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Loading... I Capture the Castleby Dodie Smith
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Bought this book at the Secret Garden Bookshop in Seattle. Had never heard of it before; discovered it via those little hand-written "Staff Picks" tags stuck to the shelves. Also, the giant J.K. Rowling blurb on the cover was hard to miss: "This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met."And I agree with Ms. Rowling. Cassandra Mortmain is a wonderful narrator, full of contrasts (blunt/poetic, naive/wordly), never insincere, and always well aware of her own shortcomings. The early chapters seem very Austen-ish (Cassandra herself draws parallels between her family and the Bennets), but as the novel wends its way through unrequited love and happily-ever-after-ness, it also becomes a meditation on religion, creativity, love, and beauty. I doubt I'm explaining it well. It doesn't seem at all contrived.Highly recommended.Added: Cassandra's dog, Heloise, made me think of this photo. ( )Really enjoyed this coming of age book! Nice pace to the book. Great book for busy times. Enough going on in the book to keep one's interest... not so much that one has difficulty keeping up with it. It's just right. Fun book. I really enjoyed this book. The characters were memorable and eccentric. It had an innocence and sweetness to the writing and the romance was just that it was a very romantic book. I was disappointed that the ending left me unfulfilled, it was too open-ended and felt almost rushed. Dodie Smith wrote "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" - my very favorite Disney movie, by the way, and also the best argument I've ever seen for the nuclear family. But that was a bit of a one-off - she was actually a rather well-known playwright, and had minor success as a novelist as well. I've read one of her other novels and it was sort of lame. But "I Capture the Castle" is delightful. The castle in question is a ruined one, currently inhabited by the Mortmain family, headed by Mr. Mortmain, a vaguely Joycean novelist who has not published a word in fifteen years or paid rent in four.I wou Consequent to his failure to earn, his family - 21-year-old Rose (beautiful and hungry), 17 year old Cassandra (curious and philosophical), 15-year-old Thomas (cheerful and oblivious) and the beautiful Topaz, stepmother to the children - are all trying to subsist on a non-existent income. Cassandra, a budding writer (hate that phrase) is trying to "capture" this strange and rather dream-like existence in the pages of her journal. Cassandra reminds me a bit of Joan Wyndham's "Love Letters"; she writes with that same mixture of naivite and pragmatism, laced with understated wit - I was on her side from the word Go. This would never be a desert-island book for me, but sometimes it is exactly the atmosphere I want. I would read it just for the descriptions of Topaz and her pseudo-intellectual commentaries on Art. "Oh, what worlds words weave!" says Cassandra, and I'm right there with her. It's lovely to visit the castle. Cassandra and her family live in a large, rather decrepit house built out of the remains of a castle. She and her family - sister Rose, brother Thomas, stepmother Topaz, father, and friend/servant Stephen - are all falling into decay along with the building. They have lived on the remains of her father's career as a writer, but for years he has written nothing else, and now the royalties have stopped coming in. Then a new family moves into the estate next door. The new heir is an American, Simon, with a brother named Neil. They are both young and handsome. Rose decides the best way out of their problems is to marry one of them. What happens next, as told by Cassandra in her diary, is not completely smooth sailing. I enjoyed this book. I liked Cassandra a lot. She's a very appealing character, honest and loyal, pretty clear-headed. But I was a little disappointed by the ending. And what's with these folks? Why didn't Rose, or the father, or Cassandra, any of them show a little independence and GET A JOB? That's what most people do when they need money - they work! Odd. no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0312201656, Paperback)Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain wants to become a writer. Trouble is, she's the daughter of a once-famous author with a severe case of writer's block. Her family--beautiful sister Rose, brooding father James, ethereal stepmother Topaz--is barely scraping by in a crumbling English castle they leased when times were good. Now there's very little furniture, hardly any food, and just a few pages of notebook paper left to write on. Bravely making the best of things, Cassandra gets hold of a journal and begins her literary apprenticeship by refusing to face the facts. She writes, "I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic, two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud."Rose longs for suitors and new tea dresses while Cassandra scorns romance: "I know all about the facts of life. And I don't think much of them." But romantic isolation comes to an end both for the family and for Cassandra's heart when the wealthy, adventurous Cotton family takes over the nearby estate. Cassandra is a witty, pensive, observant heroine, just the right voice for chronicling the perilous cusp of adulthood. Some people have compared I Capture the Castle to the novels of Jane Austen, and it's just as well-plotted and witty. But the Mortmains are more bohemian--as much like the Addams Family as like any of Austen's characters. Dodie Smith, author of 101 Dalmations, wrote this novel in 1948. And though the story is set in the 1930s, it still feels fresh, and well deserves its reputation as a modern classic. --Maria Dolan (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:16 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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