WARNING: Lots of spoilers in this review! Turn back now if you haven't read We Have Always Lived in the Castle yet!
I've never read a writer capable of crafting such genuinely engrossing mentally unstable characters as Shirley Jackson. I found myself enthralled by Mary Katherine Blackwood, who is a human being so different from myself that she's interesting just for that, without even considering how real and intriguing the character is beyond such differences. It took a few pages for me to get used to her quirks but she was so skillfully crafted that I felt I had come to know her very well by the end of the story.
The conflict which takes place in the story felt a bit manufactured, but it was entertaining nonetheless and I also enjoyed the blunt scumbagitude of Charles Blackwood. For the majority of the story, it feels as though we're observing the Blackwoods far after the climactic, world-shifting event has already occurred. It makes for a bit of a lull in the story's first half as we get to know how dysfunctional and broken daily life has become for this family, but I suppose this period is necessary to fully come to terms with the odd situation we found our protagonist in, in addition to warming to her mental instability, which often presents itself as quirky and cute with a dark streak that bursts forth often out of nowhere and without warning.
By the end of the story I realized that my previous notion of this story occurring after-the-fact might not have be completely accurate. We're past the climax of the grander story, sure. But following the conclusion of this one I began to grasp how the seed of this story grew in Jackson's mind. Not as an aftermath, but as a prelude—We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a story about how the crazy ladies who live in the burned out, overgrown house came to be. You can see the Blackwood house growing into the house of legend that children are afraid of, and the Blackwood sisters themselves being the scary old ladies who steal children and cook them and eat them. And the way the story comes together to form this in its closing pages is absolutely brilliant. It was a subtle 'Aha!' moment that I was allowed to form in my own mind rather than having it foisted on me with a clumsy, contrived plot twist.
The conflict which takes place in the story felt a bit manufactured, but it was entertaining nonetheless and I also enjoyed the blunt scumbagitude of Charles Blackwood. For the majority of the story, it feels as though we're observing the Blackwoods far after the climactic, world-shifting event has already occurred. It makes for a bit of a lull in the story's first half as we get to know how dysfunctional and broken daily life has become for this family, but I suppose this period is necessary to fully come to terms with the odd situation we found our protagonist in, in addition to warming to her mental instability, which often presents itself as quirky and cute with a dark streak that bursts forth often out of nowhere and without warning.
By the end of the story I realized that my previous notion of this story occurring after-the-fact might not have be completely accurate. We're past the climax of the grander story, sure. But following the conclusion of this one I began to grasp how the seed of this story grew in Jackson's mind. Not as an aftermath, but as a prelude—We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a story about how the crazy ladies who live in the burned out, overgrown house came to be. You can see the Blackwood house growing into the house of legend that children are afraid of, and the Blackwood sisters themselves being the scary old ladies who steal children and cook them and eat them. And the way the story comes together to form this in its closing pages is absolutely brilliant. It was a subtle 'Aha!' moment that I was allowed to form in my own mind rather than having it foisted on me with a clumsy, contrived plot twist.
Jackson touches on some interesting questions regarding guilt and conscience, too. How it affects people, or doesn't affect them. But the mark those questions have left on me is still fresh and they're something I'll need to consider further as I put some more time between me and finishing this excellent book.This is a brilliant piece of fiction. Probably more solidly constructed and more polished than The Haunting of Hill House. It's beautifully written and Mary Katherine is one of the most memorable characters I've read. It's subtly off-putting, more than a bit creepy, and it took me completely out of my comfort zone. It posed some questions to me that I haven't considered before and it presented me with a human character populated by thoughts and motivations completely foreign to my own, and I can't possibly ask more from reading a work of fiction.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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