Goodreads Summary: First published in 1959 Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of
Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the
story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill
House: Dr Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a ‘haunting’;
Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young
woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill
House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with
inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers – and soon it
will choose one of them to make its own.
I’m going to keep this short. This book was chosen by a
member of my book club, keeping in line with Halloween. It is the first horror
I have ever read and I was disappointed. I always thought I didn’t like scary
books but upon starting this I had a huge feeling of excitement. I was
expecting something that would make me sleep with the lights on but alas, this
was very much NOT scary. At all. And I spook easy.
Shirley Jackson is excellent, there is no denying that. Her
story is wonderfully written, and while I didn’t personally like the characters,
they too were excellent. I enjoyed the group dynamics and psychological aspects
of the story but it wasn’t what we were looking for, for the book club. Funnily
enough, we thought the badly made movie which is only rated 12s was a lot more terrifying
than the book!
