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A review by katharinaxx
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
4.0
I picked up Shirley Jackson for the first time after watching Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, and with some disappointment (which wasn't fair to the original author), I realized none of the stories in this book were horror.
Genre aside, though most of the stories weren't a pleasant read, I really liked the masterful depictions of humanity and society. Reading the book, I was often reminded of Eileen Chang's (張愛玲) writing: Both Shirley Jackson and Eileen Chang had a way of describing the subtleties of the wicked and calculating human nature underneath the seemingly bland and amiable day-to-day life. Shirley Jackson wrote about suburbia housewives and disorienting city lives; Eileen Chang wrote more about romance with a history backdrop - one of Americans, one of Chinese, yet it was surprising how similar humanity could be.
To me, both Shirley Jackson and Eileen Chang tended to have fairly negative outlooks on the stories they were writing. I can't help but notice that both authors were educated women with unhappy upbringings and unsatisfactory marriages. The fact that they were very observant people probably didn't help themselves lead a more blissful life, but (if it's any consolation) it truly yielded great literature, with those fable-like stories voicing many different aspects of suppressions.
Genre aside, though most of the stories weren't a pleasant read, I really liked the masterful depictions of humanity and society. Reading the book, I was often reminded of Eileen Chang's (張愛玲) writing: Both Shirley Jackson and Eileen Chang had a way of describing the subtleties of the wicked and calculating human nature underneath the seemingly bland and amiable day-to-day life. Shirley Jackson wrote about suburbia housewives and disorienting city lives; Eileen Chang wrote more about romance with a history backdrop - one of Americans, one of Chinese, yet it was surprising how similar humanity could be.
To me, both Shirley Jackson and Eileen Chang tended to have fairly negative outlooks on the stories they were writing. I can't help but notice that both authors were educated women with unhappy upbringings and unsatisfactory marriages. The fact that they were very observant people probably didn't help themselves lead a more blissful life, but (if it's any consolation) it truly yielded great literature, with those fable-like stories voicing many different aspects of suppressions.