20.6.08

LIVING IN THE CASTLE



I just read this book, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. I suppose I was ready to love it from the start - "I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had." What follows is the story of two girls, one possessed with agoraphobia and the other, the protagonist, deeply entrenched in her own fantastical world of demons, ghosts, and magic spells cast by burying coins and nailing books to trees. The great prize of this book is becoming involved in the protagonist's bizarre and macabre world. I lost my cell phone the other day and I find myself stuck in my own world without contact and confined to my home. Now more than ever, I have a drive to come out of my own world, out of my own head, and have faith and trust in the friends around me. The book is highly recommended.

2 comments:

Dan Rousseau said...

Didn't she write 'the lottery'?

P.J.S. said...

That's right, she did write the Lottery. I think she's one of those writers that more people have read than they realize.