6.
Author(s): Shirley Jackson
Title: The Haunting of Hill House
Publication: Paperback
Pages: 182
Genre: Classic Horror
Acquisition: Complimentary copy from work book club
Date Completed: January 12, 2011
Rating: 4 stars out of 5

My sympathy lies with Hill House.

To say that I did not enjoy The Haunting of Hill House would be inaccurate, but the further along I got in the narrative the more I was plagued with a sense that I shouldn’t like the narrative. It inspired a sense of unease and irritation that I couldn’t place, and yet still I found myself tripping along the pages.

And then it hit me: I loathed each and every character Jackson spit out.

The characters are vapid and soulless, and the conversations are highly contrived, like some painfully amateur drama composed by someone completely without talent in an attempt to be edgy and mod. Their existence is recycled; I’ve met each of them before, and I can’t image that I enjoyed their company the first time around. As I turned each page I yearned for the house to swallow them whole and spit out the yellow shirt and the red sweater and the “wicked” nailpolish. I wanted something terrible to happen not because I was hoping for a scary story, but rather because I hoped the story would save me from the four temporary residents.

I am exceptionally glad that I had an opportunity to read Jackson’s famous haunted house story, and I am really looking forward to hearing what other readers will have to say at tomorrow’s book club meeting. I wonder if anyone else found Eleanor to be just another Mary Katherine?