This old peculiar horror story was chosen for the Halloween meeting of our book club, but I missed the meeting because of a curling commitment. It is supposedly a classic of the genre. If so, I will refrain from the genre entirely in the future. It has never been my favourite genre. The American author’s writing, according to an included 22 page analysis stuffed with background information and a 17 page Introduction by Laura Miller was mainly powered by prodigious amounts of alcohol and amphetamines. The background information reads like a classic Freudian analysis of both the eccentric author and the characters in the novel.
There are no hints of the geographic setting nor even the decade in which the events take place, except that there are cars, but seemingly no telephones. A professor studying occult events assembles a group of three enthusiasts to visit and investigate strange events in the old house with a reputation for scary ghosts and a history of strange deaths and conflicts in the family that own it. This includes a member of that family, a poor single self-doubting woman who is left basically homeless after her invalid mother dies, and one other woman who has some mysterious interest in the occult.
During their short stay in the Hill House, there are abundant unexplained phenomenon that lead to bizarre explanations and interpretations, hints of a budding romance that never progresses or becomes overt, and conflicts.
There are few characters, all of them eccentric and interesting, if the reader excludes the grass, wildflowers, trees and the house itself as characters, but anthropomorphism encompasses everything. This makes for a few interesting literary twists in the writing.
“She found a spot where the grass was soft and dry and lay down…. Around her the trees and wild flowers, with that oddly courteous air of natural things, suddenly interrupted in their pressing occupations of growing and dying, turned toward her with attention, as though, dull and imperceptive as she was, it was still necessary for them to be gentle to a creation so unfortunate as not to be rooted in the ground, forced to go from one place to another, heartbreakingly mobile.”
There may be some deep hidden message here, but, if so, it completely escaped me, with my lack of imagination and concrete ways of thinking. Perhaps lovers of horror stories would like this one, but I cannot recommend it.
Thanks,
Carolyn.
The Passionate Reader 