Return to the House

Leave a comment

I’ve read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House before.  It might’ve been before I started this blog, or it might’ve been before I started writing about the books I’d read.  Either way, when I search for a post on it, I don’t find one.  This is a classic novel in the genre, but I found it rather sad both times I’ve read it.  Eleanor is such a compelling, abused and discarded character.  But in case you’re unfamiliar with this psychological horror story, here are the basics: Hill House is haunted.  A professor, Dr. John Montague, somewhat hapless, decides to gather a couple of sensitives to try to investigate the hauntings.  He plans to write a book about it.  The two women he invites, Eleanor and Theodora, both had some psychic or Fortean experiences.  The owner of Hill House insists that a member of the family be present, so Luke, a carefree young man, joins them.

The house “manifests” in various ways, but the occurrences while they’re there, center on Eleanor.  Eleanor lives with her domineering sister after having been a caregiver for her dominating mother.  She’s never been able to develop her own self, and she desperately wants to be accepted.  She’ll lie to make that happen, but not maliciously.  In fact, she’s quite childlike.  While the half-hearted investigation takes place, the others begin to suspect Eleanor may be behind the events, or some of them.  Then John’s insufferable wife arrives with her pretentious friend.  Eleanor acts out, doing a foolhardy stunt that leads the others to dismiss her from the house.  The story is creepy, but, like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, more like sad.

I decided to re-read it as autumn began to be felt in the air, and I had read a couple other of Jackson’s novels that I remembered better because they were more recent in my experience.  Quite often this story is compared to Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, another ambiguous ghost story involving a young lady who wants to be accepted.  These characters are compelling in a  Poeseque kind of way.  Critics complained of my using Poe’s observations in Nightmares with the Bible, but these stories, by a woman and a man, are further exhibits in the case.  They add a poignancy to the events because even as we’ve made some progress in women’s rights we still have a long way to go.  No one doubts that Jackson’s writing is laced with metaphors.  None of her characters can be considered “normal.”  And yet, it’s the house that brings it all out.  It’s a story worth pondering again.

Haunted Life

Leave a comment

It’s funny what a difference that a few years can make.  I can’t seem to recall from where I sourced my movies in the noughties.  Streaming was extremely tenuous in our Somerville apartment—the plan didn’t include the required speed for it.  Like in the old days when it took twenty minutes to upload a photograph through dial-up.  In any case, I know I’ve watched The Haunting before.  I know it was in Somerville, but having watched it again I have to wonder if my mind is playing tricks on me.  I read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House there, and I saw the movie.  But how?  It’s all about mind games, but the mind games are played on a woman who has an abusive family, one that damages her psychologically.  Escape is important to her, even if it is to a haunted house.

I think the last time I watched this I was looking for something that might scare me.  That phase was one of thinking not much frightened me—but this movie is scary.  Even with its “G” rating, its lack of blood and gore, and black-and-white filming.  It scares.  One thing I’ve noticed when reading about these older movies after I watch them is that many improve with time.  Shirley Jackson was known during her life but you become a classic writer only AD—after death.  The Haunting has aged well.  I suspect it has something to do with Robert Wise, the director.  What must the psychology of a man be who directed The Sound of Music, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Haunting?  The latter is all about psychology.

Movies that make you think are those, I believe, that may become classics.  And perhaps there’s a bit of Eleanor inside all of us.  Wanting to be noticed but eschewing publicity.  Needing someone to love us, but pushing away those who try.  Children in bad environments learn unorthodox, and often unhealthy, coping techniques.  Eleanor has difficulty accepting that John is married when she thinks she’s finally found a place that accepts her for who she is.  Even if it’s a haunted house.  Especially if it’s a haunted house.  As a child I’d no doubt have found the movie boring.  There is, however, much for adults to absorb.  And, I expect, I’ll need to go back and read the novel again.  One of the reasons for watching horror is that the viewer is seeking something.  It’s not just thrills.  I didn’t write about the movie the last time I saw it so I don’t recollect when it was.  Or even how.  My thoughts now, however, are that I should’ve paid closer attention the first time.

The Time Is Nigh

Leave a comment

Although I have many authors I like to read, I haven’t fully explored the oeuvre of many.  I’m an eclectic reader and I’m also often limited by bookstores as to what I pick up.  I’ve read Shirley Jackson’s two biggest successes, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as her famous short story, “The Lottery.”  I knew she had written much else, but I couldn’t really tell you what.  When I go into a small, independent bookstore I hate to leave with nothing, and seeing Jackson’s The Sundial on the shelf, I decided to give it a try.  In some ways it was quite a departure from her usual style in that it is openly humorous.  Nevertheless, it’s clear that this is the same thinker who gave us the Castle.

Plotwise, the story is about anticipating the end of the world.  The Halloran family lives in a large mansion on the money made by the original patriarch,  but is beset by interpersonal issues.  A wealthy family, there are at least three contenders for control of the fortune.  When one of the family members has a premonition about the end of the world, they come to believe it and prepare for the event with personality quirks becoming more and more pronounced as they realize the only people that are going to be left to judge them will be themselves.  Various guests stop by and the matriarch decides on who might stay, and survive, and who must go.  A group of twelve, including two domestics, is finally settled upon.

As with all Jackson novels, there are layers here.  Things to think about.  One of the funny scenarios involves the goodhearted maid—perhaps the most innocent of all the survivors—revealing to a local villager what’s about to happen.  Not believing her, he refers her to a group of religious believers that have come to a similar conclusion.  This leads to a meeting between the matriarch of the Halloran family and the leaders of the religious group.  Not surprisingly, it turns out that their versions of the end of all things are different, and Mrs. Halloran turns them away since she can’t relinquish her secular beliefs about the matter.  As the time grows closer, the reader is drawn in by the conviction of those in the house.  Their isolation and reflections on life with no other people beyond themselves grows in intensity.  After putting the book down a sense of doom lingers.  And that, it seems, is what Shirley Jackson is very capable of doing, even if in a comedic gothic setting.

A Writer’s Life

2 Comments

WeHaveAlwaysLivedSometimes, an experienced editor once told me, the author’s life is just as important as the book she’s written. I can’t pretend to know much about Shirley Jackson, beyond that she wrote compelling fiction and that her name is barely recognized today. Best known for her short story “The Lottery” and her novel The Haunting of Hill House, she didn’t match the output of more prolific writers and therefore, in a world driven by capitalism, didn’t receive much notice. Her work is difficult to classify. Not exactly horror, it is nevertheless unsettling by implication. There’s something wrong beneath the surface. Jackson apparently suffered neuroses for much of her adult life, and her ability to translate angst into literature has gathered her a following among fans of ghost stories. I just finished reading her last novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a funny, quirky, and serious story about two young women who live alone and who, one suspects, are thought to be witches by the local population.

This little novel is difficult to lay aside for long. The characters of Constance and Merricat are too compelling to leave alone for any length of time. The fact that they are pariahs makes the reader want to ensure that they are safe as they remain carefully inside the home they’ve always known. Even though you know one of them murdered her family, you want them to be happy and secure, perhaps because the whole town is against them. I wouldn’t presume to say what Jackson meant by this story, but to me it seems a clear description of xenophobia by a woman who felt she was never accepted. Women being persecuted in New England always brings witch trials to mind. Although we don’t know why one of the girls killed her family, it is easy for the mind to fill in the blanks.

Although Jackson died prematurely, her work has influenced novelists such as Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. Uncompromising in her outlook, she allows her characters access to those strange places of the human mind where many of us wander from time to time. Merricat, for example, practices that sympathetic magic that we all, if we’re honest, admit that we attempt every now and again. Hoping in magic doesn’t make one a witch any more than prayer makes one a priest. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, although as old as I am, reflects a world in which reality can’t be pinned down. Assumptions are made and challenged. Protectors turn out to be exploiters, and the only ghosts are very human characters hated by the community in which they live. Still this is an uncanny tale, haunted by a reality that women still face in even the most progressive countries. Listening to their voices, even if from beyond the grave, may demonstrate just how much a writer’s life might mean.

Christian Horrorshow

Leave a comment

Books & Culture is the review organ of Christianity Today. Christianity Today is the evangelical answer to the more liberal Christian Century. Working in publishing, particularly in the field of religion, it is important to keep an eye on what the popular magazines are saying about our books. Well, neither is as popular as it used to be, but still. I’ll grown used to Books & Culture taking a rather wholesome reaction to books that challenge worldviews. In fact, it’s not unusual to find a fairly mild tome castigated as somewhat insidious. Negative reviews tend to sell books as well as positive reviews. Sometimes better.

I was a bit surprised to see a two-page spread in a recent edition of Books & Culture focusing on horror stories. Horror and evangelical generally don’t play well together. Well, maybe I should temper that a little bit. The first article was actually on Shirley Jackson, best known for her excellently moody The Haunting of Hill House. That particular book has spawned or inspired at least five scary movies, two of them versions of the book itself. I have to confess that this is the only Shirley Jackson novel I’ve read. The article, somewhat strangely for an evangelical magazine, had made me want to explore some of her other offerings. Horror doesn’t have to be splatter to be effective.

DSCN0216

The second review in this issue was for an Oxford anthology called Horror Stories. The reviewer, Victor LeValle, also comes out with a positive review of the collection. All of this makes me wonder if I missed something growing up as a conservative Christian who felt distinctively unsavory because his love of monsters and the macabre. I can’t remember ever not liking mild horror stories. They manage to evoke parts of my psyche that most other literature bypasses. I discovered Poe at an early age. That’s not to say that I like being afraid. Fear is not what I’m seeking here. It is a kind of strange redemption. In college many of my evangelical friends couldn’t understand my fascination. “Why don’t you watch something more uplifting?” I’d be asked. I was as surprised as anyone when one of my very few Grove City dates agreed to see Nightmare on Elm Street with me. Not even Shirley Jackson could’ve seen that one coming. I wonder how she’d respond to being written up as an evangelical inspiration?