Haunting of Hill House

So, down the page a bit there’s going to be a book review of Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. But first I have to set something straight.

As an author it’s difficult to do a review. It’s kind of like, who am I to judge any other author’s work? I’m not better than any other author. It doesn’t mean my opinion on a novel is any less.

An author with an opinion on a book can be a powerful thing. If Stephen King had a book review blog and gave a negative review of your novel, it would be devastating I’d assume. Or it could go the other way. When King said Cliver Barker was the future of horror, I can’t imagine how that hurt Barker’s career. See my point. I’m not saying I’m King; I’m saying I know there could be backlash in the future if an author I review becomes huge, and I’m quoted here as saying, they’re subpar or something horrible like that.

The point is, I think I found a way to review books and not be a turd about it. As a matter of fact, hit me up if you’re an author book reviewer. I’d love to hear from you and see how you do it. We can compare notes.

With all that having been said, I’m not going to use a star system like over on Amazon.com or Goodreads.com. The star system is used to sell books, not to talk about them. I’m here to talk about books, not sell them.

In addition, I’m just going to talk about an element or so I found intriguing and about why I chose the particular book to review. Not every book I read is worth a review. It’s just how it is.

So here goes.

After watching the Netflix show, I finally got around to reading the novel Haunting of Hill House. As some of you might find interesting, I read it electronically from the library. It’s a short read so just sitting up in bed at night or when I woke up gave me enough time to rock through it.

Here’s what’s interesting. After reading it and subsequently checking out the 1963 movie, I’m not convinced it was supposed to be a proper horror story. It’s propped up as being kind of the beginning to the haunted house genre. Sure, she has the set up of some crazy dude who built a crazy house and crazy stuff ensued, including the place being haunted and death and all that stuff.

I get it.

Now hear me out.

Our main character Eleanor Lance has a strong inner dialogue throughout. Many attribute this to why the story is so psychologically effective. At the time, that same kind of inner dialogue, especially from a character coming from her place of weakness sits in a genre called: women’s fiction. The name sounds horrible nowadays, like I might have made it up, but I didn’t. It was a thing during the war. The voice was used more specifically for stay-at-home wives reflecting on their men who were off fighting.

I’m not saying it’s women’s fiction as a genre. But I am saying Jackson used that voice to identify Eleanor’s loneliness and aloneness to women. I could be reaching, but Eleanor is not a woman who has a led a full life and she has no intention on leading a full life, because she’s stuck in a certain mindset. She doesn’t see a future. I will argue that she’s classically depressed. She treats people like she’s depressed, and they treat her as such. Secondary character Theodora basically talks down to her the entire novel, shifting from caring about Eleanor like a mother does but on the other hand verbally despising Eleanor for being weak.

It’s looked at as psychological, almost supernatural in nature, but it’s a distraction from the real arc of a depressed woman with no place in the world, sinking.

The house leaves Eleanor messages, basically telling her to come home, to become part of it. It’s interesting that the house is known to be an ugly place, but Eleanor calls it comfortable. And, spoiler, if you haven’t read the book, she eventually seeks to be part of the house. Or, to say it differently, she and the house communicate because they share a similar past of people not liking them and just having horrible feeling attached to it.

The book version does not get deeply into the builder of Hill House too much, but we know his presence is there, somehow.

There are weird scary, physical moments as well, but they don’t amount to the house being evil. Just weird. Maybe creepy. As a matter of fact, in the book, the house chooses Eleanor. You never don’t think it’s something to do with her. It’s the reason they eventually sent her away, because although they all sensed ghosts or what have you, nobody was really affected except Eleanor. Again, I’ll say this a different way to drive the point home: the house only wanted her. Takes one to know one type deal.

Last thing.

Some people thumb their nose at the Netflix series because Netflix significantly changed the story. I mean it’s not close. But I would have done the same or something similar. Here’s why: originally the characters are asked to come to Hill House for the summer to be part of an experiment, and I don’t remember them being paid for their time. For an entire summer. And nobody tries to leave after some crazy stuff goes down. The place isn’t just leased but it has a maid…who cooks. The premise really makes no sense in our world. Also, the characters don’t have the kind of drama between them that come with todays television shows. To say it another way, the characters don’t have in interesting background. Netflix gave them all inner conflict to deal with, made those same characters siblings so they have a shared history and we have a deeper view and perspective of the house.

I can see not wanting it to change from the source material, but I get the impression the same folk who don’t want the characters to change don’t argue to keep the 1963 film version, which in many instances is verbatim from the book. Entire scenes are directly from the book, actually. And I’m sure they don’t want to keep the 1999 Owen Wilson, Catherine Zita-Jones, Liam Neeson film either.

To wrap it up, like I said, the book is less horror psychology than an emotional affair. Our main character was having that story long before she got to Hill House. The original is scary, mainly because of what the main character eventually does to herself and because depression is scary shit.