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A review by fearandtrembling
A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett
4.0
I don't know what I was expecting with this--maybe a tidy Victorian family drama. Instead what I got was a strange, dark, acerbic dialogue-heavy novel that reads like a play about the savagery of domestic life and family relations. On one level the language felt Shakespearian; on another level it read like some vicious Jacobean tragedy. I can't quite define this and I'm enthralled by the author's unorthodox mind.
And it gave me lowkey #spinsterlit vibes. Something about how the author is appalled by the bourgeois family and its ensuing heteropatriarchy. There's a blurb by Mary McCarthy that describes her as "one of the rare modern heretics" that I think kind of sums up the spirit of this book, as well.
And it gave me lowkey #spinsterlit vibes. Something about how the author is appalled by the bourgeois family and its ensuing heteropatriarchy. There's a blurb by Mary McCarthy that describes her as "one of the rare modern heretics" that I think kind of sums up the spirit of this book, as well.