Posted: November 1, 2022
The Haunting of Hill House
I think that "The Haunting of Hill House" is a story about how a haunted house recruits for ghosts. Haha! What a thing to write about and read but I really do think this is what just happened in this book.
The Haunting of Hill House is part of my quartet of Halloween reads this year, together with Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts, Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart, and another book by Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
I've been hearing about this book forever and my turning of the last page has been met with that innate satisfaction one feels when, at last, one knows the story of such a popular title.
And what a story it is.
I am elated that The Haunting of Hill House is a classic haunted house tale - I've always wanted to read one of those. Well, at least it starts that way but towards the end it veers off into a surprising twist that initially put me off a bit but as the book settled in my mind I began to accept that that was the perfect ending.
The setup to the introduction of the haunted house is just perfect, building up layer upon layer of foreboding in that delicious way a proper horror book should. Then we get to the actual occurrences inside the house which begs the question: Is this book scary? Off the cuff, I would say not so much but just right for my tastes since I don't want to be too frightened by a book. One thing though, I did avoid reading this book late into the night with me alone in the house.
I can't help but read novels allegorically. So, looking at Hill House as that space where all society's rejects congregate - a way of life looked upon as largely negative by mainstream society, this novel illustrates how outsiders like Eleanor get to be seduced by the counter-culture crowd characterized by Hill House. Maybe that's seeing too much symbolism but that kind of allegorical reading enriches the book for me.
Faultless writing, ideal Halloween read, and very re-readable.