the haunting of hill house shirley jackson book

The house appears to listen to them, and soon strange events and unearthly noises punctuate the nights the group spend at Hill House. However the next morning they find the house itself is confusing and find it difficult to negotiate their way to the dining room.

The group settle in ready to experience all the strange manifestations of a haunted house, their first night is quiet, they all sleep well. The rather odd housekeeper Mrs Dudley sticks rigidly to her routine, preparing dinner to keep warm, so she can leave the house for the village six miles away, making sure she leaves Hill House before dark, clearing away the dinner things the next morning. Hill House is large house that appears comfortable – but it isn’t – built on odd angles the rooms have a peculiar feeling, its very comfort oppressive and uncomfortable. 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.” 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. “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. The Haunting of Hill House differs from M R James in that it is more of a psychological ghost story – in the slow unravelling of Eleanor’s mind it is in fact more like Henry James’ ‘The Turn of the Screw’. The group consist of: Eleanor Vance, who as a child experienced a peculiar event possibly brought about by poltergeist, Luke a liar, a thief and the future inheritor of the estate, and Theodora who had come to the academic’s attention by her ability to correctly guess a sequence of cards. Around him he gathers a small group of people who he hopes will help unsettle whatever spirits may exist in Hill House. An academic embarking upon an investigation, Dr Montague is essentially a ghost hunter. ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ owes much to the traditions of writers like M R James.

Despite my disbelief in all things ghostly being absolute, I do occasionally like a bit of a ghost story.

The haunting of hill house shirley jackson book