The Haunting of Hill House

So are we supposed to assume that Eleanor is dead? It was a fast read and somewhat confusing. I think it's supposed to be.

I've read it the first time almost exactly a year ago and that time I was sure of my 4 star rating but this time I'm not as sure. Yes it was atmospheric and eery but not the "perfect work of unnerving horror" as the back of the book said. Wasn't creeped out by it, was rather on the softer side of horror for me. But it was entertaining enough to read but I wasn't as blown away from this as the first time. Love "we have always lived in the castle" more then this. This was just alright. Might give the Netflix show ago though. I've heard it was better then the book. I wonder if its creepy or even scary?

i don’t know what the hell i read but i think i liked it

It's interesting to read this back to back with

We Have Always Lived in the Castle. In the latter, the characters haunt the house; Merricat uses objects from the house to surround and protect their land in a form of sympathetic magic. As the characters' situation devolves, the house becomes more and more haunted-looking. In

Hill House, though, the house is definitely acting on the characters. We witness this through a limited third person view, specifically the mentally fragile Eleanor's perspective. Each character experiences the house differently, and the reader watches as Eleanor is slowly devoured by the spirit of Hill House. We can't be sure at what point she becomes an agent of the house, if indeed she does at all; we also can't be sure whether the other characters are at all trustworthy, or if Eleanor is just paranoid. This is a downright terrifying novel before you start to examine characterization and motivation. I've never seen the movie adaptation, and I don't want to, because experiencing Hill House from inside Eleanor's head is too wonderful to ruin with a movie.

Updated review, October 6, 2023

I think I critically misjudged

The Haunting of Hill House the first time I read it. This time, knowing how it ends, I read the text with much more empathy toward Eleanor. In

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, Ruth Franklin suggests that Eleanor and Theodora represent two different sides of Shirley Jackson’s personality. Theodora’s rejection of Eleanor represents Jackson’s inability to accept all parts of her personality.

The dual tragedy of Eleanor’s death conveys both Eleanor’s/Jackson’s rejection of herself and her “friends” ultimate rejection of her.

I also just have to mention that Jackson’s handle of dialogue is superb.

I remain unconvinced that

The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favorite books, but it is a great book.

Original review, October 19, 2022

I'm upset that I don't like

The Haunting of Hill House as much as I like

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but, honestly, I don't think anything will surpass

We Have Always Lived in the Castle in my mind.

The book is still competent, but I don't understand everything that happened, and I missed the quirky and angry quality of

We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

Interesting character development, suspense, leaves you questioning reality, delicious descriptions. Great fall read

Incredible prose

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. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

2022 reread:

The Haunting of Hill House is a horror story about loneliness, isolation, and social anxiety. If not

quite as scary on a reread, it was just as compelling; I certainly picked up on new things this time around.

From the start, the house seems to latch on to Eleanor and single her out. Not only does her name appear in many of the “hauntings,” but more subtly the knocking and banging also seems to be a manifestation of a traumatic memory as we later learn

it is likely connected to her mother, who died when Eleanor either didn’t hear or ignored her banging on the wall for medication

. They feed off each other, though the exact nature of the haunting isn’t something that the novel is interested in pinning down:

“People,” the doctor said sadly, “are always so anxious to get things out into the open where they can put a name to them, even a meaningless name, so long as it has something of a scientific ring.”

Instead, the novel is a character study of Eleanor. The refrain

Journeys end in lovers meeting recurs throughout the novel, and it perfectly encapsulates Eleanor’s central psychological struggle. She imagines that the summer at Hill House is the first step to the life she’s been dreaming of for so long: a life away from her overbearing mother and sister, a life with a home of her own, a life where she’s wanted by someone, a place where she

belongs.

We learn at the end that Eleanor never planned to return to her sister (everything she owned she brought with her in a little carton) and, indeed, she eventually finds what she wanted. She first latches on to Luke as a potential romantic partner, throwing herself at him in what she doesn’t realize is obvious to everyone as desperation—

“You’re making a fool of yourself over him,” Theodora tells her—until it becomes clear that he isn’t interested or (in Eleanor’s mind) that he’s interested in Theodora instead. Theodora is her next fixation—

“I am going to follow you home,” Eleanor declares—until she is rejected by Theodora, too. At last, then, it is Hill House itself who is to be her “lover”:

“I have broken the spell of Hill House and somehow come inside. I am home, she thought, and stopped in wonder at the thought.” She transforms from resisting the house to accepting it to imitating it (as she does on her final night in the house spent running down the halls banging on doors and rattling doorknobs) to, finally, becoming part of it for eternity.

Like Eleanor, the house is secluded and temperamental; like Eleanor, it

dreams. Eleanor is constantly drifting off into daydreams in which she is the person she wants to be (but isn’t), a person who lives in a charming home with little stone lions, or simply a person who is comfortable in her own skin. Or she gets lost in imagining the house’s history, or its future, or

her future. But there’s a darker side to her flights of fancy, as she gradually begins to believe the worst of her companions and fixate on what she imagines they’re thinking of her and to spiral out of control…

Some new passages that stood out:

Eleanor Vance was thirty-two years old when she came to Hill House. The only person in the world she genuinely hated, now that her mother was dead, was her sister. She disliked her brother-in-law and her five-year-old niece, and she had no friends.

“When I am afraid, I can see perfectly the sensible, beautiful not-afraid side of the world, I can see chairs and tables and windows staying the same, not affected in the least, and I can see things like the careful woven texture of the carpet, not even moving. But when I am afraid I no longer exist in any relation to these things. I suppose because things are not afraid.” “I think we are only afraid of ourselves,” the doctor said slowly. “No,” Luke said. “Of seeing ourselves clearly and without disguise.” “Of knowing what we really want,” Theodora said. She pressed her cheek against Eleanor’s hand and Eleanor, hating the touch of her, took her hand away quickly. “I am always afraid of being alone,” Eleanor said, and wondered, Am I talking like this? Am I saying something I will regret bitterly tomorrow? Am I making more guilt for myself?

Idly Eleanor picked a wild daisy, which died in her fingers, and, lying on the grass, looked up into its dead face.

---

2021 review: Absolutely incredible. I was not expecting to love this as much as I did: in many ways, it reminded me very much of Daphne du Maurier's

Rebecca, my favorite novel of all time.

The Haunting of Hill House turned out to be another favorite!

Even though it's written in third person, the story is told very closely from Eleanor's perspective and is constantly bringing the reader inside her head. And Eleanor—lonely, awkward, timid, insecure, mousey, imaginative, prone-to-getting-lost-in-daydreams, possibly-haunted Eleanor—is an absolutely fascinating character whose psychological journey is utterly gripping. She's the type of female character not often explored, and Jackson does it especially well, with many passages ringing particularly poignant. The supporting cast is marvelous as well, but Eleanor is the heart of the story.

Aside from Eleanor, Jackson's prose is my favorite element. The opening passage (above) is iconic, and the rest of the novel continues in that same vein. Her writing is beautiful throughout and highly atmospheric, and she's a master of creating a sense of dread and impending doom. It's the kind of writing that manages to be completely immersive while also demanding that a passage must be highlighted every few pages.

The novel's one flaw comes in the form of

Mrs. Montague

. The character is clearly intended to be a source of comic relief, and Jackson certainly succeeds—arguably too well, as the humor dissipates much of the tension and dread that had been steadily building. Without this character, I think the novel had the potential to be truly terrifying. As it is,

The Haunting of Hill House is merely tense and spooky.

Luckily, there's much, much more to this novel than a few thrills. It's certainly worth a reread (and between the many unanswered questions and Jackson's expert use of subtext, I imagine there will be much for me to pick up on the second time through). And I'll definitely be exploring Jackson's other novels!

Some favorite passages:

She could not remember ever being truly happy in her adult life; her years with her mother had been built up devotedly around small guilts and small reproaches, constant weariness, and unending despair. Without ever wanting to become reserved and shy, she had spent so long alone, with no one to love, that it was difficult for her to talk, even casually, to another person without self-consciousness and an awkward inability to find words.

She had taken to wondering lately, during these swift-counted years, what had been done with all those wasted summer days; how could she have spent them so wantonly? I am foolish, she told herself early every summer, I am very foolish; I am grown up now and know the values of things. Nothing is ever really wasted, she believed sensibly, even one's childhood, and then each year, one summer morning, the warm wind would come down the city street where she walked and she would be touched with the little cold thought: I have let more time go by.

Will I, she thought, will I get out of my car and go between the ruined gates and then, once I am in the magic oleander square, find that I have wandered into a fairyland, protected poisonously from the eyes of people passing? Once I have stepped between the magic gateposts, will I find myself through the protective barrier, the spell broken?

Don’t do it, Eleanor told the little girl; 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; don’t do it;

I would never have suspected it of myself, she thought, laughing still; everything is different, I am a new person, very far from home.

The house was vile. She shivered and thought, the words coming freely into her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseased; get away from here at once.

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. 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.

she had a quick impression of the builders finishing off the second and third stories of the house with a kind of indecent haste, eager to finish their work without embellishment and get out of there, following the simplest possible pattern for the rooms.

Theodora came through the bathroom door into Eleanor’s room; she is lovely, Eleanor thought, turning to look; I wish I were lovely.

Theodora had abandoned any attempt at a chair and had put herself down on the hearthrug, cross-legged and drowsy. Eleanor, wanting to sit on the hearthrug beside her, had not thought of it in time and had condemned herself to one of the slippery chairs, unwilling now to attract attention by moving and getting herself awkwardly down onto the floor.

looking at Theodora, it was not possible for Eleanor to believe that she ever dressed or washed or moved or ate or slept or talked without enjoying every minute of what she was doing; perhaps Theodora never cared at all what other people thought of her.

All I want is to be cherished, she thought, and here I am talking gibberish with a selfish man.

Peace, Eleanor thought concretely; what I want in all this world is peace, a quiet spot to lie and think, a quiet spot up among the flowers where I can dream and tell myself sweet stories.

It is so cold, Eleanor thought childishly; I will never be able to sleep again with all this noise coming from inside my head; how can these others hear the noise when it is coming from inside my head? I am disappearing inch by inch into this house, I am going apart a little bit at a time because all this noise is breaking me; why are the others frightened?

No; it is over for me. It is too much, she thought, I will relinquish my possession of this self of mine, abdicate, give over willingly what I never wanted at all; whatever it wants of me it can have.

But I won’t go, she thought, and laughed aloud to herself; Hill House is not as easy as they are; just by telling me to go away they can’t make me leave, not if Hill House means me to stay.

I am really doing it, she thought, turning the wheel to send the car directly at the great tree at the curve of the driveway, I am really doing it, I am doing this all by myself, now, at last; this is me, I am really really really doing it by myself. In the unending, crashing second before the car hurled into the tree she thought clearly, Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why don’t they stop me?

Hill House itself, not sane, stood against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, its walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

I had certain expectations when starting this book, and while the story didn't align with those, I found myself far more captivated by what I discovered than what I had originally anticipated.

First and foremost, this tale is not as terrifying as one might expect. I rarely read or watch horror because I'm not a fan of fear, and I had *feared* that this book would indeed send shivers down my spine. I worried it would delve into the psychological horror genre that I particularly dislike. And yeah, of course that I decided to read it at night, not the wisest choice if you're afraid of horrors. However, I was genuinely surprised that this book wasn't as terrifying as I had expected, despite the presence of unsettling elements.

That said, I must confess that I don't fully comprehend what truly happened at the old house and who was in fact responsible for the haunting. I could even say that I feel a sense of dissatisfaction. I wanted to know more about the circumstances that led to the house becoming haunted. Unfortunately, the ending of this story left me with several unanswered questions and even added to my curiosity.

But this story is also something more - a psychological study of the various individuals who come to Hill House. As the main character, Eleanor, observes, they form incredibly close bonds quite quickly, despite their vast differences. The dark atmosphere of the house and the necessity of constantly residing in one another's company leave a significant mark on their interactions. I found this aspect exceptionally fascinating.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this story, especially that it didn't fall into the genre I usually read. However, I'm not entirely convinced that it will linger in my memory for a longer time. Still, Shirley Jackson's writing, the psychological exploration, and the complex dynamics between the characters did make it a really interesting read. If you're expecting a bone-chilling horror story, this may not be it, but it for sure offers an intriguing exploration of fear and the human psyche.

The storyline, characters, theme and writing style were excellent.