I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith
Why?
After reading a book, I quite often look at other reviews on goodreads and amazon. Mud By Emily Thomas seemed to evoke a lot of comparisons to "I Capture The Castle" which I had never even heard of, let alone read. After a bit of googling, I also found that it was listed as number 82 in BBC The Big Read (Wiki) in 2003 above the Godfather, Cold Comfort Farm and Oliver Twist. I requested via the library app and awaited its arrival at my pick up of choice.
What?
Otherwise known as amazon spiel:
'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink' is the first line of this timeless, witty and enchanting novel about growing up. Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fadingly glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother Thomas and her eccentric novelist father who suffers from a financially crippling writer's block. However, all their lives are turned upside down when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time.
'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink' is the first line of this timeless, witty and enchanting novel about growing up. Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fadingly glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother Thomas and her eccentric novelist father who suffers from a financially crippling writer's block. However, all their lives are turned upside down when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time.
If the above coffee cups are americano's, I really want to be able to add an expresso on the end. This is somewhere between a 4 and a 5 for me.
The characters are brilliantly portrayed and it helps that Cassandra'a perception is "consciously naive"; she works so hard to see the positive in people. It is a bleak and yet aesthetically pleasing world that we enter; filled by writers, artists, creative and beautiful people. Even the son of the maid, effectively adopted by the Mortmain's, is astonishingly handsome. although we are left to build our own picture of him. If we were to compare as readers, this would clearly illustrate our differing images of beautiful. Surely I am not the only one who hoped that Cassandra would suddenly appreciate Stephen? I want to be friends with Cassandra and Rose. And Stephen, Simon, Neil, Topaz, Thomas, maybe even James (no, perhaps not). Leda I would actively avoid but maybe that is just because I have a crush on Stephen....
Perhaps Smith romanticised England due to her well publicised suffering from being homesick, but that works brilliantly. I am sad that it took me so long to find this book; it is a wonderful novel about love and speculation. I am not sure that this is a "coming of age" book but rather about discovering true love and the strange and differing behaviours that it encourages.
Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.I cannot disagree with our heroine, Cassandra, even now but would have to of course add books and coffee. Despite the fact that this book was nearly 600 pages long, it didn't feel long enough. We meet the Mortmain family and they are extraordinary. Despite living in a castle, they are in poverty. Cassandra attempts to teach herself to write a novel by committing to a journal to document her daily life. It has inspired me; is this something that we should all do and leave the "Dentist at 16.30" entries to google calendar?
The characters are brilliantly portrayed and it helps that Cassandra'a perception is "consciously naive"; she works so hard to see the positive in people. It is a bleak and yet aesthetically pleasing world that we enter; filled by writers, artists, creative and beautiful people. Even the son of the maid, effectively adopted by the Mortmain's, is astonishingly handsome. although we are left to build our own picture of him. If we were to compare as readers, this would clearly illustrate our differing images of beautiful. Surely I am not the only one who hoped that Cassandra would suddenly appreciate Stephen? I want to be friends with Cassandra and Rose. And Stephen, Simon, Neil, Topaz, Thomas, maybe even James (no, perhaps not). Leda I would actively avoid but maybe that is just because I have a crush on Stephen....
Perhaps Smith romanticised England due to her well publicised suffering from being homesick, but that works brilliantly. I am sad that it took me so long to find this book; it is a wonderful novel about love and speculation. I am not sure that this is a "coming of age" book but rather about discovering true love and the strange and differing behaviours that it encourages.
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