I Capture the Castle

By Dodie Smith, no pictures

This book has been recommended to me strongly by almost all of my best [female] friends. Alas, I don't think I could enjoy it properly. The first half I couldn't put down--literally--it was 6:15 and finally the book turned sour, so I didn't mind pausing to sleep. I heard the birds (they always seem to start singing around 3:30 [they are bizarre city birds]) and saw the dawn come. Anyway, the problem was that I fell in love with Stephen and so was doubly struck by the tragedy of the book--that everyone loves someone he can't have (I mean, I really can't have Stephen; he isn't a person. But the narrator isn't even bright enough to choose him!). I thought that the narrator's Madame-Bovary romanticism would be outgrown and real life would be embraced, but that was too optimistic of me. And I am unspeakably wary of any storyline that includes one's sister falling in love with one's man.

Now, that's not to say that the first 200 pages weren't delightful, because they were. And that's not to say that there wasn't an isolated instance of non-selfish devotion in the book, because there was, and it was beautiful, and it was Stephen. The thing is, I think it was a tragedy, but not even tragedy at it's best (where a man's character is at odds with his society's notion of the good). Rather, it was an utterly individualistic tragedy in which the narrator (the absolutely delightful narrator who reveled in all of life, even in suffering; that's not to say that reveling is what we're meant to do with life) and her conception of the good were at odds with another character's conception of the good life, which included her, but didn't include her adequately enough for her own tastes (his proposal wasn't sufficient). All that to say, it was entirely distressing in a way that I haven't been distressed by a novel since I read the Brontes.