The Haunting of Hill House
Reviews
This was a fine enough read. Not scary at all. I'll be honest, I'm only reading this because of the show lol But I don't regret it! I don't crave a reread any time, but I might anyway in the future, to look for clues and symbolisms and better understanding.
The writing style wasn't to my preference, but it's a classic so I'm not too surprised. It's easy to get past once you're into the story.
Each of the characters were very distinct, but also very similarly playful? I think Mrs Montague and Arthur, or at least just Arthu, were pretty unnecessary. The plot was going just fine without them, I think.
The House itself was so interesting. The way it was always just a little wrong. The way it clung to Nellie, made her a part of it. So interesting!
I was told that the Netflix series (which I haven’t seen) is nearly a complete departure from the book, and I can see why. Hill House is is a perfect bit of literary horror, wherein so much of the terror arises directly from the writing. Many of the visuals, even back in the sixties, were effective but nothing that hadn’t been dreamt up before. But it’s the way these visuals reveal themselves within your mind’s eye, the way discoveries and events unfold on the page, that shocks. The choice of what to describe and what to leave up to imagination; the unreliable, nightmarish narration that seamlessly slips in and out of concrete reality; the descriptions that leave you off-kilter before sending chills throughout your body; it’s not what unfolds, but how it unfolds.
We do follow lively characters in a vivid setting, and it’s a funny, heartbreaking story with many layers waiting to unfold. But it’s Jackson’s prose that takes this from very good to a masterpiece.
Haunting of Hill House opening you will always be famous.
For class. Was better than I thought it would be. Jackson does a good job at doing what she does. I think as a society we are all just sick of The Lottery and thus don’t give her enough attention. Probably would have rated it higher if read under better conditions
😮😮😮
How can this book be BOTH a delight AND scary as shit????
Loved the way this story unraveled to its end.
I had to force myself to finish. I felt so bored and it felt like nothing really happened until the last 30 pages or so. I enjoyed being in Eleanor’s mind and I understand her feeling of not having a place to fit in, unfortunately that alone wasn’t enough for me to enjoy the book
i need to reread and analyse immediately
This was surprisingly boring and not at all scary. And somehow it did not answer any of the questions it kept on bringing throughout the whole book. Like literally not one mystery around Hill House was ever explained. And that ending, god. It didn’t hit any level of satisfaction that you’ve reached the end. Perhaps the only good thing you feel is that you’re finally done with it. Can someone explain to me how is this a horror classic again? Anyone?
Really wishing I hadn’t seen the Netflix version of this before reading the book- Shirley Jackson’s writing is so much subtler than anything produced by Netflix. Beautiful & haunting & genuinely did scare me. I will be thinking of Eleanor & Theodora forever now.
Jackson’s talent is on full display, but this barely qualifies as spooky let alone terrifying. Call me desensitized, I guess!
Shirley Jackson is one of the best writers at creating a sense of dread and anxiety. She's also got a dark sense of humour that probably gets less attention than it should. Your mileage may vary, but I could see people finding this less scary than expected. I'm actually not a big horror fan, but I found a lot to appreciate here. It's not quite as good as We Have Always Lived in the Castle. If anyone is a little disappointed in The Haunting of Hill House I still recommend giving Castle a try.
Really interesting. So different from the show that without the same title they could be two totally unrelated stories.
I enjoyed it. Jackson’s writing has a very particular style.
having seen the show before I had thought that the book would be similar but to my surprise it wasn’t. The book itself was good, there were horror elements in it which I enjoyed although at times I felt like I didn’t understand what was going on. Overall I enjoyed it, I might pick other books of Shirley
went into this not knowing it was nothing like the show. but i still fairly enjoyed it! i wish the suspense built up a little quicker but the last two chapters were worth the wait. except for the introduction of mrs montague and arthur that’s my only complaint. they were awful characters
journeys 🏞🚗🛣 end 🚫⛔️🔚⬇️ in lovers 👫👩❤️👩🫂 meeting 🙂↕️👩❤️💋👨🥰😫
I really enjoyed the book despite it being short. I did get several creepy vibes but it wasn’t nearly as scary as the Netflix adaptation. The ending was very good but did feel a bit abrupt and rushed. I wish I knew more about the other characters and their own pasts but their dynamic with each other was interesting, especially with Eleanor and Theodora. The House itself was extremely intriguing. Would recommend to anyone looking for something easy to read during the Halloween season!
Shirley Jackson's novel is a horror story with no ghost. There is a death and talk of death but there are no ghosts. While the book opens with Dr. Montague finding the perfect house to test his theories on the supernatural. He sends letters to invite a number of candidates to spend time with him in the house. A small group of people accept his invitation. These introductory pages go into their reasons for agreeing. http://pussreboots.com/blog/2019/comm... Privileged Uhoria Blue Highway 00CC33 (book) vs Family Uhoria Maze 33CCCC (TV show)
I can't believe I went 24 years of my life without knowing this book is lesbian.
“Who is planchette?”
Dnf
a lot funnier than i expected (in the beginning, at least)
Highlights
Now I can think about them; I am all alone. Why is Luke here? But why am I here? Journeys end in lovers neeting. They all saw that I was afraid
It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope.
NO LIVE organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream
Journeys end in lovers meeting.
[...] and whatever walked there, walked alone.
best closing line of all time perhaps
"The slightest air of disbelief offends it, naturally. How would you feel if people refused to believe in you?"
"God— whose hand was I holding?"
chills
I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.
"People leave this town," he said. "They don't come here."
[...]
"He was right," she said finally. "They go away, the lucky ones."
Journeys end in lovers meeting; I have spent an all but sleepless night, I have told lies and made a fool of myself, and the very air tastes like wine. I have been frightened half out of my foolish wits, but I have somehow earned this joy; I have been waiting for it for so long. Abandoning a lifelong belief that to name happiness is to dissipate it.
"I've never been away from anywhere," Eleanor said carefully, "so I suppose I've never been homesick."
"How about now? Your little apartment?"
"Perhaps," Eleanor said, looking into the fire, "I haven't had it long enough to believe it's my own."
Lying in the blue bed, looking up the dim ceiling with its remote carved pattern, she asked herself, half asleep still, What did I do; did I make a fool of myself? Were they laughing at me?
Thinking quickly over the evening before, she could remember only that she had—must have—seemed foolishly, childishly contented, almost happy; had the others been amused to see that she was so simple? I said silly things, she told herself, and of course they noticed. Today I will be more reserved, less openly grateful to all of them for having me.
People like answering questions about themselves, she thought; what an odd pleasure it is. I would answer anything right now.
What a complete and separate thing I am, she thought, going from my red toes to the top of my head, individually an I, possessed of attributes belonging only to me.
...insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again.
“Yes,” he said. “I never had a mother, as I told you. Now I find that everyone else has had something that I missed." He smiled at her. "I am entirely selfish, he said ruefully, “and always hoping that someone will tell me to behave, someone will make herself responsible for me and make me be grown-up."
He is altogether selfish, she thought in some surprise, the only man I have ever sat and talked to alone, and I am impatient; he is simply not very interesting "Why don't you grow up by yourself?” she asked him, and wondered how many people -how many women- had already asked him that.
“You’re clever.” And how many times had he answered that way?
Shirley you were so ahead of your time
“Fear is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it halfway,”
(...) and Eleanor thought with deep satisfaction that her feet were handsome in their red sandals; what a complete and separate thing I am, she thought, going from my red toes to the top of my head, individually an I, possessed of attributes belonging only to me. I have red shoes, she thought-that goes with being Eleanor; I dislike lobster and sleep on my left side and crack my knuckles when I am nervous and save buttons. I am holding a brandy glass which is mine because I am here and I am using it and I have a place in this room. I have red shoes and tomorrow I will wake up and I will still be here.
"It was said that the older sister was crossed in love," the doctor agreed, "although that is said of almost any lady who prefers, for whatever reason, to live alone".
This house, which seemed somehow to have formed itself, flying together into its own powerful pattern under the hands of its builders, fitting itself into its own construction of lines and angles, reared its great head back against the sky without concession to humanity. It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of a house; Hill House would stay as it was until it was destroyed.
No human eye can isolate the unhappy coincidence of line and place which suggests evil in the face of a house, and yet somehow a maniac juxtaposition, a badly turned angle, some chance meeting of roof and sky, turned Hill House into a place of despair, more frightening because the face of Hil House seemed awake, with a watchfulness from the blank windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of a cornice.
She nearly stopped forever just outside Ashton, because she came to a tiny cottage buried in a garden. I could live there all alone, she thought, slowing the car to look down the winding garden path to the small blue front door with, perfectly, a white cat on the step. No one would ever find me there, either, behind all those roses, and just to make sure I would plant oleanders by the road. I will light a fire in the cool evenings and toast apples at my own hearth. I will raise white cats and sew white curtains for the windows and sometimes come out of my door to go to the store to buy cinnamon and tea and thread.
This book appears on the shelf Owned kindle
This book appears on the shelf Lit horror
This book appears on the shelf historical-fiction
