Author: Shirley Jackson
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Publication Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 246
Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Luke, the adventurous future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past. As they begin to cope with chilling, even horrifying occurrences beyond their control or understanding, they cannot possibly know what lies ahead. For Hill House is gathering its powers - and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
-----------------------
The Haunting of Hill House is a Gothic horror novel by Shirley Jackson. It follows Dr. Montague, a scholar who’s been researching about psychic phenomenon. After hearing rumor about a haunted house on the hill, he invited other people with previous psychic experience to join him staying in the house looking for evidence. Two of the people he invited joined his experiment, Eleanor and Theodora. As a condition to stay in the house, the family member of the house owner must join them to stay too. So Luke, the inheritor of the house joined them to spend several days in the haunted house. While staying there, they experienced strange things. However, was it really happened or was it just in their head.
Since the Haunting of Hill House is a book about a haunted house, the heart of the story is of course the house itself. The setting of this book plays an important role. The hill house is a huge mansion with many dark corridors and confusing hallways. It has doors which lead to nowhere and rooms with not enough sunlight coming in. It sure has a sordid past of the previous home-owner which we’ll learn in the book. It is also located in the middle of nowhere. Once you go there, it will be difficult to get out. It makes people feel isolated which could easily drive them to madness. In the book, the characters speak of the house as if it’s another person with strong personality, the Hill House they called it. It’s such a perfect setting for a horror story.
Aside of the four characters I mentioned earlier, there are also Mr. and Mrs. Dudley, the house caretaker. They don’t stay at the house until dark and Mrs. Dudley has a strict schedule around the house. Creepy caretaker sure adds another point to the horror factor of this book.
Though the plot opens with Dr. Montague’s experiment, I believe that the center of this story is Eleanor. Prior to the experiment, Eleanor spent her life taking care of her mother. She never really lived alone. The invitation sounds like a ticket to freedom for her. Reading this book, we’ll be in her head a lot. We’ll see how she always thinks about what others think of her. She’s desperate to be accepted so she turned to be paranoid and clingy which will finally break her.
So far, I’ve read another one of Jackson’s books and several of her short stories. Her writing has this subtle horror which is the kind of horror that I enjoy reading. The horror in her books don’t come from jump scares. In fact, I don’t think there’s ever a mention of ghost apparition in this book. Her writing is unsettling and what makes it scary is this slow realization that something bad is happening and it’ll be too late to stop it. It creeps on you. I love it.
The Haunting of Hill House was actually on my TBR list for years. What drove me to finally read it is the Netflix adaptation. So this book has been adapted into a Netflix series by Mike Flanagan. Apparently, I found out later that you don’t necessarily have to read the book before watching the series (like what we book snobs normally do) because the series is different. I’d say instead of an adaptation, the series is inspired by the book. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve watched the series and it’s good in its own right. Don’t expect it to be the same as the book. All in all as a person who’s normally scared and avoiding horror stories, I like reading the Haunting of Hill House. If you’re like me but interested in trying horror books, you could try reading this classic.
No comments :
Post a Comment