I had never read Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel, which is shameful given one of my favourite films, The Haunting (1963), was based on it. I recently rectified the situation and read the novel, though I didn’t expect to give an honourable mention here.
I knew that the 1963 adaptation was pretty faithful to the book but there is nothing within the film that could have it (and the house at the centre) labelled as a vampiric building text. This is not true of the later (and also excellent) Mike Flanagan adaptation, The Haunting of Hill House, which made the house vampiric (and the least said about the 1999 film the better).
The house in the novel, however, is immediately coded as living and sentient (if mad):
There is a suggestion that it sought to feed from inhabitants when we are told, “The sense was that it wanted to consume us, take us into itself, make us a part of the house, maybe—”. Had the theme been expanded on then I would have been suggesting that the house was, indeed, vampiric but, as a throwaway, I will say it certainly flirts with the trope and this could lead to a vampiric reading.
The mention is offered as Jackson certainly draws the reader to the vampiric on a couple of occasions by associating the house with an imagined vampire inhabitant. In one exchange about housekeeper Mrs Dudley we get:
Later we get another mention, whilst discussing Mrs Dudley leaving the house in a car with two others (one of whom was her husband, who the characters had met at the gate of Hill House, but who the second person might have been is never discussed further):
The use of Dracula is interesting as Castle Dracula was meant, at one point, to be intimately connected with the vampire, collapsing on his death. In this case it is a mention in passing but I would suggest the mention was deliberately used in order to invoke a particular Gothic feel for the reader. Nevertheless, the invocation of Dracula within the text opens the opportunity for me to mention the book here.
In Paperback @ Amazon US
In Paperback @ Amazon UK
I knew that the 1963 adaptation was pretty faithful to the book but there is nothing within the film that could have it (and the house at the centre) labelled as a vampiric building text. This is not true of the later (and also excellent) Mike Flanagan adaptation, The Haunting of Hill House, which made the house vampiric (and the least said about the 1999 film the better).
The house in the novel, however, is immediately coded as living and sentient (if mad):
“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.”
There is a suggestion that it sought to feed from inhabitants when we are told, “The sense was that it wanted to consume us, take us into itself, make us a part of the house, maybe—”. Had the theme been expanded on then I would have been suggesting that the house was, indeed, vampiric but, as a throwaway, I will say it certainly flirts with the trope and this could lead to a vampiric reading.
The mention is offered as Jackson certainly draws the reader to the vampiric on a couple of occasions by associating the house with an imagined vampire inhabitant. In one exchange about housekeeper Mrs Dudley we get:
“‘She probably watches every move we make, anyway; it’s probably part of what she agreed to.’
“‘Agreed to with whom, I wonder? Count Dracula?’
“‘You think he lives in Hill House?’
“‘I think he spends all his week-ends here; I swear I saw bats in the woodwork downstairs.’”
Later we get another mention, whilst discussing Mrs Dudley leaving the house in a car with two others (one of whom was her husband, who the characters had met at the gate of Hill House, but who the second person might have been is never discussed further):
“‘First Murderer must be Dudley-at-the-gate; I suppose the other was Count Dracula. A wholesome family.’”
The use of Dracula is interesting as Castle Dracula was meant, at one point, to be intimately connected with the vampire, collapsing on his death. In this case it is a mention in passing but I would suggest the mention was deliberately used in order to invoke a particular Gothic feel for the reader. Nevertheless, the invocation of Dracula within the text opens the opportunity for me to mention the book here.
In Paperback @ Amazon US
In Paperback @ Amazon UK
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