whatever that might be. She describes how good a writer Jackson is, stating her sentences are “occasionally reminiscent of Henry James.” Over previous Jackson readings I thought of him but hesitated to go there -- nice to have the affirmation. (If you’re not a James fan, don't let that put you off: It’s not that noticeable and I don't mean to overstate it.)