I CAPTURE THE CASTLE

[nundinae]

This is one of those books that seem to me to be less known on the continent, even if they are technically classics? Might be just the randomness of my reading choices.

It was an interesting experience on so many fronts! Dodie Smith wrote this in the US in 1948, quite evidently pining after home and in throes of nostalgia (it’s about the 1930s). I always find it genuinely fascinating how the British can feel nostalgic for the thirties, because in my Eastern/Middle European reading experience, 90% of what is read in school is the second world war, with most detailed descriptions of every historical horror conceivable, so I the thirties feel to me as a Prelude During Which You Should Have Seen the Signs. Smith, obviously, has no blackshirts marching through her idyllic English countryside, which makes it just exotic enough for me not to mind, well, things (though it has to be a completely different experience for British teenagers who have been fed the steady diet of children-evacuated-to-the-countryside; it must be boring maybe?). But then Smith was not entirely out of touch: there are some interesting bits about classism, and then some hints about changing times and multiple mentions of democracy. The last bit might be Smith playing the most delightful guest (with much conscious naïveté), though. It is quite clear that she tried to present the US characters as entirely delightful (the Henry-James American and the hearty, rosy-cheeked and youthful American), though in the end she relied on stereotypes (I wonder how this could read to actual Americans in 1948 – I feel like this is such an American thing, actually, to present Americans as more youthful or energetic, or really VIRILE in contrast to the listless inhabitants of the Old World).

Other than that, the book DEFIES EXPECTATIONS. Maybe I had the wrong expectations, though. Most of the time I had the feeling that I Capture the Castle would exhibit Daddy-Long-Legs levels of happy-end and creepiness, which was at least partially because I kept forgetting the book is ABOUT the thirties, not from the thirties (and the thirties are not 1916 anyway). It has one of the best depictions of teenage angst and melodrama I know of (admittedly, I have been usually steering clear of teenage melodrama) but presented with such tenderness! I wrote “compassion” at first, but that would be patronising, and I really feel it isn’t. There are the somewhat expected useless parents, but I am always relieved when a stepmother is not evil. The useless father is also at least somewhat violent, which is matter-of-factly played for laughs, and that was quite disturbing, though I suppose I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash if I had read it as a teenager.

Then the least pleasing part: the age difference! I think it was more disturbing than it could have been, because to me Cassandra just seemed quite a bit younger than her officially declared 17 and the ominous “below thirty” for Simon seemed somewhat unrealistic, considering his financial position and other details (and also the mentor-like role he assumes quite early on). Either he or Neil mentions in the early part of the novel that Cassandra is “consciously naïve” and I kept thinking that this was basically Dodie Smith breaking the fourth wall, somewhat unhappy with the way Cassandra had turned out.

In any case, the age difference is still creepy, but since I was expecting (wrongly, very wrongly) Daddy-Long-Legs type of ending, I was naturally delighted when it did not come. The ending was such a pleasant surprise that I mostly thought to myself, well isn’t this psychologically realistic now! Also: for some reason I have a very strong impression that Dodie Smith was obsessed with writing about infidelity? I feel like somebody told me about this, though I can’t for the life of me remember who.

The book seems at first not to be a successful Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, because Cassandra doesn’t seem to really change a bit, although she thinks she does. Though upon reflection she seems to be conscious that she will be growing up very soon (the Midsummer ceremony, which she predicts will be her last), and that does work very, very well. Although I still felt she is rather younger than 17!nter your cut contents here.