🟨 The Haunting of Hill House (1959) Review - Spooky Scary Schizophrenia | Book Waffle

The Haunting of Hill House (1959) written by Shirley Jackson

I love loner stories. As a professional loner myself, I take sickening comfort in them.

It's sorta like when you need to take a dump at work in the middle of winter but your workplace is cheap and doesn't have heating in the bathroom so you have to content yourself with feeling the previous shitter's residual bottom warmth. That kind of sickening.

So when we are dropped into the shoes of socially awkward butterfly Eleanor amongst a spooky house in the woods, I thought this book would be a slam dunk for me.

But. No.

Psychic doctor John Silence Montague is a normal academic and researcher in his day-to-day. But by night he explores his real passion. The paranormal! To this end, the good doctor invites a host of people to bunk with him in the eponymous Hill House, a reportedly haunted mansion situated in Nowhere, Kansas. 

Only two show up. The previously mentioned Eleanor and the freewheeling Theodora. These three join Luke, an heir to the Hill House estate, and agree to stay in the house and record any supernatural phenomena they come across.

I loved the tropey setup. An isolated location beside an isolated town. Rural people acting like robots. Saying the same thing. Doing the same thing. 

Then comes the spookiness with the house itself. How things are slightly... off. Not fully. Not enough for someone to notice unless you examine things closely. But off nonetheless. 

It casts an unsettling aura that I was getting into!

Yet about halfway in I started to think to myself "Okay, but what's the story going to do with this awesome setting it has created?"

The answer? Not much.

Eleanor's narration became straight insufferable after a while. Because, while she starts as a loner, her thoughts become increasingly schizophrenic. One minute she loves the rest of the guests. The next minute she hates them. Then she wants to play and then she's scared and then she's brave and "I'm not afraid!" she says unconvincingly.

Like, girl. Chill.

And the thing is, I can understand a lot of these emotions if we take the haunted house out of the equation. I know what it's like to not understand boundaries or to dream up weird scenarios of people humiliating you. I know that sudden burst of quiet resentment Eleanor switches to on a dime.

But this story aspires to be something greater than a mood piece. To do that, I need something more substantial to chew on. Because, as it stands, Eleanor's loner ramblings make up around 70% of the book. 

It's a hell of a long slog to get through, especially when I was sold on the premise's haunted house angle. When I picked up the book, I wasn't interested in an introspective examination of my interpersonal issues.

The plot is stretched thinly over the pages. So little happens. The plot points that do happen feel like they could have been cut and the characters would barely notice. Everything feels inconsequential. It makes zoning out far too easy.

If I wanted to be charitable, I could look at this through a Turn of the Screw lens. What is real? What's not real? Are Eleanor's anxieties affecting her perception? Or is it the house? A mix, perhaps? Maybe there are supernatural abilities within the guests themselves? Wink wink. Nudge nudge.

If I grew to care about any of the guests, maybe I would care enough to theorize, but I didn't.

Theodora is the only interesting character. Well, her and a couple Johnny-come-latelies that resuscitate the story with their whimsical ghost-hunting hobby. Finally some tension and spice!

Unfortunately, it was far too late to save the novel from mediocrity. Such a shame. I really wanted to love this one.

🟨 Rating: 5/10