Her spirit of adventure would certainly have made her a fun friend to have around on the odd occasion (though I wouldn’t have cared as much as she did for cherry brandy). Would I have found it more engaging if I’d read it when I was closer in age to Cassandra? Maybe. It did pick up in tension in the final quarter and with the kind of ambiguous ending that I enjoy.īut a memorable opening and a strong ending were not enough to make up for the mush in the middle. Really it was because I kept believing that at some point the “this happened, then that happened” steady pace of the narrative would erupt and we’d get into something far more interesting. If I Capture The Castle was so lacking in entertainment value, why did I keep reading to the end? A question I asked myself multiple times. The relief when I got to the end of each entry was swiftly followed by dismay that the next section was just more of the same. All in such meticulous detail that one episode can easily take up 20 pages or so. ![]() The exact location where she’s sitting to write the latest entry in the journal, the whereabouts of the various family pet what she’s wearing, what she’s just eaten and how she feels at that precise moment. I have discovered that the first few minutes are the best and not to be wasted– my brain always seethes with ideas and life suddenly looks much better than did. I believe it is customary to get one’s washing over first in baths and bask afterwards personally, I bask first. Nothing escapes her attention and she feels the need to document it all in her journals in microscopic detail. But the comic tone lost its novelty value the further into the narrative we got, and actually became quite tiresome.Įven more irritating was Cassandra’s tendency to document every emotion, every conversation and every episode in meticulous detail. ![]() There are some amusing scenes - especially one farcical episode where the two girls hide in a train luggage carriage and are mistaken for wild animals. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring – I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. That is, my feet are in it the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. I Capture The Castle is a simple coming of age story that has a quirky opening: Life in the castle is miserable until the Cottons, a wealthy American family, inherit nearby Scoatney Hall and become the Mortmains’ new landlords. Friendships ensue and love blossoms, bringing sweeping changes in the fortunes of the Mortmains. The remaining member of the household is Stephen, orphaned son of the Mortmain’s former maid whom the family have taken under their wing. ![]() Then there’s Cassandra’s elder sister Rose who longs for an Austen-like romance and younger brother Thomas who is a bright lad. She does have a practical side however, particularly adept at re-purposing her glamorous dresses into garments for her step daughters. He spends all his time in the gatehouse reading detective stories while his second wife Topaz and two daughters deal with real world like creating meals from next to nothing.Īs a former artist’s model, Topaz brings a touch of the exotic to the castle, often to be seen communing with nature by wandering about the grounds dressed in nothing more than gum boots. James Mortmain used the proceeds to rent the castle but since he hasn’t written anything for the last twelve years, the coffers are empty. So we get to know her father who once enjoyed international fame as the author of an experimental novel. Through her journals, she “captures” the people around her as practice for the novel she aspires to write. I Capture The Castle depicts eight months in the lives of the eccentric Mortmain family as seen by the youngest daughter, 17-year-old Cassandra. Many readers seemingly found Smith’s novel of two sisters and their crumbling castle home an endearingly charming tale but I’m not one of them. At number 82 in the list of 200 novels chosen for The Big Read, Dodie Smith’s debut work ranked higher than Dracula, Jude the Obscure and The Handmaid’s Tale.Ī few years earlier the BBC commissioned a panel of six writers and critics to choose 100 English language novels “that have had an impact on their lives”, I Capture The Castle was listed in the “family and friendship” category alongside George Eliot’s Middlemarch and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. In 2003, the British public voted I Capture The Castle one of the best loved novels of all time.
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