The Haunting of Hill House

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 Hill House seemed awake, with a watchfulness from the blank windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of a cornice. Almost any house, caught unexpectedly or at an odd angle, can turn a deeply humorous look on a watching person; even a mischievous little chimney, or a dormer like a dimple, can catch up a beholder with a sense of fellowship; but a house arrogant and hating, never off guard, can only be evil.

Happy Hallowe'en! In preparation for the spookiest day of the year, I read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Dark and oppressive, this haunted house story is a tense and thrilling study of fear. Dr Montague invites three strangers to join him one summer in the mysterious Hill House for an experiment that would explore potential paranormal and supernatural incidents. What begins lightheartedly soon turns malevolent as the personfiied Hill House begins to manifest itself in the house's inhabitants. The Haunting of Hill House is a deft and effective exploration of fear and how it changes people and guides their actions. More a subtle and disturbing haunting than an out-and-out tale of horror, this was yet another gripping read by Shirley Jackson.

Jackson is a master of suspense and weaves an intricate tale of creepiness. One wonders whether events actually occur or are manifested within the minds of the characters; there is an insidious undertone to the text where the reader does not trust what they are being told. To say any more would be to spoil The Haunting of Hill House, as saying much about any of Shirley Jackson's work is detrimental to their effect on the mind and senses. Suffice to say, this was the perfect reading material in the lead-up to today.

There is a short article online at Jezebel posted yesterday in praise of Jackson and her suitability to read during Hallowe'en.

This completes the R.I.P. IV challenge for me in which I read four books that could be categorised as mysterious, suspenseful, Gothic, thriller or supernatural reads (I apparently avoided Dark Fantasy and Horror). In terms of the fear factor I have ordered them from least to most frightening and, coincidentally, this is the order that I read them in:

1. The Blank Wall by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding
2. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
3. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
4. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackon

Thank you to Carl for hosting another deliciously creepy season.

Jane Austen's Emma

I first read Emma by Jane Austen a decade ago when I studied it in my final year of school. I have never seen an adaptation -not even the 1996 film version with Gwyneth Paltrow- but being a devout fan of the 1995 BBC mini-series of Pride and Prejudice, I was intrigued as to how well they would treat my second favourite Austen novel. I was not disappointed. Although it will never surpass the Pride and Prejudice adaptation in my esteem and affection, I did enjoy Emma and found it, for the most part, well done. I did have initial reservations and mild criticisms whilst watching; I found it flawed in some respects but it is was a faithful adaptation if a little ... unreserved. The language was modernised, not fully but enough that it jarred, and there was an altogether looser tone to their speech, mannerisms and interactions with each other.

Romola Garai made a suitably flawed Emma, and was more mature than her portrayal of Cassandra Mortmain (another of my much-loved literary heroines) that I could separate them in my mind's eye. Her vanity and snobbery were well depicted and, as always, I had a soft spot for the well-meaning Emma. However, I did take issue with Garai's exaggerated facial expressions that did not seem fitting with the period; her eyes were far too wide and it began to irritate me some. I had misgivings about Johnny Lee Miller's suitability in the role as Mr Knightley and their relationship was more of a brother and sister one in the first episode, but he overcame my prejudices to fully embody the role, so much so that I developed something of a literary crush on him; oh how my heart ached for him during some scenes and fluttered when he gentlemanly saved Harriet Smith's shame at the dance.

The casting of Michael Gambon as Mr Woodhouse was inspired; he was lovably vulnerable, only slightly infuriating and shared a touching and tender chemistry with his on-screen daughter. Tamsin Greig played Miss Bates to an exceptional standard and I sympathised with her exceedingly whilst also finding her amusing. The other exceptional comical character, Mrs Elton, was unbearable and testimony to Christina Cole in the role (she also played Caroline Bingley wonderfully well in Lost in Austen). I wasn't too enamoured by the casting of Frank Churchill nor Jane Fairfax but I suspect that is due to my lack of affection for the characters.

Watching this diverting adaptation, although enjoyable, compels me to read Austen's own words again and I will seek the time for a reread of the novel at some point. I will probably rewatch this at some point but I doubt it has the longevity of the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which I happily watch over and over.

This is the second of six Austen-related items completed for the Everything Austen challenge.

The scene I anticipated most to see acted was the one from Box Hill, where Emma is at her most flawed, and I share that below.

Are You Dreaming of a Grey Christmas?

Yes, Christmas will soon be with us and I know that I love nothing more than giving and receiving books as gifts. The only thing that can top that is a Persephone book. Book Psmith is arranging a very exciting Persephone Secret Santa, which I think is a wonderful idea and should be a lot of fun. I know that I will be participating, what about you?

Fun Home

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel is a memoir in the form of a graphic novel. I decided to seek it out after Audrey Niffenegger named it as her favourite graphic novel at a reading and signing a couple of weeks ago. I had read mention of it across the blogosphere prior to that but it was more a sense of it existing and being held in esteem rather than knowing anything about it. After reading it I then noticed that it was included in the family section of the Guardian's 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read and am I right in thinking that it is the only graphic novel to do so? I haven't read many graphic novels myself, only a handful (although I am beginning to incorporate them more into my reading lately), but Fun Home reminded me of one that I had read: The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi; both are memoirs of the female authors' coming-of-age in dramatic circumstances but both are recounted with wisdom and wit.

Alison grew up in a funeral home -known as a fun home- with her mother, brothers and closeted gay father who dies when Alison is at college, perhaps by his own design. Her father was a highschool English teacher who had relations with some of his male students and with his children's babysitter. This is indeed a tragicomic tale. I pitied Alison's father but I also found his betrayal of his family and the implied betrayal of younger boys abhorrent; curiously Bechdel doesn't comment (with hindsight) on her father's actions but through the book comes to terms with her own uneven relationship with him. Alison and her father connected via books and some of my favourite sections were those were literature was alluded to and employed as a means of commenting upon and making sense of Alison's upbringing and the poignant relationship with her father based on their mutual love for books. Meanwhile Alison is also coming to terms with her own lesbian sexuality and gender, often a source of contention with her father when she was younger but a subtle bond they shared as adults.



Fun Home is literally graphic in its occasional full-frontal nudity and not for readers with any qualms about forthright discussion of sex, sexuality and masturbation. Fun Home's frankness and intelligence should make it a recommended read for teenagers, especially those making sense of their own sexuality. It is also an exploration of death and grief and Bechdel uses it to come to term with her father's death and possible suicide. In appropriating her and her family's tragicomedy (which is ethically ambiguous, I feel) she produces a beautiful and touching deliberation on familial bonds and the pains of growing up. Incorporating the literature she and her father discuss and references to myth into the graphic novel imbues it with a richness that bibliophiles will adore and I found it highly interesting and educational as well as entertaining, at times morbidly so.

Hello Japan!

For the first of Tanabata's Hello Japan! monthly mini-challenges (where we focus on Japanese literature and culture) we were to read or watch something scary, spooky or suspenseful. I opted to watch Battle Royale (Batoru rowaiaru, 2000, directed by Kinji Fukasaku); I fully intended to read the book by Koushun Takami and then watch the adaptation but the best laid plans of men and readers... Now I am not altogether sure whether I will read the book at all, or at least any time soon. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the movie because I did, a lot, but I'm no longer in the mood to read the book.

The premise of the book (from back-cover): Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller is based on an irresistible premise: a class of 42 junior high school students are taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are electronically collared, provided with weapons of varying potency, and sent out onto the island. If they are in the wrong part of the island at the wrong time, their collars will explode. If they band together to save themselves a collar will explode at random. If they try to escape from the island, they will be blown up. Their only chance for survival lies in killing their classmates. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan - where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller - Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, and a potent story of politics and survival in a dog-eat-dog world. Made into a controversial hit movie of the same name, Battle Royale is already a contemporary Japanese pulp classic.

I can tell why this has become a Japanese pulp (and, I take it, cult) classic as it is intelligent and fun. Yes, I find ridiculously gratuitous scenes of blood and gore humorous rather than scary and the plot more socially interesting than thrilling; think of the staged bloodbath onscreen as Tarantino-esque (controversial, I know, as Tarantino has often been accused of copying Japanese film-makers, but he is the best mainstream example to indicate the style of the film). Classmates are pitted against one another and petty highschool jealousies, resentments and crushes are played out with weapons and subsequent slaughter. It is all about survival of the fittest injected with black humour and some oxymoronic kitsch (the scene where the government's experimental battle programme is explained to the teenagers forced to take part is explosively funny (literally). I enjoyed the running tally of kills plot device (subtitled onscreen) and found this film wonderfully hyperbolic in the tense circumstances; it is powerful in its subtleties and its cultural commentary on a Japan obsessed with youth, fashion and cuteness. Battle Royale should not be taken at face-value as an overblown violent film but as a fantastically exaggerated cultural comment.

Highly recommended.

I wonder how the book compares...

Unseen Academicals

A new Terry Pratchett novel is always an exciting thing and for the last few years I have always bought a copy for my boyfriend, the gift being a pretext for the opportunity to read it after (although once sneakily before) him. This year I actually received a review copy from Doubleday, which was very exciting; I had already pre-ordered and received (a day earlier) a copy but sold that on so a big thank you to Doubleday of Random House. Unseen Academicals is the latest novel in Pratchett's Discword series and satirises the game of football (or foot-the-ball) whilst focusing mainly on the below-stairs workers rather than the wizards of Unseen University. The introduction of these compelling new characters works mainly because they are supported by the wizards (Ridcully, the Librarian and Rincewind all appearing), the conniving Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, Vetinari, and the obligatory cameo from Death in addition to a few other familiar faces. Glenda -cook in the Night Kitchen, maker of famous pies and a woman with a penchant for romance novels- and Nutt -a highly intelligent and articulate candle dribbler who is shrouded in mystery- join Discworld lore and its cast of other intensely well-characterised and amusing characters.

I know that not all of you are Pratchett fans and some of you have found the Discworld inaccessible. To discover what I myself love about the universe Pratchett has created then you can read this post. As for accessibility, I will share my boyfriend's experience: it took him until his sixth attempt at reading the Discworld series (a new book each time) until he was hooked; he now considers Terry Pratchett his favourite writer, has read and reread all of the Discworld novels and has read everything else he has written. For those of you who are completely averse to attempting to read any of the Discworld series then I would recommend Nation, which is a deeply intelligent and entertaining novel with one of my all-time favourite quotes across literature.

As always I enjoyed reading Pratchett; I find him very comforting and he brings me out of any book slump that I occasionally fall into. I find that he is exceedingly difficult to review; I've summarised what Unseen Academicals and my response but the joy of reading Pratchett is inexplicable to describe. You do not need to be a football fan to appreciate this novel as it is not so much about the cult of the sport but the societal observations surrounding the game; it is easy to see the humour in the making of the offside rule without the need to understand it oneself. It also isn't essential to have read any other Discworld novel previously although it is bound to help (the frequent "(no relation)" allusions after Bledlow Nobbs may be mildly irritating otherwise). I will leave you with two of my favourite quotes -both featuring Glenda, whom I loved- and the sheer intelligence of the first one in its allusion to Virginia Woolf is why I love Terry Pratchett.

A couple of graduate wizards were working in the university boatyard nearby. One looked at her and said, 'Are you supposed to be walking on the university lawns, madam?'
'No, it is absolutely forbidden to kitchen staff,' said Glenda.
The students looked at one another. 'Oh right,' said one of them.
And that was it.
As easy as that.

Very slowly, Glenda raised her right hand into a fist and lowered it into her mouth, and bit down very hard in at attempt to somehow retrieve the last fifteen minutes from the records of the universe and replace them with something far less embarrassing, like her knickers falling down.

Gourmet Rhapsody

Earlier this year I waxed lyrical about The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. At that time I had found one of my favourite books of the year and was excited to discover that Gourmet Rhapsody (Gourmet here in the UK and Une Gourmandise in France) had a scheduled release a few months later. This is actually Barbery's debut novel, first published in French in 2000, and translated (by Alison Anderson) and issued by Europa Editions on the back of the runaway success of Elegance.

Not so much as a prequel to The Elegance of the Hedgehog but a companion novel, it takes the 48 hours preceding the death of food critic Pierre Arthens, the impetus of events in Elegance, as its premise. Events take place in the Rue de Grenelle, the same building setting as in The Elegance of the Hedgehog and the majority of the cast are the same; it was a pleasure to meet these characters again. An arrogant and worldwide revered food critic, Arthens, on his death-bed is seeking a memory on the tip of his tongue; literally on the tip of his tongue, Arthens is grasping for a taste and flavour from his past. Alternating chapters narrated by Arthens and by people -and a cat- from his life, those who love and those who revile him, recall his life. Arthens' memories take him through epicurean delights that he has sampled and indulged during his lifetime, predating is gourmet career, memories he recalls in search for the elusive taste.

I am going to die, but that is of no importance ... I am going to die and there is a flavor that has been teasing my taste buds and my heart and I simply cannot recall it. I know that this particular flavor is the first and ultimate truth of my entire life, and that it holds the key to a heart that I have since silenced.

Particular episodes in his past recalled by particular foods and vice versa foods recalled via certain memories, which instantly reminded me of Proust and his madeleine; Barbery alluded to this a third of the way through the novella, "Like Proust's abominable madeleine, that oddity of a pastry reduced one sinister and drab afternoon into a spoonful of spongy crumbs -supreme offense- in a cup of herbal tea".

Rich and delectable things can be done with language when writing about food and Barbery exults in describing dishes. I am a definite foodie and enjoyed her vivid and rhapsodic descriptions; sashimi (especially tuna) is one of my favourite things to eat and her words made it even more appetising:

True sashimi is not so much bitten into as allowed to melt on the tongue. It calls for slow, supple chewing, not to bring about a change in the nature of the food but merely to allow one to savor its airy, satiny texture. Yes, it is like a fabric: sashimi is velvet dust, verging on silk, or a bit of both, and the extraordinary alchemy of its gossamer essence allows it to preserve a milky density unknown even by clouds.

Barbery said it best herself (through Paul) in describing Arthens' food writing:

His prose ... his prose was nectar, ambrosia, a hymn to language: it was gut-wrenching, and it hardly mattered whether he was talking about food or something else, it would be a mistake to think that the topic mattered: it was the way he phrased it that was so brilliant. Food was just a pretext, perhaps even a way of escaping, of fleeing what his goldsmith's talent might bring to light: the exact tenor of his emotions, the harshness and suffering, and the failure, in the end...

Ultimately it is the writing that matters and Barbery's prose is as rich as her protagonist's. This is a quick and beautifully written novella about life, death and our passions. It is not a literary experiment like The Elegance of the Hedgehog and does not taste as sweet or as rich in comparison but it is pleasant sustenance nonetheless.

A note on why I bought the North American edition of Gourmet Rhapsody (and why the quotes I use are missing the letter "u"):

1. I had an Amazon US giftcard to spend (as good a reason as any).
2. I far prefer the cover to the UK edition and fully intend to buy the matching copy of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Not only is it more aesthetically pleasing but the Europa Edition is beautifully published; usually I have an aversion to the paper used for the paperback covers in the US but this is a hard-wearing card with flaps.
3. I prefer the title!