Robert Suggs (February 11, 2000)I liked it.Rob
oOo
paghat (February 12, 2000)
Too long a review. Try:"Neato."
-pagoOo
Robert Suggs (February 12, 2000)
pagster (paghat) wrote:>"Neato."
>-pagWell, once again the pagster has put me to shame. Her concise yet power-packed evaluation of Shirley Jackson's novel boils down to five letters of dead-on literary articulation of a complex novel, to wit: "Neato." What I felt I had thoroughly worked my way in, around, and through in my three words of probing philosophical analysis ("I liked it") now stands naked and exposed for the shallow third-grade-book-report-plot-summary it, in fact, is. Damn, I don't HAVE a World Fantasy Award on MY mantle, what do you expect? Yet I am overwhelmed with gratitude all the same. Your two syllables have opened to me AND within me new worlds of understanding in approaching the prosaic labyrinth that is "We Have Always Lived in the Castle." Just to take it point by point from your thoughtful post:
>"N
Yes! You nailed it. You are arch and subtle and all devious implication, yet we immediately take your point that this novel is of a unity with all that has gone before in Shirley Jackson's troubled personal world and writing career. Reading the Writer into the Written is a hazardous road to travel, but with Jackson all other alternate routes are blocked. Shirley Jackson suffered from agoraphobia and feelings of social alienation, and from "Haunting of Hill House" to "The Lottery" to "The Summer People" we see these themes played out again and again. The restless spirit in the woman in the family in the house in the village.
>ea
I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew, but I must take all this interrelated, intertwining argumentation together (given my rather limited verbal skills) to make some sense. In short, yes, I agree that even Shirley Jackson's "non-supernatural" oeuvre is consistently supernatural; and that the reverse is equally true. Ms. Jackson was a great reader in the arcane tomes of magic. She believed in it, but she didn't set it apart or isolate it or underline it in her fiction. It's just a natural part of everything. Is the troubled heroine of "The Beautiful Stranger" experiencing the magical, the diabolical--or is she only experiencing the twisted, homeward circling synapses of her own hotwired inner circuitry? The only answer can be that Ms. Jackson doesn't CARE. It's all of a piece. Two and two add up to five however you get there. Merricat Blackwood, the twisted sister of "Castle," casts spells as a simple reflex, without giving it an extra thought. Are these spells responsible for what happens in the book? Is Eleanor really responsible for the haunting on the hill? Doesn't matter ultimately. Good call, pag.
>t
Whoo hoo! Controversial! But probably inarguable. Whether or not Ms. Jackson is writing a propaganda manifesto in praise of insanity, as a prelude to her own self-inflicted decimation, is something I cannot determine. But you argue your case exhaustively. There's something chilling about the fate of the two sisters in this book--chilling in that we find a pleasing logic to it.
>o."
No, on this ONE point I MUST humbly disagree with you, knowing in advance that this foolishly stubborn position on my part means my certain verbal destruction in the razor-sharp grip of your talons. I cannot go along with you in your final determination that "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" is both an Amazon Goddess novel and a Lost World novel to boot--though for the life of me I can't figure out just where in your reasoning there is a single flaw. By golly, there are TWO Amazon Goddesses and one by-god Lost World. Who else would EVER have seen this but you, dear chum? I'm speechless. Yet it just don't SEEM right!
Thanks, as always, for simultaneously educating AND humbling us! Geez, I better send a book order!
Rob
oOo
paghat (February 13, 2000)
i yam always tickled two sea how smart i yam.
-pagoOo
rbadac (February 12, 2000)
Don't make me come over there, Rob.rbadac
ooOoo