We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Ratings466
Average rating3.9
What a twisted little book. I'm not sure what took me so long to read this when I've enjoyed Jackson's other works. Truly fascinating characters in Constance and Merricat- who protects who? The author reveals just enough details to keep you guessing about the girls' lives before the book begins.
This is a very disconcerting tale of two sisters and their Uncle who live in the aftermath of a family poisoning that killed the girls' parents, their brother, and their Aunt, and for which the older sister had to face a trial (and was acquitted). It's written from the point of view of the younger sister, Merricat, a sly, intelligent, and half-wild 18-year old who is the only one of them who goes to town and thereby endures the villagers' taunts. When their cousin Charles comes to visit, his presence disturbs a carefully ordered routine with unexpected results.
A gothic story brilliantly told, with menace, dark humour, and wry observations of family relations and wealth.
Highly recommended.
bookclub4m American Gothic - what do you expect me to add? everyone has already told you this is excellent.
Giving my least favorite author a second chance, apparently, was a mistake. I just... Don't understand. Is it supposed to be scary? It's not. Not in the slightest. It's just weird and not in a good way.
This whole thing is creepy, you don't know what's real and what isn't, no one is reliable. I don't know if I'd really describe this as fun, but I finished the last half in one sitting, because I was riveted. I felt like it was a good horror story for people like me who don't really do horror, but can handle underlying dread, knowing nothing's going to pop out at you.
I didn't especially buy all that stuff about the townspeople bringing food at the end, as they spent the entire book terrorizing Constance and Mary Katherine. I know Mary Katherine says at the beginning she's 18, but she felt like a MUCH younger character to me, and I kept imagining her as a precocious, if somewhat psychotic, tween. But what a great twist in the middle, with Uncle Julian telling Cousin Charles that Merricat was dead! I spent the rest of the book trying to figure out if she was a ghost or a living person. I'm ... pretty sure she was still alive??
I've been meaning to read this FOREVER so when I started reading Alice Bolin's essay collection Dead Girls and realized she talks about the book extensively, I knew it was time. Luckily, I was on vacation and it was on my Kindle, too. I loved it. It was the perfect amount of creepiness and I really enjoyed Merricat's character and her stuck-in-time-ness.
Buddy read with Destiny, book lent to me by Jackie who is an absolute angel and included some goodies in the package as well! <3
This review can also be found on my blog.
cw: Familial death, domestic abuse, agoraphobia
(I forgot to make notes on these so they're from memory, alas)
In this village the men stayed young and did the gossiping and the women aged with grey evil weariness and stood silently waiting for the men to get up and come home.
This was my first Shirley Jackson novel and it far exceeded any expectations I could have set for it. After reading The Woman in Black, I knew that gothic horror was a genre I could get into and I found myself eyeing some of Jackson's works. Fate worked in my favor: my friend Jackie lent me her copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle around the same time Destiny and I decided to buddy read it. Destiny and I split the book up into three parts to read over three days, but I truly believe I could have devoured this all in one sitting if I hadn't been so busy during when I started it.
The truly incredible thing, to me, is how Jackson is able to write the most mundane things in such an eerie way. Nearly every scene is drenched with tension and I felt a sense of dread that continued to build as the book went on. Even at the start, our main character Merricat is going about her regular routine, running errands in the village. It's an ordinary task, but it's all just off enough to give the reader a sense of unease. I found myself absolutely terrified of the townspeople without even knowing why. And on it continues, every scene off-kilter enough that you can't retain any sense of balance. The building anticipation makes it impossible to put down. I absolutely had to know what was going to happen next, and how the story would climax.
On top of the fantastic atmosphere that really drives the plot, I thought the characterization was great as well. Merricat is such a strange yet fun character to follow and everything is colored through her peculiar point of view. Constance, her sister, is intriguing and you can't help but wanting to know more about her, even as you feel wary of her. Uncle Julian is certainly an unreliable character – it's hard to piece together everything he's saying, and you're not quite sure what is true – and I liked him as well. The fourth human character (because we can't forget Merricat's pet cat Jonas, who I adored) is cousin Charles. I thought Jackson did a really lovely job of portraying the single mindedness of a child who truly believes someone is evil, and made Charles quite terrifying.
Overall, I honestly I don't know if there's a thing I would change about this book. I had unanswered questions, but it almost feels like they should remain that way. I genuinely think this story is a true masterpiece and I can't wait to start in on Hill House, which I'm picking up from the library very soon!
I was chilled.
(I love the cover of this It fits the book perfectly. Honestly I think all the other cover illustrations are cartoony and/or unfitting. This is perfect and captures the character of Merricat beautifully. )
I couldn't put it down! Creepy and gothic, all about madness, deception, and unreliable perceptions and tales. Yet there's a core of love and solidarity too. In any case, I needed to find out what would happen next. And I was pleased with the ending - the folkloric aspect was really satisfying.
Creepy, melodramatic, and oddly funny. Listened to this one in the car on a road trip with my college-aged son - it was selected strictly for genre and length, and neither one of us knew anything about it. We both enjoyed it. It's “Grey Gardens” meets “The Beguiled”.
What an odd book. Like everyone, I've read “The Lottery”, and this book is a really excellent expansion of Shirley Jackson's obvious skill for dark, gothic stories. I'm glad I finally read it.
There are human beings who just don't want other people and thinks of them dead without remorse or joy or any feeling at all. It is possible to hate people with no basis, or there could be one but enough to wish another dead. The tragedy of the Blackwood is not even a tragedy for Mericat. It's just another walk through town like any other day. The take away from this short story is that there are people who don't give a shit and just want to continue with their lives. One does not have to have to many of a companion, and in this case. One sister is enough.
I've been avoiding this entry on the Read Harder challenge because horror really isn't my thing, but then I found a copy of this book on my shelves at home, took it to my parents' for Christmas, and devoured it in an afternoon. The sense of place and atmosphere are so great here, and everything just builds to an unexpected but perfectly apt conclusion. Most of what I want to talk about is spoilery, but holy shit, this book is incredible.
(Bookriot Read Harder 2016 Challenge: #1 Read a horror book)
This is the type of horror book that I can get on board with: creepy, disturbing, macabre, but never gross or physically violent. I'm not sure it rightly belongs in the horror genre, although I'm quite sure that its proper genre, “deeply unsettling”, doesn't exist, so in horror it stays.
I'm afraid that I will never forget Merricat and Constance. That makes me happy.
Creepy and tense! I didn't want to put the book down, but I did once because the feeling of foreboding was so strong that I needed a quick break. Well worth the read!
Shirley Jackson's final novel. Surreal and... Let's call it Northern gothic? Brief but haunting. Plot turns mostly predictable.
The writing was excellent, which is why I finished the story. Maybe I was expecting more from it since I loved ‘The Lottery' so much, but I felt like it was missing that “big reveal” moment.
Read my review on my blog here: https://theconsultingbookworm.wordpress.com/2014/11/30/we-have-always-lived-in-the-castle-shirley-jackson/
Fascinating story of how a fairy tale would look in the real world. Nice and twisted with quite good atmosphere and an unreliable narrator thrown in to boot (although the supposed twist was pretty obvious). But although the narrator stands out, I think her sister is the real fascination. Here is someone that is supposedly sane who never even really comments on her sister's obvious insanity and only seems to notice it when the awful cousin Charles points it out. So pink and white and in the end pretty much as crazy as her unwashed, schitzo sister. The only weakness in the book is the one dimensional Charles and townspeople (but even that goes away once you consider that merricat narrates the book). Overall very interesting fable that's even more interesting when you find out the author was agoraphobic too.
Just consider the opening of the book:
“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.”
Tell me you didn't fall in love with Mary Katherine, even a little bit? Mary Katherine is one of the cutest and most charmingly eccentric protagonists I've ever met, and carries the short book splendidly.