I Capture the Castle
Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle is an absolutely lovely coming-of-age story about first love and family obligation. It's set sometime in the 1930s in Rural England. The patriarch of the family wrote a critically acclaimed novel some ten years before the book opens, and took a 40 year lease on a castle that he thought would inspire his next great work. But that never happened, and the family has slid into abject poverty.
The book is narrated by middle child Cassandra, who has procured a notebook and decided to keep a journal as practice for the novel she wants to write. Lucky for her, exciting things start to happen almost immediately, giving her a lot of new experiences to write about and new emotions to suss out between the pages of her journals.
The family's landlord - who they haven't paid rent to in years - dies, and his grandsons come from America to take stock of their inheritance. Cassandra's older sister, Rose, becomes determined to marry one of them in an effort to pull her family out of poverty and see them provided for. Everything gets mixed up when everyone falls in love with the wrong person, but Cassandra is such a kind and compassionate narrator that you can't help but empathize with everyone.
I first read this when I was in high school. There's a passage where Cassandra describes the absolute serenity of laying on the grass in the sun, which I had the luck to read while laying in the grass at one of my brother's little league games. That kind of serendipitous moment ties you to a book, and I've been searching for a copy of this for years in the hope of re-reading it.
I'm pleased to report that it stood up to all of my expectations across the years. It may have been even better the second time around. Knowing which romantic entanglements were coming, it was easier to spot the foreshadowing and make sense of the behavior of various characters. I'm also much more familiar with Jane Austen's work now (I'm not sure I'd read any of her novels the first time I read this book), so this comes across much more clearly as a modern reaction to her work.
But really this book is just lovely and calming. It's a perfect read for a lazy summer day - or a devastating weekend when you need to escape from the world for a little while.
The book is narrated by middle child Cassandra, who has procured a notebook and decided to keep a journal as practice for the novel she wants to write. Lucky for her, exciting things start to happen almost immediately, giving her a lot of new experiences to write about and new emotions to suss out between the pages of her journals.
The family's landlord - who they haven't paid rent to in years - dies, and his grandsons come from America to take stock of their inheritance. Cassandra's older sister, Rose, becomes determined to marry one of them in an effort to pull her family out of poverty and see them provided for. Everything gets mixed up when everyone falls in love with the wrong person, but Cassandra is such a kind and compassionate narrator that you can't help but empathize with everyone.
I first read this when I was in high school. There's a passage where Cassandra describes the absolute serenity of laying on the grass in the sun, which I had the luck to read while laying in the grass at one of my brother's little league games. That kind of serendipitous moment ties you to a book, and I've been searching for a copy of this for years in the hope of re-reading it.
I'm pleased to report that it stood up to all of my expectations across the years. It may have been even better the second time around. Knowing which romantic entanglements were coming, it was easier to spot the foreshadowing and make sense of the behavior of various characters. I'm also much more familiar with Jane Austen's work now (I'm not sure I'd read any of her novels the first time I read this book), so this comes across much more clearly as a modern reaction to her work.
But really this book is just lovely and calming. It's a perfect read for a lazy summer day - or a devastating weekend when you need to escape from the world for a little while.
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