I wonder if it's easier for her to have confidence in herself when alone because so often, when she's around people, they've exerted authority over her (her mother, her sister, even her brother in law). With other people around, she may automatically revert to looking for approval and/or expecting to be reprimanded. And to be fair, Theo is a strong personality (telling her to "follow, follow" and taking her out of the house despite her fear), and Doctor Montague is trying to be In Charge(tm) of the event, which may both contribute to her feelings.
Thanks for the map Ruth. Although somehow the text description that Jackson gives us in the book conjures up a far stranger house in my imagination. Sometimes the audience co-creates the work of art.
I think Shirley mislead the reader on purpose. In one section she says someone exits the dining room into the game room immediately beyond. This is impossible, according to her map. If I’m not mistaken, the layout description changes slightly a few times.
Mrs. Dudley is far more creepy for being such a good cook! Even Luke seems unnerved by her.
Though group is strange and unwilling to share much of their real selves, their dialogue has a strange sibling-like intimacy. Like Theodora and Eleanor’s conversation in the field, the statements don’t quite make sense though the characters seem to follow each other. And the untruths they tell reveal a great deal. I was happily surprised by the provocative specificity of Eleanor’s assertion: “I am by profession an artist’s model. . .I live a mad, abandoned life, draped in a shawl and going from garret to garret.” And she speaks to silence her thoughts so that Theodora can’t sense them.
I’m wondering how much pre-planning Jackson did when she wrote; did she outline in advance and stick to it or let the story lead her? Both? Because the plot seems so intricate, I’m curious to know more about her technique. And I also can’t imagine what happens next to this crew: courtesan, pilgrim, princess, and a bullfighter.
That’s a really interesting thought, Jennifer: Eleanor speaking--and voicing scattered, invented fictions--with the intent of making her thoughts impossible to read.
Thanks for highlighting that moment of fear. It's the _little_ things, the moments, that this mood of a book is made of.
Love the map! If I read it correctly, the room they're in backs on the dining room but they can't get there except by going out the front, turning left in the hall to the parlor, exiting the parlor into the passageway and then into the dining room; truly confounding!
And we're back to adverbs again in this section.
I'm reminded of Eddie Murphy's piece on haunted houses--only white people don't listen. And that the three guests are adamantly insisting on info despite Dr M's warning? How foolish these mortals be.
For some reason I'm unable to post a self-standing comment today, so my thoughts somewhat bounce off these about doors etc. Continuing the reading journey, it becomes clearer that the main character in The Haunting of Hill House is Hill House itself. Just as each of the humans has a backstory so does the house. The doors into these backstories are gradually opening just a crack. "You'd have to prop them open with something, then," Eleanor said. "Every door in this house swings shut when you let go of it." The house is inscrutable and as reader I feel a mixture of excitement and apprehension about those doors opening. What will they let out, unleashed, and what will see inside?
Regarding Mrs Dudley, I was wondering if she was an AI Replika since her welcome to Eleanor and Theodora was identical as if she were programmed.
I'm having the same issue, Karin! So I'll append my comment to yours, since it's related to the nature of the house:
First. I have a terrible sense of direction, so I'm sure Hill House would be a nightmare for me in more ways than intended!
A couple of interesting aspects of today's pages for me:
- The house as an entity that seems to both trap and repel. The rooms are uncomfortable to the point of being inhospitable (the slippery chairs in the parlor are a creepy touch here), but the doors shut and, according to Dr. Montague, the property is loathe to let people depart.
- Dr. Montague's constantly interrupted statement of "Tomorrow..." It was unsettling, because he was trying to give the group some sense of grounding or direction, and it kept being taken away. So we have no concrete plans for this hypothetical tomorrow, and he confesses not knowing why he brought them there.
And, of course, we will now settle in for an evening ghost story that might make the visitors want to leave.
I'm glad it's not just me that's struggling to navigate commenting here, trying to get in by opening various doors (pages) and finding them all closed! I like what you say about the house trapping and repelling. That's interesting what you say about 'Tomorrow' since from earlier in the novel, when setting out on her journey, Eleanor said: 'Time is beginning this morning in June, she assured herself, but it is a time that is strangely new and of itself'. Somehow I feel the house's history - Yesterday - may assert itself.
Oh, that's a good connection! There's definitely a strong sense of present time so far in the story. The future is nebulous, or being ignored, and the four occupants do not wish to discuss their pasts. But tomorrow must come, right? At least, we hope it does (even if Mrs. Dudley has her doubts).
I love the connection between the characters' backstories and the doors of the house. There are moments when it seems the characters are going to open up, like when Luke says they should introduce themselves for real, or when Eleanor asks why they're at Hill House at all, but then they split off into fantasy or Dr. Montague tries to push it off to tomorrow. And it's interesting because the reader has already been formally introduced to them all, and to Hill House--so they're not shutting the readers out, exactly, but just each other.
Karin, you say that it becomes clearer that the main character is Hill House itself. And that makes me think: How is the title of the book to be understood? Are there spirits that are haunting the house? Or is it the house itself (and nothing else) that is haunting the occupants?
I actually thought they were playing a parlor (pun not intended, but there it is....) game that I was not familiar with because of the ease with which they went around - "round-robin"- like, with it. A verbal version of charades.
My experience with a mysterious house happened the summer that I was eleven, on a family vacation in Cape Cod. It was 1968. The old house we stayed in had rooms in odd places and unidentifiable shapes covered with sheets. We opened one door to find a cot with bundles of sheets on it - we named it “The Mummy Room.” My two younger sisters and I refused to sleep apart and dragged our mattresses into one of the bedrooms so we could be next to each other on the floor. One evening a neighbor dropped by and as we all sat around the kitchen table, he told us about his powers of mind control, so impressive that he was able to undergo dental surgery without anesthetic. I’m fairly sure he was a neighbor but we only saw him that once.
I love the scene of them all playing pretend together, spinning their fake identities and playing with the names. It's such a fun scene, but if you look at it too long (which I love to do) you start to wonder why none of them give actual information about themselves--what insecurities are they trying to mask? And can they withstand a haunted house together if they cannot actually talk to each other? But I also wonder what their choices of alter ego say about themselves. I haven't dug into the other three, but when Doctor Montague called himself a pilgrim, I thought it was the most honest of the group. As if seeking out haunted houses, or hauntings in general, is his pilgrimage. And it's brought him to Hill House, a terrifying holy place.
"The sun went down smoothly behind the hills, slipping almost eagerly, at last, into the pillowy masses." Lovely, ominous beginning: dusk arrives. "Around them the house steadied and located them, above them the hills slept watchfully, small eddies of air and sound and movement stirred and waited and whispered..." Love this too. "'Notes,' he said with relief, as though fixing upon one unshakeable solidity in a world of fog, "notes. We will take notes--to some, a not unbearable task." I laughed out loud. Notes are apparently the doctor, or the pilgrim's, salvation.
“An Eleanor, she told herself triumphantly, who belongs, who is talking easily, who is sitting by the fire with her friends.” Oh my heart broke! She’s spent maybe an hour with these people and already, they are her (only) friends. To call herself the fourth person in the room when she was actually the first to arrive. She has so little confidence but is so bright, funny, and interesting to her new companions in this scene.
That is very interesting what Jackson says in the quote about fear and guilt destroying identity. Destroying identity .. almost snuffing it out. Identity needs room to breathe, and it seems that Hill house doesn't like giving up any of its room, or rooms, to anyone.
Eleanor is fearful and guilty, and she is self-monitoring in social situations, but she also seems to often speak off the top of her head, as if tapping into some alternate persona. As if she can't help herself.
All the dialogue is a delight to read in this section.
Jackson's map of Hill House - looks quite rational! It confirms the feeling I've been having while reading the book that the real horrors of the house aren't really in its design or lay out as much as they are in something ineffable that its builders knew better than anyone.
I like that Jackson seems to be playing with reader expectations by making Mrs. Dudley a good cook. As if whatever she makes must by some simple rule of consistency be terrible. I think this subversion is very creepy. It is almost like Mrs. Dudley is trying to keep everyone there by feeding them delicacies so she can keep telling them they are in for it. Obviously a sadist. Yikes!
To me Hill House seems less creepy than a last chance space to find purpose and belonging: “… the hills slept watchfully, small eddies of air and sound and movement stirred and waited and whispered, and the center of consciousness was somehow the small space where they stood, four separated people, and looked trustingly at one another” (41). The tenuous gathering,“[a] courtesan (sexually liberated – and desired woman?), a pilgrim (wanderer seeking higher purpose?), a princess (“humble” fairytale heroine, seeking meaning in the “ordinary” life?), and a bullfighter (a courageous challenger of the odds/survival?)” appear to playfully default to dreams – imaginings - of other personas, other lives in which societal expectations are cast aside, and qualities of independence become the foundation for belonging. Indeed, at the beginning of their encounter with each other, they are “silent for a minute, wanting to move closer together” (41). Eerily desperate, perhaps, or desperately desirous of finding connection?
I'll be thinking about Jackson's paradoxical view of fear as destroying identity on the one hand, and her taking delight in her own fear on the other. Perhaps the identity summoned here is a variety of false front presented outward, in which case her comment coheres nicely--fear can smash our self-delusions (and may therefore earn respect, or even delight for certain stalwarts!). Eleanor certainly seems ripe for that collision.
Mrs. Dudley's excellent cooking adds so much to the constant feeling that intimacy and hospitality is dangerous. You see it here in this passage, with everyone's resistance to being known, with Eleanor's skittishness about Theo's perceptiveness, with Dr. Montague's warning about how the house doesn't like people to leave. The book is still ambivalent, I think, about that danger: are the characters right to be jumpy about closeness, or is that one of the traps created by the house's hostility? Is it better to be fearful in the face of Hill House, or is fear our greatest enemy?
The Jackson quote at the beginning of this post raises the same question for me: is Theo's bravery admirable after all? Or is she refusing to examine fear - to "comprehend" and thereby master it - and to allow Eleanor or anyone else to comprehend it?
It gives Eleanor's fragile sense of belonging such a joyful and ominous feeling.
If not childlike, Eleanor seems to impulsively want to impress them..
I wonder if it's easier for her to have confidence in herself when alone because so often, when she's around people, they've exerted authority over her (her mother, her sister, even her brother in law). With other people around, she may automatically revert to looking for approval and/or expecting to be reprimanded. And to be fair, Theo is a strong personality (telling her to "follow, follow" and taking her out of the house despite her fear), and Doctor Montague is trying to be In Charge(tm) of the event, which may both contribute to her feelings.
Thanks for the map Ruth. Although somehow the text description that Jackson gives us in the book conjures up a far stranger house in my imagination. Sometimes the audience co-creates the work of art.
I think Shirley mislead the reader on purpose. In one section she says someone exits the dining room into the game room immediately beyond. This is impossible, according to her map. If I’m not mistaken, the layout description changes slightly a few times.
Mrs. Dudley is far more creepy for being such a good cook! Even Luke seems unnerved by her.
Though group is strange and unwilling to share much of their real selves, their dialogue has a strange sibling-like intimacy. Like Theodora and Eleanor’s conversation in the field, the statements don’t quite make sense though the characters seem to follow each other. And the untruths they tell reveal a great deal. I was happily surprised by the provocative specificity of Eleanor’s assertion: “I am by profession an artist’s model. . .I live a mad, abandoned life, draped in a shawl and going from garret to garret.” And she speaks to silence her thoughts so that Theodora can’t sense them.
I’m wondering how much pre-planning Jackson did when she wrote; did she outline in advance and stick to it or let the story lead her? Both? Because the plot seems so intricate, I’m curious to know more about her technique. And I also can’t imagine what happens next to this crew: courtesan, pilgrim, princess, and a bullfighter.
That’s a really interesting thought, Jennifer: Eleanor speaking--and voicing scattered, invented fictions--with the intent of making her thoughts impossible to read.
Thanks for highlighting that moment of fear. It's the _little_ things, the moments, that this mood of a book is made of.
Love the map! If I read it correctly, the room they're in backs on the dining room but they can't get there except by going out the front, turning left in the hall to the parlor, exiting the parlor into the passageway and then into the dining room; truly confounding!
And we're back to adverbs again in this section.
I'm reminded of Eddie Murphy's piece on haunted houses--only white people don't listen. And that the three guests are adamantly insisting on info despite Dr M's warning? How foolish these mortals be.
Relentless, ominous foreboding! Small dark rooms, doors swing shut, windows covered, confusing passageways, talk of death.
For some reason I'm unable to post a self-standing comment today, so my thoughts somewhat bounce off these about doors etc. Continuing the reading journey, it becomes clearer that the main character in The Haunting of Hill House is Hill House itself. Just as each of the humans has a backstory so does the house. The doors into these backstories are gradually opening just a crack. "You'd have to prop them open with something, then," Eleanor said. "Every door in this house swings shut when you let go of it." The house is inscrutable and as reader I feel a mixture of excitement and apprehension about those doors opening. What will they let out, unleashed, and what will see inside?
Regarding Mrs Dudley, I was wondering if she was an AI Replika since her welcome to Eleanor and Theodora was identical as if she were programmed.
I'm having the same issue, Karin! So I'll append my comment to yours, since it's related to the nature of the house:
First. I have a terrible sense of direction, so I'm sure Hill House would be a nightmare for me in more ways than intended!
A couple of interesting aspects of today's pages for me:
- The house as an entity that seems to both trap and repel. The rooms are uncomfortable to the point of being inhospitable (the slippery chairs in the parlor are a creepy touch here), but the doors shut and, according to Dr. Montague, the property is loathe to let people depart.
- Dr. Montague's constantly interrupted statement of "Tomorrow..." It was unsettling, because he was trying to give the group some sense of grounding or direction, and it kept being taken away. So we have no concrete plans for this hypothetical tomorrow, and he confesses not knowing why he brought them there.
And, of course, we will now settle in for an evening ghost story that might make the visitors want to leave.
I'm glad it's not just me that's struggling to navigate commenting here, trying to get in by opening various doors (pages) and finding them all closed! I like what you say about the house trapping and repelling. That's interesting what you say about 'Tomorrow' since from earlier in the novel, when setting out on her journey, Eleanor said: 'Time is beginning this morning in June, she assured herself, but it is a time that is strangely new and of itself'. Somehow I feel the house's history - Yesterday - may assert itself.
Oh, that's a good connection! There's definitely a strong sense of present time so far in the story. The future is nebulous, or being ignored, and the four occupants do not wish to discuss their pasts. But tomorrow must come, right? At least, we hope it does (even if Mrs. Dudley has her doubts).
I love the connection between the characters' backstories and the doors of the house. There are moments when it seems the characters are going to open up, like when Luke says they should introduce themselves for real, or when Eleanor asks why they're at Hill House at all, but then they split off into fantasy or Dr. Montague tries to push it off to tomorrow. And it's interesting because the reader has already been formally introduced to them all, and to Hill House--so they're not shutting the readers out, exactly, but just each other.
Karin, you say that it becomes clearer that the main character is Hill House itself. And that makes me think: How is the title of the book to be understood? Are there spirits that are haunting the house? Or is it the house itself (and nothing else) that is haunting the occupants?
Or it could be both?
Each character has established a persona. How will this carry forward?
I'm enjoying the way each chapter begins with an incredible paragraph to set the scene, then zooms in a little closer.
I found the conversation between them strange, when they were pretending to be each other and not say too much about themselves.
I actually thought they were playing a parlor (pun not intended, but there it is....) game that I was not familiar with because of the ease with which they went around - "round-robin"- like, with it. A verbal version of charades.
Yeah, I figured it was possibly a known game in that era. And one that I didn't know!
The "I love my love with a ..." is definitely an old game that I'm familiar with. But I'm not sure what other games their conversation ties into.
My experience with a mysterious house happened the summer that I was eleven, on a family vacation in Cape Cod. It was 1968. The old house we stayed in had rooms in odd places and unidentifiable shapes covered with sheets. We opened one door to find a cot with bundles of sheets on it - we named it “The Mummy Room.” My two younger sisters and I refused to sleep apart and dragged our mattresses into one of the bedrooms so we could be next to each other on the floor. One evening a neighbor dropped by and as we all sat around the kitchen table, he told us about his powers of mind control, so impressive that he was able to undergo dental surgery without anesthetic. I’m fairly sure he was a neighbor but we only saw him that once.
I love the scene of them all playing pretend together, spinning their fake identities and playing with the names. It's such a fun scene, but if you look at it too long (which I love to do) you start to wonder why none of them give actual information about themselves--what insecurities are they trying to mask? And can they withstand a haunted house together if they cannot actually talk to each other? But I also wonder what their choices of alter ego say about themselves. I haven't dug into the other three, but when Doctor Montague called himself a pilgrim, I thought it was the most honest of the group. As if seeking out haunted houses, or hauntings in general, is his pilgrimage. And it's brought him to Hill House, a terrifying holy place.
I wonder if they are instinctively trying to hide their true selves not necessarily from each other, but specifically from the *house*?
Oh I like that reading!
"The sun went down smoothly behind the hills, slipping almost eagerly, at last, into the pillowy masses." Lovely, ominous beginning: dusk arrives. "Around them the house steadied and located them, above them the hills slept watchfully, small eddies of air and sound and movement stirred and waited and whispered..." Love this too. "'Notes,' he said with relief, as though fixing upon one unshakeable solidity in a world of fog, "notes. We will take notes--to some, a not unbearable task." I laughed out loud. Notes are apparently the doctor, or the pilgrim's, salvation.
As they say on myth busters the difference between science and messing around is taking notes!
I keep wondering why it gets dark so early at the summer solstice?
Yes, I'd say it's later in the evening, but of course dinner is set out at 6:00, isn't it? So it's not late, unless the food sits for awhile. Hmm.
“An Eleanor, she told herself triumphantly, who belongs, who is talking easily, who is sitting by the fire with her friends.” Oh my heart broke! She’s spent maybe an hour with these people and already, they are her (only) friends. To call herself the fourth person in the room when she was actually the first to arrive. She has so little confidence but is so bright, funny, and interesting to her new companions in this scene.
That is very interesting what Jackson says in the quote about fear and guilt destroying identity. Destroying identity .. almost snuffing it out. Identity needs room to breathe, and it seems that Hill house doesn't like giving up any of its room, or rooms, to anyone.
Eleanor is fearful and guilty, and she is self-monitoring in social situations, but she also seems to often speak off the top of her head, as if tapping into some alternate persona. As if she can't help herself.
All the dialogue is a delight to read in this section.
Jackson's map of Hill House - looks quite rational! It confirms the feeling I've been having while reading the book that the real horrors of the house aren't really in its design or lay out as much as they are in something ineffable that its builders knew better than anyone.
I like that Jackson seems to be playing with reader expectations by making Mrs. Dudley a good cook. As if whatever she makes must by some simple rule of consistency be terrible. I think this subversion is very creepy. It is almost like Mrs. Dudley is trying to keep everyone there by feeding them delicacies so she can keep telling them they are in for it. Obviously a sadist. Yikes!
To me Hill House seems less creepy than a last chance space to find purpose and belonging: “… the hills slept watchfully, small eddies of air and sound and movement stirred and waited and whispered, and the center of consciousness was somehow the small space where they stood, four separated people, and looked trustingly at one another” (41). The tenuous gathering,“[a] courtesan (sexually liberated – and desired woman?), a pilgrim (wanderer seeking higher purpose?), a princess (“humble” fairytale heroine, seeking meaning in the “ordinary” life?), and a bullfighter (a courageous challenger of the odds/survival?)” appear to playfully default to dreams – imaginings - of other personas, other lives in which societal expectations are cast aside, and qualities of independence become the foundation for belonging. Indeed, at the beginning of their encounter with each other, they are “silent for a minute, wanting to move closer together” (41). Eerily desperate, perhaps, or desperately desirous of finding connection?
I'll be thinking about Jackson's paradoxical view of fear as destroying identity on the one hand, and her taking delight in her own fear on the other. Perhaps the identity summoned here is a variety of false front presented outward, in which case her comment coheres nicely--fear can smash our self-delusions (and may therefore earn respect, or even delight for certain stalwarts!). Eleanor certainly seems ripe for that collision.
Mrs. Dudley's excellent cooking adds so much to the constant feeling that intimacy and hospitality is dangerous. You see it here in this passage, with everyone's resistance to being known, with Eleanor's skittishness about Theo's perceptiveness, with Dr. Montague's warning about how the house doesn't like people to leave. The book is still ambivalent, I think, about that danger: are the characters right to be jumpy about closeness, or is that one of the traps created by the house's hostility? Is it better to be fearful in the face of Hill House, or is fear our greatest enemy?
The Jackson quote at the beginning of this post raises the same question for me: is Theo's bravery admirable after all? Or is she refusing to examine fear - to "comprehend" and thereby master it - and to allow Eleanor or anyone else to comprehend it?
It gives Eleanor's fragile sense of belonging such a joyful and ominous feeling.
I love how Dr. Montague suggests that even politics is a more agreeable topic of conversion than Hill House.
*conversation