DSL June Read: Mary's Pick
I Capture the Castle by Dodie SmithOriginally published in 1948, this little charmer came back into print a few years ago. Its author is best known for writing 101 Dalmatians, which is much, much better than the cartoon.
I Capture the Castle is about a writer who lives in a mouldering castle with his two daughters and their stepmother, Topaz, a former artist's model. The writer hasn't published anything in years and sits around in a corridor of the castle pretending to be writing, but really just reading detective novels. And Topaz walks around naked a lot, "communing with nature." And the two daughters are just a wreck. And then their fortunes change for the better, and everything really goes bats.
I wanted to suggest this book back in February, but thought, nah... it's too Jane Austen-y. While there's a certain Pride & Prejudice vibe, this book is way funnier. I read it a few years ago, and thought it was hilarious, but don't remember how it turns out. Brady read it more recently and thought it was kinda depressing, but charming.
So, see what you think.
posted by mary_m @ 10:04 PM
19 Comments:
Holy shit, the city library HAS this one! I'm stunned!
Well, I'm stunned. Go Utah - way to recognize the awesome that is Dodie Smith.
I wanted to include a little plug here for something Brady and I are doing this summer over on our blog - the Zombie Summer Reading Program. We're reading and writing about the forgotten beach reads from days of yore. So far, I've read a bunch of old brothel memoirs, a couple of really trippy old children's books, and a British thriller from the 1920s. Brady is reading some really shitty sci-fi from the 50s.
Anyhow, if you stumble on anything old and wacky in the used book store or library book sale, and would like to do a guest post, send it to me.
http://thisbookisforyou.blogspot.com
Sorry for the shameless self-promotion, but I'm kind of having a blast with it.
I thought about getting into the Zombie reading with you, but I have enough trouble getting the books for the bookclub. I'm going to wait til I get to Vegas, where hopefully the library system is a little better--I'll have full access to the UNLV library too. Maybe they won't charge me $1 for each book they interlibrary loan.
Okay, so I just finished re-reading I Capture the Castle, and I'm worried that y'all are just gonna hate it.
Dusty because it's kind of girly. Gwen because it's about upper middle class "geniuses" who can't be bothered to put in a good day's work. Karen because the father in the book is kind of a wanker.
When I pick something for the book club, I think I'm tougher on it than I would be otherwise because I'm subconsciously trying to predict what you'll make of it.
That said, I still thought it had its moments, and the beginning, especially, is really funny.
I hope no one 100% hates it.
i love it.
it's so much fun having a teenage narrator. sometimes, i think, she is soooo bitchy. and snobby too. i love it.
English novels were my first love after Steven King. there's a certain traditional cheekiness there in Britain that we lack in America. We're so earnest here. but, it's important to be earnest, i suppose.
It's a lot like Jane Austin's first book, Northhanger Abbey, or something like that, which was a spoof of gothic novels. not very many people read that one. i consider it her best.
I'm not very far into it, but i'm impressed at how complicated, and dark, and funny it is: naked stepmom,depressed father, boy plagerizing poems.
and isn't a castle such a great setting?
I sat down last night about 9 to read some of it--I was maybe 10 pages in at that point. It was exactly 2:55 a.m. when I finished. I thought it was fantastic.
Yes, the whole upper-class geniuses thing is annoying, but annoying to me not b/c the author used it but b/c it was a real, true way that people acted (and as Paris Hilton still does). I mean, just the irritation of people who are literally starving and yet will starve before they lower themselves to take real work...it so perfectly captures the inanities and ridiculousness of the rigid British class system. And the way it just seemed OBVIOUS that Stephen should slave away for them and hand over his wages, simply b/c his mother was one of their servants...infuriating!
And I thought Smith wrote it in such a way that we were supposed to notice the unfairness of that situation--it wasn't written like the way they treated Stephen was a GOOD thing. I felt like while we were supposed to find the family sympathetic, we were also supposed to find them ever-so-slightly ridiculous and blind, including the narrator at times.
I can tolerate sexist, racist, and classist (?) elements in books if, when reading them, I think "That's shitty, but yeah, just about right."
I also desperately love Jane Austen and George Eliot--for some reason, I find witty books about impoverished-yet-entitled English families quite charming.
The father is a total wanker. One thing I find really interesting about these types of books is how they all have fascinating, spunky, witty, intelligent female protagonists, but yet in the end it's clear that they are not in control of their own fate--who they marry and who their father is determines what their lives will be like, and if your lazy piece of crap dad decides to let you live in poverty, go hungry, and so on, well, not a whole lot you can do about it. Just gotta suck it up and hope someday he decides to be a useful human being again.
I won't say too much more now until Karen and Dusty finish so I don't give anything away. But the whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking "Is this REALLY a young adult novel?" I have a hard time imagining too many teens today getting through it, but maybe I'm underestimating our youth. Esp. toward the end where they're talking about her dad's book and what it all means, I just kept thinking, "This is awfully deep for young adults."
I also wondered whether, with all the questioning of religion, the wishing on devils, etc., this book could get published as a young adult novel if it were written today. It seems like the kind of book that today would get put on some kind of list of pop culture elements that are destroying America's youth. After reading it, I'm even more surprised our library has it. I can only assume no one who has read it has mentioned what it was about to their parents or the librarian.
I'm so glad you guys are liking it! Gwen, I was thinking about what you said about, "Is this a YA book?" and to be honest, I'm not sure. Smith wasn't really known as a children's writer and there weren't really a lot of books written for teenagers in those days, except crappy adventure series. And A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is mostly read by kids today, but it was published as an adult's book back in the day.
So it actually might have been intended for adults, but I'd have to check some old book reviews to know for sure. Which I might actually do. Now I'm curious.
It is a pretty dark little book. Even though the story about dad brandishing a cake knife at the children's mother is always told as kind of a laugh, it's kind of messed up.
I mean, Cassandra can't even remember her mother and from the sounds of it, the poor woman just wasted away from unhappiness and years of suffering her husband's tyranny (i.e. "I like it when you sit in the room with me while I write, but could you not talk or move? Thanks, that's great, honey."). And it sounds like Topaz was a much more vibrant person before she came under the spell of Daddy Dearest.
As Animal from the Muppets would say, "Bad Man!"
When I looked at the list of other books she's written, I noticed that none of them seemed to be directed at children except "101
Dalmations." I wonder if "I Capture the Castle" now gets put in the YA section just because the books she's most famous for is a kid's book, and since it has a 17-year-old narrator, it's just assumed that it's for teens?
I have to say, the dad really did sound horrid. One of those geniuses who makes all the people around him suffer due to his selfishness. I mean, he marries Topaz, but then treats her like crap--it's clear he doesn't really LIKE her. As Mary says, it's unclear exactly why the first wife died, but seems to be just sort of giving up. It was a bit disturbing at the end where Cassandra is all excited thinking the solution to her dad's writing problems is that he needs to get his violent streak back.
I think I'd be pretty annoyed if my father contributed absolutely nothing to the family, treated us all as huge bothers, but then still ordered us around to get his lunch and stuff.
gwen, you have caused me to think.
if this were set in the states i'd be all over it --pretty much what you said-- but since it's British, i just naturally accept the ridgid class system . . . etc.
there are such stereotypes in this book, but i find them comforting instead of annoying.
the narrator is such a wit. her lines are soooo snarky. she's like a literate June Starr, that foul mouthed girl from Flannery O'Connor's story.
interesting topic: how would the depictions of family in this book compare to Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms?"
Could you transpose this to early 20th century Mississippi and still have the same novel?
Or how does this relate to Hawthorns "House of the Seven Gables?" --a depiction of a crazy New England family.
hmmmmmmm?
not to jump the gun, but who picks the next book, and could they pick it soon? I leave for Maine soon, and I want to have all my July reading material ready, and the San francisco library has everything in every language.
good pick this month,
dust
Dusty, I think you may be onto something. There's lots of southern literature about these grand old families, hanging onto their name and what's left of their class status, even as the old plantation falls to ruins around them.
Still, I can't think of a book like that with a narrator like Cassandra, or such a light-hearted tone. Most southern lit of that variety is pretty grim. The closest I can think is the latest Lee Miller book, On Agate Hill, but even it is totally depressing.
Truman Capote might come close to capturing that spirit, but I haven't read Other Voices, Other Rooms. "The Grass Harp" has some things in common with I Capture the Castle, though.
what's that thanksgiving story he wrote? "A thanksgiving Remembrence" or the like?
I see this book as largely a spin on literary conventions, almost a parody. the daft sister. the rich american. it's tongue in cheek henry james.
the lines are completely funny. such as topaz's name, and the comment --there's no excuse for not changing it if it were her real name. hahahaah. very oscar wilde-y in a way.
Yeah, I love how snarky Cassandra is, and the making fun of the new-agey stuff Topaz does.
all and all, for not much of a plot line, i really enjoyed this book. i love the narrator's jabs at everyone. sassy.
i really like the marrying for money plot line. i still think that goes on to a certain extent.
whatelse, oh i saw the movie. very ivory merchanty. i fell asleep. i liked it though. good choice,
I think Karen has the next book pick, btw.
hey, karen can you pick a book shortly. i'm leaving town shortly.
i really liked how we did it this month. seems like people read the book lickety-split, and had a lot to say.
Despite not commenting, I have actually read the book. And I liked it! Although I didn't think the father was that bad. Have some self respect already. What did rub me the wrong way is how everyone enabled the father to be like that. I loved it when the locked him in the tower, b/c finally someone was taking fate into their own hands instead of passively sitting by and hoping he would start work.
And I also found myself wishing the coupling would change. I wanted Cassandra and Stephen to wind up together. Stephen was my favorite character. After he worked so hard and cared so much for the Mortmain family, he deserved to get the girl. I'm fine with Rose and Neal, but I did want Simon to find someone...and deep down I kinda wanted Rose to be the one alone. It irritated me that she had nothing to her except "I'm pretty/get married."
I had some of the same feelings as Karen about the romantic aspect...poor Stephen! I felt so bad when he got her the radio and then Simon got her a better one. I did like, though, that everything isn't all tied up neatly in the end--maybe Cassandra and Simon will get together, but he's still hung up on Rose and it's not clear that he'll get over her.
Karen, have you settled on the July pick yet?
July's read: "Eats, Shoots & Leaves." Yes it's a book about grammar. It was that or the Dog Whisperer. I figured this would go over better.
i'm down for the dog whisper. maybe next time. but i needs the grammar.
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