Gillian Devine

Vintage Book Review: “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson (1959)

Hallowe’en may be months away (unless you’re still revelling from the previous one) and the days are getting longer, well, by the day, but that shouldn’t get in the way of appreciating a classic supernatural horror story which has been acclaimed by Stephen King as the blueprint for the modern “spooky story”.

The tale begins with the rational-minded Dr Montague, who is sufficiently taken with the legend surrounding Hill House, to invite a few other people to stay with him in the house to “test his theory” that the unexplained goings-on can all be explained with science and reason.

There is Eleanor, a quiet, shy, reserved woman who becomes increasingly reluctant to participate in the stay before she even gets there; encounters with hostile local people on the journey makes her certain that there is a sinister secret surrounding the place. Soon she meets Theodora, her “cousin”, who is more outgoing but the two women stick closely together upon their meeting. Then there is Luke Sanderson, the heir to the property, but somehow among the least receptive – or cut off even – when it comes to the story behind Hill House.

Initially, everyone there is sufficiently spooked by the house itself – being a most imposing and unwelcoming place to spend any time in – only to have Dr Montague add to this by telling them the rather grisly story of the unfortunate family who first lived there. Madness, bad fortunes and suicide are recurring in the family history, and understandably no-one can bear to stay in the place for very long, but the new residents (perhaps excepting Eleanor, who anticipates the worst already) decide to give the house a chance.

However the opinion that the house is, essentially, a malignant and living thing, with a will of its own to drive out anyone who dares to live there, begins to ring all the more true. It is not long before frightening events begin to unfold – loud banging in the night, writing on the wall and destruction of property – which seem to happen to, or close to, Eleanor more than anyone else. Eventually this will result in a tragic ending, as Eleanor is killed while attempting to leave the house.

What makes this story so unsettling is that events are described in the narrative clearly enough to induce fear and unease in the reader, but also vaguely enough that a rational explanation can’t be ruled out entirely.

A subtle build-up of apprehension, combined with a disturbing back-story to overshadow the present narrative, serve to make this a story which has clearly influenced later supernatural writers, and continues to spook readers today.

Vintage Book Review: “Fahreheit 451” by Ray Bradbury (1953)

Fahrenheit 451 has become something of a classic, not only for “hard-core” fans of Ray Bradbury, but among many others who see the world going down the path of doing away with the written word, lest it offend anyone. Sixty years on, what Bradbury saw the future as being – in spirit if not in the literal sense – does not seem too far-fetched in the age of Dumbing Down.

The action begins with Guy Montag, a “fireman” on the job, which is basically to hunt down, and burn, any books that may still be in existence. The very first line is “It was a pleasure to burn”, and Bradbury evokes a strong image, saying that he “strode in a swarm of fireflies”, and when he meets an unusual, and highly inquisitive, teenage girl on the walk home (walking home, in itself, is considered a suspicious activity), Montag furthers the anti-hero image by saying ““Kerosene is nothing but perfume to me.”

But it is not long before, through the girl’s persistence, he is given pause for thought and begins to wonder just why his job is of such vital importance. The first major indication of something gone amiss is when he has to take his wife home from the hospital, after she apparently attempted suicide, but is given drugs so that she has no memory of doing so. Realising that he and his wife may be less than content in their (allegedly) idyllic book-free existence, he begins to question everything more outwardly. But it seems that Montag is the odd man out in this case, from the robot Hound that blindly follows orders (“It doesn’t think anything we don’t want it to think”) to his colleagues, who are adamant that they are performing a public service (“Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.”).

When his wife, and the mysterious young girl (also allegedly) disappear without a trace, and after a traumatic job assignment in which a woman is burned along with the books she tries desperately to hold onto, Montag decides enough is enough, and goes on the run in a quest for any literary knowledge, any “texture of information”, that may remain.

Bradbury, wryly and shrewdly, depicts a not-too-unrealistic world, in which books are seen as the enemy, rather than the ally, of the moral progress of human civilisation. Written not too long since a time when much book-burning was in fact taking place, Bradbury effectively draws attention to the notion that a totalitarian approach to the censorship of knowledge may lie in wait in the not-too-distant future.