What's so great about We Have Always Lived in the Castle?
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- čas přidán 17. 10. 2021
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle is often touted as the best Shirley Jackson novel, but is it? I dunno but I loved it!
*****
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Shirley Jackson is one of those authors who write so well that every single word seems perfectly chosen and every single chapter manages to advance the story in a way that leaves you craving for more. She does this in just over 200 pages and I think that's just proof of her genius. I've read "We have always lived in the castle" in 2014 and I remember getting goosebumps after the big reveal (trying to keep this spoiler free). I think it's time for a revisit.
Yeah trying to keep the discussion spoiler free is surprisingly tough lol. But I totay agree, she is so meticulous about her plotting and execution of conversation and story beats. A true work of art!
I have to agree with you. I’ve read this book at least 4-5 times and still pick up new insights.
Is anyone else strangely impressed at how they were able to hold up the book the whole time? My arm would be dying!
I do that with every book I review lol it’s become just a habit at this point
I also loved how the film adaption was SO saturated. You would expect a gothic film adaptation to be heavy on the blacks and grays, and have lots of shadow, but the movie lays it all in bright colors. It definitely gives the movie a unique and surreal feeling.
I just finished reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It stunned me. Your review helps me understand why. Very well done. I'm off to check out the film version now.
I read this book in school just a couple years after it was published. I was heartbroken to learn that Jackson had just died at a relatively young age and there would never be another quite like it.
It really is heartbreaking, but it also makes this masterpiece all the more special and worth appreciating.
I'm currently listening to this audiobook and the atmospheric tones that heavily portrays throughout the book is truly immaculate.
And the setup of the first two chapters with gothic undertones makes it much more intriguing to read I agree!
Ooph, I bet the audiobook of this one is a real treat for the ears!
@@WillowTalksBooks yes it is!
What I like about this book is that you can actually be tricked by it. Maybe if you read it loosely you can even not see it as a horror book...
It doesn't really let you see who the real antagonist is...
It can even make you thing the antagonist is right and agreed with it... (Which was what scared me the most when I realized how it ends, it caught me given the antagonist the reason... Which scared me a lot about my own mind and how we can be manipulated)
Also that scene of the last act is absolutely terrifying... And it felt real
My entire soul had to do a double-take at the end of reading! Merricat's voice is so charming and her world view is so intriguing that I start to trust "her", and only until the final scenes of the book did I realize she was the villain!!!
"Dracula but you sympathize with the vampires"
No kidding about the proletarian and bourgeoisie parallels. "The dirty, envious, drunken mobs are coming for our wealth!!"
Honourable mention to its reprisentation of OCD, I went in for spooky shirly jackson and left with a feeling of representation, and a strong connection to Merrikat and her 'magic'.
I’m just discovering Shirley Jackson, though I’ve always loved Daphne Du Maurier. This book is so fascinating. I’m a visual artist and reading these books feels like finding my kin. Loved this, thank you.
Du Maurier is one of those authors I deeply cherish but I'm very excited to explore more of the gems that Jackson left behind!
I wish l could read two books at once! I sometimes think of films where someone incredibly gifted is literally absorbing the book by holding it. It would be so much fun to do that and l’d certainly get more reading done! I also watched your video on The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue…..a fellow admirer! Oh it’s soooo luscious isn’t it! I’m in love with that book❤️
I bought this on a whim a few years ago, didn't know who Shirley Jackson was, but it sounded interesting. It sat on my shelf for a while, until last year, or 2 years ago, I picked it up.
This book made me terribly anxious on numerous occasions, it made me laugh, and it made me cry, not just getting teary eyed. I fell in love with this book, I could identify with Merricat a bit too much maybe. I could not put the book down until I was through, and read it right again the next day. I immediately ordered the Haunting of Hill House and Hangsaman. After having read those two, I ordered everything she ever wrote, and I can confidently say that Shirley Jackson is one of my, if not my favourite author.
I just finished reading We have always lived in a Castle and I enjoyed it. I previously read The Bird's Nest and Hangsaman. Now I'm going to read The Haunting of Hill House.
My favorite is The Sundial (after The Haunting of Hill House). Imagine the gall of throwing a classist party at your mansion, for all the "little people", to celebrate the upcoming apocalypse, and imagine THIS particular set of horrid privileged individuals as the "chosen" group to survive the end of the world & regrow it! It's utterly wicked & wrong & awful; the characters are beyond redemption & nobody you'd want in your life, yet it is funny in the blackest of comedic ways that THESE people will be the survivors. Very tongue in cheek, as only Shirley Jackson can be.
I’m really embarrassed to admit that I have only read one short story by Shirley Jackson - The Lottery 😳 Despite me having read it a couple of years ago, I still think about it to this day! I definitely want to check out her short story collection and your superb review for this book has seen me promptly add it to my tbr! 😁 I must say I am missing Bao but the bear possesses it’s own unique charm too 🥰
I'm even more embarrassed to admit I've never read The Lottery! Although I know all about it because it's just that famous. And don't worry, Bimini Bao Boulash will be back next video :)
The Lottery was required reading when I went to middle school. That and Lord of the Flies. We also had some interesting books in the school library, example J.G. Ballard's The Crystal World. Have no idea how that got into a Florida Junior High School library, but I enjoyed it so much.
This is one of my favorite books and glad to see it discussed so well.
Thanks so much! I hope I did it proud!
I watched the film this evening. Loved it. Took me ages to realise the uncle was George Mcfly from Back to the Future haha
Yes! Crispin Glover! He was also in a dreadful-but-fun horror film from like 15 years ago called Simon Says. Don't watch it but also do, it's hilarious lol
Read this last year and loved it so much. It had such interesting characters, and the setting in the town was brilliantly done. Merricat! Merricat!
An absolute icon of gothic lit, both in terms of character and setting, which feel like one and the same!
Great review you've got me wanting to read the book, see the movie, and see the film "Shirley" about Jackson. Plus adding to Patreon as your reviews are very influential to my reading and that's fun.
Thank you so, so much! And I hope you like Shirley. I thought Moss did a splendid job playing her.
I was blown away by this book. Been looking for something like it for ages.
Then definitely check out my last two reviews!
Of course I will, Willow🤎 Thanks a lot!
The Thirteenth Tale maybe?
@@Elena-yi1gb thanks for the recommendation!
Just discovered your review as I’m just now reading the novella. Loved your interpretation and ideas about the story. I also really enjoyed the film adaptation!
I read this book this past October and I STILL think about it almost daily. It really is a masterpiece.
Same! It pops into my head all the time. There's nothing like it.
I'm gonna have to read this one, I think.
I really liked Haunting of Hill House - I think some who went to it after watching the show were disappointed 'cos it's not remotely the same, but it really gave me this major vibe of disorientation and fear in a way very few things have. Still not sure how it did that.
I really enjoyed the show. Flanagan just gets better and better at what he does. Midnight Mass is absolute artistry.
@@WillowTalksBooksmidnight mass was superb. i had't read hill house/turning of the screw when hill house and bly came out. in the past three days i absolutely devoured the haunting of hill house and we have always lived in the castle. then on to a reread of the fall of the house of usher in time for that premiere. finished castle minutes ago and your video is the first im watching. thank you for your enthusiasm and care in describing it. what an unbelievably powerful writer she was
also, real quick, to reply to @chrisrichards7063 above you, this might just be me but imo what makes hill house/castle so creepy is their bright and happy parts. there's so much laughter in hill house, and eleanor grows more and more giddy as [avoiding spoilers], everything feels warmer, she's happy, and castle is all about the spring and bright colors and change coming. i think less masterful writers feel an unnecessary obligation toward gloom in their stories. light is scarier. color is scarier. because we don't think those things are/will be scary, we expect the ghosts and noises to go away when it's bright outside. etc. there are so many other specific factors that go into her gorgeously disorienting craft, but for me at least that's a huge part of it
Ahhh I really keep meaning to watch the Witch!
Been wanting to read this book as well!
Honestly I cannot overstate how much I love The Witch. Please check it out!
@@WillowTalksBooks I shall! 😊
Its interesting....almost everyone calls it supernatural without the supernatural, but onlt by considering Merricat as either an unreliable narrator, or someone looking back with confirmation bias...
But taken at face value, there is a suggestion that her totems and mental projections have at least some power.
Its a wonderfully strange book,
And in some ways, it draws together the themes of all her diverse work
Well I just watched the movie and I am sooo surprised! Because yes, the setting and characters are well done, but it adds a compleeeeete different element to the story in the end?! Like whoa, even the sa scenes are shaping the characters so differently afterwards. Still a nice movie, but I didn't expect that at all. Thanks for the vid and love!
I enjoyed the book, and now I have a collection of all of her works. Will read some of her others soon.
Nice, I think I'll be headed that way soon. Need to get it all!
What Merricat practices, or attempts to practice, is I think, sympathetic magic. Her goal is maintaining stasis.
When I read this book I could not understand why people wanted to destroy their house after the fire. Is it all a part of their imagination? Or were the neighbors really so hostile.
I’m currently looking into developing this book into a series. I think it has great potential, and would serve as an excellent backstory to the events that lead up to where the books starts off. I’ve never made a TV show or film before, but this has legs, and if things go my way this could be a hit. Shirley Jackson’s book is a masterpiece of writing and storytelling, and it really deserves more light throw on it
What an intriguing and insightful review, Willow. Makes me want to read the book just to experience the dissonance.
Sorry about this misplaced comment, Willow. Wrote it at the end of your poetry as prose post and guess I was late and YT had moved on to this post and my irrelevant comment landed here.
I love both the book and movie!! Great review
God that film was one of the best adaptations of a book I've ever seen!
@@WillowTalksBooks exactly! And I love that they added that scene at the end (y'know.. Charles..) not gonna spoil it incase people who havent watched the movie read this, but I'm sure you know which scene I'm talking about lol. It's the only thing that's different from the book!
There was a tension in my body the whole time I read this and it snapped when (SPOILER): the village started ransacking their home. I started crying.
Yet another wonderful review.
I have seen the adaptation of 2018, you have to watch it.
I like the social analysis of the topic of this book. It is Gothic and physiological in various aspects.
The guy from Marvel; Sebastien Stan as Charles Blackwood, was perfect.
P.S. Have they read "The Maidens"?
I loved the film adaptation as well (I talk about it at the end of this video). It was such a strikingly faithful and beautiful adaptation with perfect tone and casting. Loved it to bits. And I haven't read The Maidens but it is on my list! Do you recommend it?
@@WillowTalksBooks The adaptation was perfect.
Indeed, I am awaiting your Maidens review to buy it. The book is already hyped all over the world.
I read this book about ten years ago. The opening paragraph is almost as good as the insanely brilliant opening paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House. It was a great read and I feel that it is perhaps underated. Merricat is a great character and experiencing her world of magical thinking was very interesting and engrossing.
I agree with you that the 2019 film adaptation was surberb. My wife really liked it which was a nice way for me to share my enthusiasm for the novel with her.
Great review. Your channel is and content is excellent and much appreciated.
"World of magical thinking" is such a good way to describe Merricat, and I'm glad you agree that the film is a superb adaptation!
Great review. I haven’t read the book but ever since I saw the trailer for the movie and discovered it was a book I’ve been interested in reading it. I started watching the movie last night but fell asleep right when the cousin showed up. I thought the movie was slow and I was kind of confused by the plot. This review confirms that I was understanding what was going on I just didn’t know I was.
I just finished reading it for the first time and I came to CZcams to see someone else's interpretation.
I absolutely loved it. I thought Uncle Julian was a ghost, like an annoying reminder of the past for Merricat and Constance.
Just found your channel today. Shirley Jackson rocks. On my channel, I read out loud The Lottery.
I haven't read The Lottery so I'll listen to it in your channel today! Thank you!
I don't like horror at all but this video and the comment have just sold the book for me.
I read a paper back of this years ago. I must have been too young, since I didn't understand it. I would have been 13 years old when it came out. Because of your review, I bought an audio version on Chirp.
i love your voice so muchhh
Hi! Great review! I really enjoyed this book and would love to read more like it. Do you (or anyone here) have any recommendations of books with a similar vibe to this one? Have a great day!:)
Here's an article I wrote about awesome modern gothic novels by women. Hopefully something will catch your eye! booksandbao.com/best-modern-gothic-novels-by-women/
I am very interested in the works of Shirley Jackson and think I will order this book along with Haunting On Hill House. Can I give you a compliment? Your hair is so beautiful
I just started reading The Bird's Nest. My 1st Jackson Novel. I like it so far.
just read the book. Don't laugh, but did I miss something? Did it ever explain or give a motive for the poisoning?
Merricat was quite upset by being sent to bed without dinner. (Charles mentiones punishing her, so she freaks out about the idea of being sent to bed without dinner and runs) This seems to be her motivation. It was also mentioned that constance said the family deserved to die, possibly being another motivator.
I really like her work. This one is not my favourite, but it’s up there. If you read Hangman you will see her wit in full force. Love it.
I’ll check that one out, thanks!
Great video!! Some thoughts re class-i feel like Merricat thinks of class in terms of good people = rich; bad, dull, ‘grey’ people = poor. She views the non-rich townspeople as more of a group that shares a lot of the same traits (hostility to Blackwoods, varying shades of ‘greyness’-compare Stella and Jim, for example). So they’re less individuated than rich people (as a social group, not so much about their actual wealth). There’s probably something to be said about the way she associates greyness with the townspeople and the way she describes the many colours of the jars of food created by her female relatives.
I think she doesn’t have a solid, material understanding of class. Take the heirlooms for example. She understands all of the silverware, linen, expensive plates, and so forth as being brought in by ‘Blackwood brides’; she sees the value of her father’s gold pocket-watch as being due to the fact that it belonged to her father, even though she does seem to understand that other people see gold as valuable (she isn’t surprised by Charles mentioning the financial value of the watch.) So, as someone who has not had to work, or who hasn’t had to worry about money (or who seemingly didn’t worry about money while she was in the orphanage), the financial value of objects doesn’t mean much at all to her. This is illustrated by how she treats the pocket-watch: she breaks a link in the pocket-watch while nailing it to a tree. There were other objects belonging to her father she could have used, objects which were not of significant financial value, but this watch was significant in that it linked her familial material inheritance to Charles’ intrusion in her home and into her inheritance. Her practice of sympathetic magic (which borders on OCD thinking patterns-‘If I don’t do X something bad will happen’) is key here. She values objects in terms of ownership and inheritance (this tree is Constance’s, this chair is her father’s, this is her mother’s drawing room). Even if the owner of an object is dead, she views them as the owners still (e.g. when Charles is sitting in her father’s chair, and she later imagines, in the summer house, the order in which her family sat around the dining chair; also describes silverware as belonging to specific dead female relatives.) So objects aren’t significant in their financial value or really their emotional value to her, just in that ownership is respected. Proximity to the owners means that someone has more of a ‘right’ to objects, but as they cannot fully become the owners themselves. Objects are inherited, but the possession of those objects isn’t. Objects can be broken and so on if one remembers who the ‘real’ owner is (e.g. Merricat breaks the pocketwatch, mirrors, dishes, teaware, and isn’t troubled at all by the destruction of them), but if someone wrongly attributes ownership of something AND doesn’t take care of it, then that’s when Merricat has a problem with it (e.g. she hates that family in her mother’s house, mainly because they live in that house). Charles’ sudden claims to ownership of her family’s objects troubles her: Julian did point out that Charles’ mother severed ties to their family, so maybe that lessens his ‘right’ to these objects even more.
Compare this with how that one villager-not Jim, the other guy at Stella’s-was talking about the Blackwood land in terms of practical use (agriculture). Merricat doesn’t entertain the thought-I’m not sure but I think she views this line of thinking as a sort of intrusion due to the guy’s lack of entitlement to the land?
Anyway sorry for the rambling, I’ve got ADHD and got a wee bit carried away lol
One last thing: I feel like a certain part of Earthlings draws a lot of inspiration from the end of this book! The theme of alienation in Earthlings seems a lot more linked to trauma though
I read this book, but I thought it was tedious and hard to keep my attention on it. I love her " The Haunting of Hill House" and the 1964 movie based on the story. I like some of her short stories as well.
How's the font? My eyes are not that great, that's why I'm looking for an edition that's not gonna strain my eyes too much.
Which shirley Jackson book did you like the most ? Like if you had to recommend only one of her work, which one would you recommend?
This one
@@WillowTalksBooks damn you replied on your2 year old video 😳.
For content like this and being so present , you deserve millions of subscribers ! Thanks for the recommendation 😊
Aw thanks :)
What's the name of the stuffed animal? It's so cute!!
I named her Frankie Stein :)
I loved Merricat in the book..and the whole book in general when I read it several years ago. I don’t remember being confused by it but I just finished watching the movie and really didn’t like Merricat much and am really confused by the ending. The book was so much better!
Haven’t seen the movie but I remember the book ending being a bit stretched out. Just a description of them continuing to live in the house together isolated from the rest of the world.
Great review!! this came to my mind when you were touching on the aspect of class in the novel : czcams.com/video/2xvNhN1PsRw/video.html
Noice
Am I the only one who thought the book was just completely mid?
Probably not, no
Are you a man or woman, not asking to be mean, just curious 👋
I was actually hoping you could tell me! I’ve been scared and confused for so long. Which one do you think I should be?
@@WillowTalksBooks You seem to have a good sense of humor, good for you. 👋👍
Aw thanks! I swapped my gender for a funny bone :)
@@WillowTalksBooks Ya never let an internet troll ruin your day, life is too short. 😉
It’s an awful read and an awful movie.
Robotic only begins to describe how monotone and boring it is.
Oh honey
@@WillowTalksBooks can you really blame my frustration. I was made to read and study it for my last year of high school. Fiction is not a genre as a guy that i touch that I like let alone gothic nonsense. Each to their own but don’t tread on me school!
It is literally my favorite book.
Not that you should care about my interest in particular, nor should I care about yours.
@@LaundryFaerie Yeah i wanted i jump off a bridge by page 10. This book serves the world best heating the homeless in a dumpsterfire.
@@airwolfcentral169😂
What I like about this book is that you can actually be tricked by it. Maybe if you read it loosely you can even not see it as a horror book...
It doesn't really let you see who the real antagonist is...
It can even make you thing the antagonist is right and agreed with it... (Which was what scared me the most when I realized how it ends, it caught me given the antagonist the reason... Which scared me a lot about my own mind and how we can be manipulated)
Also that scene of the last act is absolutely terrifying... And it felt real
I see the characters exist as ghosts. Sort of like in the story, " The Others."