Doesn’t it seem like the house waits for unusual circumstances to start acting up? Take for example the dressing room door. My house was built in 1928. Since it has 4 bedrooms and there are only 2 of us we decided to dedicate one entire room to our clothing. This room sits at the top of the stairs and is normally a very quiet room. Until, that is, one night, when I was alone in the house, sitting in the very seat that I am sitting in now, tapping away at the very keys I am tapping away at now, and while I was in the middle of reading The Haunting of Hill House. That night I heard a noise. Just the subtle pop of a door being opened. I sat frozen in my chair, thoughts of the madness of Hill House skittering across my mind like raindrops across a freshly waxed windshield.

I forced myself up and checked the guest room door. It had been open slightly in the first place and when I turned on the light there was no boogey man waiting for me. I checked the bedroom door. It too was already open and nothing waited for me there either. I dismissed the attic door completely because it requires main force to open that one. The only door left was the dressing room door and it appeared to be closed. I reached out, touching it lightly with the tips of my fingers. It moved. I shoved opened the door and flipped in the light switch with one quick motion. The room was empty. The door had popped open because it has been particularly cold for about 2 months and something somewhere had shrunk or shifted just enough to open the door.

This just demonstrates the power of The Haunting of Hill House. I have lived in this old house for 2 years now. I have never had any reason to think it haunted, but Shirley Jackson’s hypnotic prose can pull anyone in. The basic story of The Haunting of Hill House is this: a professor interested in occult phenomenon invites four people to a house reputed to be haunted in order to study what happens. I was telling Robinmichele that she just had to read this book. She loves the sound and feel of language; I look for plot and characterization. The use of language in this book is nothing short of remarkable. When she is describing Eleanor’s flight from her sisters house to Hill House you feel less like you are watching and more like you are feeling everything. Like each moment and action are yours. The first half of the book I nearly couldn’t put down.

However, once I reached the second half, the plot started to unravel on me. Now, like I said, I look at plot and characters. The plot became a little fragmented and confusing, almost as though it were doubling back on itself. And the characters started behaving oddly. I have to assume that the reason this was so glaring for me is because I have seen the movie, The Haunting with Claire Bloom (as opposed to the modern travesty starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Liam Neeson.) The plot of the movie, trimmed back to fit in the 2 hour format, was more streamlined. A lot of the bickering between Eleanor and Theodora was dropped completely. In the book there seems to be tension between Eleanor and Theodora over Luke, who stands to inherit the house. Eleanor seems to be jealous of Theodora’s interest in Luke and Luke’s apparent interest in Theodora, but this is never really brought into the open. And the subplot of the professor’s wife and her friend who come in to do a séance seems very forced. As though Jackson got to that point in the story and realized that she needed some one else to push the plot along.

It is a very good book, but I think I would have liked it better if I had read it before seeing the movie.

And by the way, to clear up confusion, The Haunting starring Claire Bloom is based on the book The Haunting of Hill House. The Haunting starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Liam Neeson is a remake of that film. And The House On Haunted Hill, starring Vincent Price is a completely different story (though not necessarily a bad one.)


Recommended: Yes