Posts without pictures are boring

And since I'm too lazy to upload mine, here's a google image of what I've been up to lately (because really this lack of pictures is boring me)

I didn't plan to blog about every book I read (in case you were wondering, I'm currently on a Sherlock Holmes kick) because honestly I read too much (what's a social life?) but another book with a narrator of questionable sanity caught my attention.

There's a pretty large chance that you've read Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" in high school at some point, but she's also written several novels, including We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I was fascinated by "The Lottery" but for some reason didn't consider that she had written other things too, until I heard about this book on a blog, read the Amazon reviews, and realized that she was the author of that much-loved short story.

Merricat (aka Mary Katherine) is blatantly insane, but in a more blatant/supernatural/unaware way than Susanna (from Girl, Interrupted). She lives with her beloved sister and equally (but uniquely) insane uncle, and within several sentences tells us in her usual straightforward, oddly unemotional manner, "Everyone else in my family is dead." Comments about "living on the moon," talking to her cat, and riding a "winged horse" are sprinkled liberally throughout the book in the same matter-of-fact manner.

The mystery surrounding her family's death is supposedly the cause of the villager's animosity towards Merricat and her family, although tension has always been present ("The people of the village have always hated us"), and the general impression is that Merricat would have been happy with her secluded existence even if the villagers malice had been less obvious. Although Merricat's sister, Constance, was accused (and acquitted) of poisoning her family, homicidal impulses may well run in the family, as Merricat frequently thinks, "I wished they were all lying there dead on the ground."

As in "The Lottery," mob mentality rules the villagers, and the children have been conditioned to chant a haunting poem as Merricat goes about her errands:
"Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea/Oh no, said Merricat, you'll poison me!/Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep?/Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!"

Naturally, this conflict between the villagers and Merricat comes to a head within the novel, allowing Jackson to showcase even more dramatic mob scenes, different types of insanity, and life within a secluded household.

I realize this summary isn't exactly the best (it's summer cut me some slack), but I really hope you pick it up and give it a chance. In writing this review I wanted to increase the book's readership (because really, for a book this brilliant I was surprised by how unknown it is), although this blog might not be the best platform considering that the only actual reader is me. Whoops.