JazzManJim
On the Downbeat
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2001
- Posts
- 27,360
I've just finished reading this book again for a project in my American Literature class.
Let me just say that if you've not read this book, and you enjoy a good read, you need to. Shirley Jackson is, in my opinion, one of the finest horror writers America has ever produced, easily on par with Stephen King, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H P Lovecraft, and Edgar Allen Poe. She's deep and clever, hiding literary allusions in her books (Shakespeare is a favorite). She is also very fond of using the "demon lover" plot device, and in this book she does so very effectively.
Please try to forget the movies which have been made from this book (though "The Haunting", made is 1963 is probably the best adaptation of the book). None of them actually reach the depth of scariness this book embodies. It can easily make you stay up at night, even though you may not think so when you begin reading it.
It is, as far as I can see, the inspiration for at least two Stephen King works ("The Shining" and the TV Miniseries "Rose Red"), and King has done perhaps the best interpretation of the themes Jackson explored I've read of seen thus far.
Basically, this is one hell of a book. Read it.
Let me just say that if you've not read this book, and you enjoy a good read, you need to. Shirley Jackson is, in my opinion, one of the finest horror writers America has ever produced, easily on par with Stephen King, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H P Lovecraft, and Edgar Allen Poe. She's deep and clever, hiding literary allusions in her books (Shakespeare is a favorite). She is also very fond of using the "demon lover" plot device, and in this book she does so very effectively.
Please try to forget the movies which have been made from this book (though "The Haunting", made is 1963 is probably the best adaptation of the book). None of them actually reach the depth of scariness this book embodies. It can easily make you stay up at night, even though you may not think so when you begin reading it.
It is, as far as I can see, the inspiration for at least two Stephen King works ("The Shining" and the TV Miniseries "Rose Red"), and King has done perhaps the best interpretation of the themes Jackson explored I've read of seen thus far.
Basically, this is one hell of a book. Read it.
