Shirley Jackson & Guy Davenport up at the pond

Into the clear space left by reading Platonov, walks Shirley Jackson. We watched a film about her in which Shirley was played by a surly, slovenly Elizabeth Moss, and so I re-read We Have Always Lived in the Castle with her face in mind, her malicious demeanour. So childish you want to slap her. I wanted to get to the end of the book in order to get away from her. 

For our first pond day since — October? —  I read an article in the New Yorker about a singer whose sudden fame so knocked her sideways she went to Harvard to do a masters in divinity. 

For the second day, Guy Davenport, Ten Stories. All your curiosity focussed on the here and now. The socks going off, the icelandic jumper, too big, going on. 

In 'Belinda's World Tour', Kafka writes letters to Lizaveta from her doll Belinda, which she lost in the park, the first tragedy of her life.

Belinda did not have time to tell you herself. While you were not looking, she met a little boy her own age, perhaps a doll, perhaps a little boy, I couldn't quite tell, who invited her to go with him around the world. But he was leaving immediately. There was no time to dally. She had to make up her mind then and there. Such things happen. Dolls, you know, are born in department stores, and have a more advanced knowledge than those of us who are brought to houses by storks. We have such limited knowledge of things.

Belinda marries her abductor, Rudolf, yes, at Niagara Falls, and they are en route for the Argentine.

You must come visit our ranch. I will remember you forever. Mrs Rudolph Hapsburg und Porzelan (your Belinda). 

 

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

How do I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson? The only horror stories I've read are by Henry James and Wilkie Collins, both old enough for horror to vanish into style. Film is where horror comes into its own. Black and white. I read Shirley Jackson as if she wrote for film, black and white, with episodes in colour. I read her as an adolescent exploring her darkness. How would it be if I killed all my family except the sister I like, and the cat, and Uncle Julian. How would that be? Is this horror or everyday life?

The main character in We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Merricat, is eighteen but feels like a wilful twelve. She charts her daily routes like a board game, she buries things, pins things to trees, neatens the house on the days for neatening the house, distrusts all visitors and maintains all barricades.

Does this ring a bell?

The author photo on the Penguin Modern Classics edition shows a three-quarter view of a woman in pearls and glasses, with a full mouth and a downward outward look, a nearly wicked smile. I used to know women who had that look. The pearls could throw you off the scent, and the light brown hair softly pulled off the face.

Outright stories, like this one, make me uneasy. I wasn't able to put my own cards on the table in a story-like way. Horror stories are wish fulfilment stories. If we lived in this house, had always lived in this house, if we lived in this house even after most of it had burned down because They out there hated us until, some time after the fire, they decided to leave us alone, even leave us food, the children playing at a distance, as if we were owed respect. For what? For killing the rest of our family?