87 - Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ต.ค. 2024
- David, Eric, and Nick seek out some mid-summer spookiness in Shirley Jackson’s acclaimed We Have Always Lived in the Castle and instead find a compact work that is much more complicated than the horror themes, accessible sentences, and vaguely young adult-ish book cover (thanks Penguin Classics) lead one to believe. Cheers to Jackson for walking the line between genre and literary fiction and forcing the reader to sit with a story that has all the trappings of a murder mystery, but none of the virtuous resolutions. Perhaps we are all lacking the ability to communicate across societal lines, forever content in our ever-shrinking castles after all.
*
Shirley Jackson was an American writer most known for her short story "The Lottery" (1948). In 1959 came The Haunting of Hill House, possibly her most well-known novel, and one that has become a classic in the “haunted house tale.” In 1960, We Have Always Lived in the Castle was released.
*
www.booksofsom...
Glad to see you fellas posting again, always enjoy watching your videos after a day working a mindless job, stimulates the old brain cells
Thank you so much. We will be updating more over the next week or so to get back on track.
There's a direct line between the cathartic destruction of "The Lottery" and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" and the concept behind The Purge films.
Remember the first one vaguely, but not enough. It certainly seems that way. Thanks for listening.
I wrote a paper on her, she is my favorite author. She wrote about women for women. This book is about sisters. I wrote in my paper that the all the men in her stories are all either "diseased, disabled or dead." Read "My Life With R. H. Macy," it's great, no men in it though. Great xmas time short story, in her funny view of earth. The movie of "Castle" is absolutely true to the story. Nothing about the father locking them in. I was also worried that it would be horror, but it wasn't, therefore its lack of success with the millennials and zoomers, who only seem to enjoy movies that give them the feeling of rollercoasters.
Also her first paragraph is considered "quotable" and is listed along with "Haunting of Hill House" in the "best first paragraphs" list. I mean, do you know who Richard Plantagenet (Richard III of England) is? He was a king accused of killing his family members. This stuff is gold. "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." Steven King loves Shirley Jackson btw. I found Jacksons stuff and a teenager in the "teen" section of the library when I was 14, where she was put, because she was a female writing about other females and men deciding where to put her "didn't get it." ALL of her books were there. Might be still. It's a shame there were no women on your panel. Let me know if you do another SJ book, I'll talk about it. I have no literary background but I do have degrees in philosophy, economics and law.
Mary Cat kills because her parents are getting in the way of her relationship with Constance.