Tag Archives: shirley jackson

my five favorites — classics

Another list of favorites. This time the clas­sics have their turn.
I have restricted myself to choos­ing five, but really…that is not enough, I know. Still, for the sake of not mak­ing my list two whole pages, here are my picks.

1. Pride and prej­u­dice — Jane Austen: who doesn’t know the story of Eliz­a­beth Ben­net and Mr Darcy? The best love story of all times.

2. Rebecca — Daphne du Mau­rier: a haunt­ing story with a twist of two women strug­gling for the atten­tion of one man.

this is a pre­view of my five favorites — clas­sics. read the full post (147 words & 1 image, esti­mated 35 secs read­ing time)
August 11, 2009 – 11:30 | by eb | posted in classics | tagged , , , , , , | 17 views comments (0)

we have always lived in the castle — shirley jackson

524 stars

Mary Kather­ine (‘Mer­ri­cat’) Black­wood lives, together with her older sis­ter Con­stance and Uncle Julian, in a castle, long ago bought by her ances­tors. It is a beau­ti­ful and mighty cas­tle, but some­thing hor­ri­ble hap­pened eight years ago and that is why the fences and cas­tle doors are closed for all (town) peo­ple. Mary Kather­ine has to go to town twice a week for gro­ceries and has her own rit­ual to go around there, because oth­er­wise she gets lost in hate­ful sneers and looks of the town peo­ple. The rest of the time the Black­woods are cut of from every­day life, but they like it that way.
Until, one day cousin Charles appears at the doorsteps of the cas­tle. His inten­tions are clear for Mary Kather­ine, but Con­stance is dragged into Charles’s mind­set and all that has hap­pened eight years ago is com­ing back to the service.

this is a pre­view of we have always lived in the cas­tle — shirley jack­son. read the full post (180 words & 1 image, esti­mated 43 secs read­ing time)
July 19, 2008 – 20:23 | by eb | posted in classics, horror, into movies, recommendations | tagged , , | 71 views comments (1)

the haunting of hill house — shirley jackson

3 stars

Dr. Mon­tague is an occult scholar and he wants some solid evi­dence about the phe­nom­e­non called haunt­ing. He sets his eyes on Hill House, a big man­sion up in the hills, to con­duct his study. The house is said to be haunted and any­body who tried liv­ing there, moved out after only three or four days (and nights). Dr. Mon­tague is set on explain­ing. To do so he invites three oth­ers to live with him in Hill House, all some­what expe­ri­enced in the phe­nom­e­non. First there is Theodora, his light­hearted assis­tant, always in for a good scar­ing and laugh. Then there is Luke, the heir to be of the place. He has to be there, because of his aunt, who didn’t want any­one in the place with­out some fam­ily. And last but not least, there is Eleanor, an emo­tion­ally unsta­ble girl, no stranger to the ‘unknown’. How long will they stand the haunt­ing of Hill House?

this is a pre­view of the haunt­ing of hill house — shirley jack­son. read the full post (229 words & 1 image, esti­mated 55 secs read­ing time)
June 12, 2008 – 11:58 | by eb | posted in classics, horror | tagged , , | 98 views comments (0)