Since "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" turned out to be such a refreshing surprise, I decided to continue with great, late Shirley Jackson - she is really a treasure, a lady amongst horror royalty and deservedly so, in fact I can't even think of anybody else except Anne Rice much later, who actually left the mark. Of course I don't presume that during her lifetime Jackson thought about herself in terms of being great, important or influential - we all live day by day, with our mundane realities and fantasy worlds as escape - however, as time had erased the private and personal, all that is left and what is important is what Jackson wrote for posterity. Considering that in her lifetime Jackson also refused to be a celebrity, this is exactly as it should be - the writer should be known for his/hers work and not for the peripheral things that lot of people confuse with fame. I have a lot of respect for a person like Jackson, who decidedly refuse to court the media for the sake of book sales and naturally I am quite delighted with her prose, she really had such eerie understanding how the mind works + her descriptions of places and atmosphere were quite unforgettable.
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."
What a great opener. I mean, wow. It really sets the atmosphere from the start and I can't think about anybody else who possessed such a elegant touch. It really makes me wish that Jackson went on to live up to hundred and to publish countless masterpieces instead of leaving this world at the age of 48 and only handful of titles behind. Than again, what really count is the quality and not the quantity - Anthony Trollope was one of the most popular writers of 19th century but afterwards the future generations didn't look positively on his enormous body of work (some forty seven novels) and nowadays he is all but forgotten - on the other hand, Jackson left behind just a few titles but they are so strong that every time somebody "discovers" her über-seminal works like "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" and "The Haunting of Hill House" you can bet they will turn every stone to find is there anything more written by her. What makes Jackson so special - and influential - is that she completely goes under the skin and into the minds of her characters. Much more is going inside than outside. (This is what Stephen King got from her) It is not to say that there is nothing going on in a sense of story - yes, there is - but Jackson is more concerned with a mind-games and often she plays with a reader like a cat with a mouse, until - once we became aware of it - we are forced to go a few pages back and pay more attention to small details in fact I found myself being far more concentrated and focused than what I used to be in ages. This is not just some easy, armchair detective but a serious (and gifted) manipulator who understands what makes you shiver.
The premise of this book appears simple today - four people experimenting in a haunted house - but its only because it was published almost 60 years ago so generations of film-makers and future writers all took their clues from Jackson who set definitive standards of what haunted house novel should be. That her own original still stands to this day head and shoulders above anybody else just proves how important, serious, influential and yes, talented Jackson was. She lives inside of the heads of her characters and this is much scarier than anything we expect might come howling trough the night.
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I have just finished it (on my lunch break - no lunch, book was more important) and my head is still buzzing from excitement.
The brilliance and timelessness of this book is in its ambiguity - not sure is this exactly how Shirley Jackson had it in mind, but it works on several different levels. There are many hints - and on closer inspection, they could all be correct - that the house is really haunted and people are right to stay away from it. Or, you can read it as an incredibly fascinating close look at a nervous breakdown. I chose to see it as a latter, simply because in my opinion, the madness glimpsed in the mirror is far more frightening than any possible monster in a dark. But ever since I read the book, I mulled it over in my head and found that it could be both - neither ghosts nor madness are not actually mentioned explicitly, it's all up to the reader to make his mind about what actually happened.
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