Reviews for The Haunting of Hill House

The average rating for The Haunting of Hill House based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-04-29 00:00:00 Vasileios Panagiotopoulos I'm falling in love with this book all over again as I re-read it. The premise is that of a science experiment--an academic exercise to test the reality of house-haunting. I love the fact that the opening pages essentially replicate the clinical nature of the premise: here's the chief investigator, here are the three other characters, all described at a clinical remove before we get into the "story" itself. A contemporary editor might have said: "Cut this out and get right to the story," but to me these opening pages are wonderful little character studies. Then we follow Eleanor, the main character, as she takes the car she shares with her sister and drives to Hill House. Again, it takes a few pages to get there, but it allows for wonderful scenes where her imagination takes flight or where she interacts, awkwardly, with the townsfolk in the nearest small town. The interaction in the diner is classic Shirley Jackson--capturing the suspicion and unease and boredom of small town life. **** Now for the house itself. I'd forgotten just what a genius description of the Hill House we're treated to when Eleanor first sees it. I find it fascinating that Jackson describes the house for nearly two pages without ever physically describing it, other than to say it's "enormous and dark" and has steps leading up to a veranda. And yet...we somehow know it intimately nonetheless. It's presented as being alive, as being almost a lover who "enshadows" Eleanor when she walks up those steps, and in that description you get not only a sense of the house itself, but a sense of Eleanor, of her loneliness and perhaps even madness. She's afraid of Hill House in the same way she'd be afraid of a lover. Here is this strong presence who threatens to swallow her up, and in a way, when she walks in, a sort of Gothic romance is born. **** The moment when Eleanor first meets Theodora is so brilliantly done. Eleanor is at the top of the stairs, looking down, and she begins talking before you realize there's anyone else there. "Thank heaven you're here," she says. To whom? Is there anyone really? Maybe not! Maybe Eleanor is mad. It's a disorienting moment, and then Eleanor sees Mrs. Dudley, but Eleanor is still not described as seeing anyone else until Theodora introduces herself. But even then, there is no physical description of Theodora--there's just a voice: "I'm Theodora." Is this all in Eleanor's head? Wow. **** There really is so little physical description of the other characters, with the possible exception of Doctor Montague, who's described as "round and rosy and bearded" and who "looked as though he might be more suitably established before a fire in a pleasant little sitting room, with a cat on his knee and a rosy little wife to bring him jellied scones....". I love that description, but what amazes even more is how the other characters really aren't described at all. Only the house is tangible in a way. **** I love the playfulness in Shirley Jackson, and the first conversation, when all four characters are sitting around talking, is a marvelous example of it. They're playing a game, inventing whimsical characters for themselves, but all is not pure fun--there's the flash of Eleanor's jealousy when Theodora gives Luke a "quick, understanding glance"--the same kind of glance "she had earlier given Eleanor." Beneath the fun and games lies something deadly serious. **** The relationship between Theodora and Eleanor makes me think of a major theme in this book--sisterhood. You have Eleanor and her sister, of course, at the beginning of the book, and then the tale of the orphaned sisters who lived in Hill House, and then Eleanor and Theodora themselves, who quickly become like sisters. All those relationships are marked and marred by jealousy, one that lies just beneath the polite surface of things. Fascinating. **** Interesting to study how Jackson builds the sense of disquiet throughout the novel. She does it through so many small decisions like the one I mentioned earlier, where she doesn't physically describe her characters. There's also a wonderful moment at the beginning of Chapter 4, where Eleanor and Theodora wake up after the first (uneventful) night at Hill House. It's a small moment, yet so revealing of Jackson's technique. Theodora is in the bathroom, taking a bath. Eleanor is in her room, looking out the window. Then in the very next paragraph, with no transition whatsoever, Theodora is suddenly pounding on the bathroom door telling Eleanor to hurry up. What? It takes a moment to realize what has happened--to realize that now Eleanor is in the bath, and Theordora is outside waiting for her. It's a startling jump-cut, to use a movie term. Jackson is constantly doing that sort of thing, unsettling the reader's expectations, making us realize that anything can happen and we can't rely on the usual narrative logic. It's so subtle, yet so masterful. **** I've been thinking of the line that Eleanor keeps quoting: "Journeys end in lovers meeting." I didn't know this before, but it's actually from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night--it's a line sung by the "fool" in that play. Does this have any significance for Jackson's novel? I'm not sure. It's an interesting line in and of itself--so revealing of Eleanor's romantic desires, the way she seems so attracted to Theodora and to Hill House itself. She has the overwhelming sense that she belongs here, that she's part of this slapdash "family" of people staying at the house. She's excited; she's happy; she's constantly afraid of "missing something." In short, she's having the time of her life. This is her journey's end, and she's met her lover (or lovers), and she relishes every moment. **** But then things start to turn--the relationship between Eleanor and Theodora starts to fray. It's begins with something immensely small--Theodora painting Eleanor's toenails red without Eleanor's permission. It's a small moment, but Eleanor harkens back to it later, when Theodora is frightened by the bloody creepy words painted on her wall: HELP ELEANOR COME HOME ELEANOR. Theodora is badly shaken and they all wonder if it's really blood and, of course, who put it there. Suspicion immediately falls on Eleanor, and you can see her struggle with what to say, her thoughts veering back to the red of her toenails and focusing on the fact that Theodora will now have to stay in her room and wear her clothes, and you can't help wonder if all this is Eleanor's elaborate revenge. Even afterwards, as they're all sitting talking, Eleanor's anger can't help coming through in her thoughts. "I would like to hit her with a stick, Eleanor thought, looking down on Theodora's head beside her chair; I would like to batter her with rocks." We see the fraying not only of the relationship, but of Eleanor's mind. Suddenly she feels suddenly like an outsider, like someone who's apart from the others--she sees how they stare at her, how they scrutinize what she says, as odd things begin to slip out in her speech and she begins to wonder what she's been saying, how much she's been revealing of herself. **** Mrs. Montague is a wonderful character who bursts onto the scene in all her grand foolishness. But like Shakespeare's fools, she is perceptive in her own way--in this case, about Eleanor's relationship with her mother, which is one of Eleanor's dark secrets and which Mrs. Montague perceives after her session with planchette (a Ouija board). There's a dark horror at the heart of it, which we can't quite grasp, and it's all conveyed by this great fool, and so shot through with her bombastic comedy, that it leaves the reader unsure whether to laugh or cringe (or both). **** I will try not to give too much away of the ending. I'll just say that it's fascinating to watch Eleanor: her rage, her jealousy, her giddiness. How she perceives the other characters, how she watches them and listens to them and to the house itself, how she hurtles toward the end ("I am doing this all by myself, now, at last; this is me, I am really really really doing it by myself."). And then that amazing ending, recapitulating the opening, and that final word--"alone"--capturing a sense of the house as a sentient being much like Eleanor herself. Just breathtaking. A truly remarkable book.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-02-11 00:00:00 Harouri Houlet The Haunting of Hill House (1959) is justly revered as an exemplar of the horror genre, not only because its plot provides the template for all those haunted house tales to come, but also because its superb prose and subtle psychology transcend genre, transforming what might otherwise have been merely a sensational tale into a artful novel, worthy of a discerning reader. The novel suffers from its own pervasive influence, for, as soon as it gets underway, it seems'whether or not you've seen either movie version'woefully familiar. Dr Montague (stuffy old scientific type), wishing to investigate a haunted house, enlists the aid of Eleanor (shy,retiring type), Theodora (flamboyant bohemian type), and Luke (handsome upper-class type), the heir to the house. At first, by daylight, things don't seem half-bad, but then night comes, and... well, you get idea. (Of course you do. You've heard it all before.) What you have not heard before, however, is the intelligent tone or the distinctive music of her prose. Witness part of the description of Hill House, early in the second chapter, as seen through the eyes of Eleanor: 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. What a wonderful repetition of "for" in the last sentence! (Instead, I probably would have written "not a fit place for people, love, or hope." And I would have been wrong.) In addition to its prose, the book's subtle psychology'similar to James' Turn of the Screw--interests and entrances the reader with its ambiguity. Are the phenomena real or caused by one of the experimenters? Is the house possessing them, or is one of them possessing the house? Shirley Jackson is too good a writer to decide for us. We must choose to decide'or not to decide'for ourselves. The book would have my highest praise except for the fact that the infuriating Mrs. Montague and her pompous friend Arthur Parker, brought in three-quarters of the way through to ease tension and give comic relief, are not only unnecessary but dissipate tension rather than relieve it. Besides, the laconic, creepy Mrs. Dudley ("I don't stay after six. Not after it begins to get dark.") is plenty of comic relief all by herself. But Mrs. M. and her friend P. are but a minor flaw. Give The Haunting of Hill House a chance. It is, in addition to being a classic of the genre, an excellent novel.