Book Review
Oct. 1st, 2020 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
This classic horror novel has lost none of its punch. Four people gather at the mysterious and foreboding Hill House with the intention of investigating psychic phenomena that reportedly occur there. Doctor Montague, the leader and convener of the group, is an academic who studies paranormal activity. Luke Sanderson is there as a representative of the family who owns Hill House. Theodora is a bohemian who is fleeing a quarrel with her lover. Eleanor Vance is a troubled woman who joined the venture as an escape from her dreary life. We see the week of their stay largely through Eleanor's eyes. Naturally, creepy things start happening in the house and the surrounding grounds, taking their toll on the group and their relationships with each other.
The Haunting of Hill House is a very effective and enjoyable haunted house tale. Jackson is very good at creating episodes of horror that build tension and are pretty frightening while retaining plenty of subtlety and mystery. I really liked the way these scenes don't have a denouement, they just end and then the narrative skips ahead to something entirely different, so that the tension never quite resolves. Jackson is also deliciously aware that a lot of effective horror lies in what the reader isn't told and never quite sees.
by Shirley Jackson
This classic horror novel has lost none of its punch. Four people gather at the mysterious and foreboding Hill House with the intention of investigating psychic phenomena that reportedly occur there. Doctor Montague, the leader and convener of the group, is an academic who studies paranormal activity. Luke Sanderson is there as a representative of the family who owns Hill House. Theodora is a bohemian who is fleeing a quarrel with her lover. Eleanor Vance is a troubled woman who joined the venture as an escape from her dreary life. We see the week of their stay largely through Eleanor's eyes. Naturally, creepy things start happening in the house and the surrounding grounds, taking their toll on the group and their relationships with each other.
The Haunting of Hill House is a very effective and enjoyable haunted house tale. Jackson is very good at creating episodes of horror that build tension and are pretty frightening while retaining plenty of subtlety and mystery. I really liked the way these scenes don't have a denouement, they just end and then the narrative skips ahead to something entirely different, so that the tension never quite resolves. Jackson is also deliciously aware that a lot of effective horror lies in what the reader isn't told and never quite sees.
