We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson is one of those authors who just sticks with you. I'm not entirely sure what it is about her writing, but it haunts for years. I read The Lottery in high school, and I still think about it from time to time. I'm sure that We Have Always Lived in the Castle will be no different. It gets scarier the more I think about it, which is a little strange, but it also keeps getting better. And it's so short that I have no doubt I'll be re-reading it in the future. Probably to celebrate Halloween.
The narrator is a young woman named Merricat who, strangely, reminded me a lot of Rothfuss' Auri. When The Slow Regard of Silent Things came out earlier this year, Rothfuss took pains to warn his readers that it was an unusual story with an unusual protagonist. Sure to be unlike anything they'd read before. Well Rothfuss has likely never read this book, because the two are more than a little similar.
Merricat and Auri have a lot in common. They are meticulous. They assign emotions and intentions to the inanimate objects around them. They are both bound by ritual and believe strongly that every thing has a particular place. A day's mood can be set by something that happens early in the morning, and certain days are only good for certain tasks.
The two characters differ in motivation. Auri is a fundamentally good person who seeks to restore and then preserve balance in her own little corner of the world. She cares deeply for everything around her and wants most of all to minimize harm. Merricat, on the other hand, is fundamentally selfish. Where Auri struggles with change because she needs to know where she fits in, Merricat struggles with any change that may take the focus away from her. She's caught her sister in her web and goes to great lengths to resist anything that may knock her off her pedestal in the center of her sister's world.
Merricat's lack of moral code is the scariest part of this book, though everyone else's uncaring actions towards her breeds its own kind of terror. The way Merricat handles Charles in inexcusable, though he's hardly some innocent victim. If he'd had his way, she'd be packed off and he'd be free to spend her father's fortune. Even Constance isn't totally innocent, complicit as she is in Merricat's sins. Still, her fate is possibly the worst of anyone's, made somehow scarier by her happy embrace of it.
I actually read this book for a book club that meets this weekend. I debated holding off until after the meeting to write this, but I decided to get my own thoughts out first. I may have more to say later, though.
The narrator is a young woman named Merricat who, strangely, reminded me a lot of Rothfuss' Auri. When The Slow Regard of Silent Things came out earlier this year, Rothfuss took pains to warn his readers that it was an unusual story with an unusual protagonist. Sure to be unlike anything they'd read before. Well Rothfuss has likely never read this book, because the two are more than a little similar.
Merricat and Auri have a lot in common. They are meticulous. They assign emotions and intentions to the inanimate objects around them. They are both bound by ritual and believe strongly that every thing has a particular place. A day's mood can be set by something that happens early in the morning, and certain days are only good for certain tasks.
The two characters differ in motivation. Auri is a fundamentally good person who seeks to restore and then preserve balance in her own little corner of the world. She cares deeply for everything around her and wants most of all to minimize harm. Merricat, on the other hand, is fundamentally selfish. Where Auri struggles with change because she needs to know where she fits in, Merricat struggles with any change that may take the focus away from her. She's caught her sister in her web and goes to great lengths to resist anything that may knock her off her pedestal in the center of her sister's world.
Merricat's lack of moral code is the scariest part of this book, though everyone else's uncaring actions towards her breeds its own kind of terror. The way Merricat handles Charles in inexcusable, though he's hardly some innocent victim. If he'd had his way, she'd be packed off and he'd be free to spend her father's fortune. Even Constance isn't totally innocent, complicit as she is in Merricat's sins. Still, her fate is possibly the worst of anyone's, made somehow scarier by her happy embrace of it.
I actually read this book for a book club that meets this weekend. I debated holding off until after the meeting to write this, but I decided to get my own thoughts out first. I may have more to say later, though.
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