Fiction Fans

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

• Episode 208

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Your hosts are finally entering Spooky Month and reading the psychological supernatural horror classic, The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson. Sara has complaints that (for once) don’t boil down to “it’s horror and I don’t like horror”. Lilly agrees?! They talk about unfulfilling explanations, female agency, and relationship roller coasters.


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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily

Sara:

And I am Sarah, and today we will be talking about the Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson as the first of our spooky month episodes. This year

Lilly:

and we're kind of dipping our toes in the spooks the spookiness for this one. But before we get into that, our quick five minute intro, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:

I went to the theater with our aunt and it was lovely.

Lilly:

Nice.

Sara:

It did mean going into the city, which I always grump about, but

Lilly:

Yeah, travel, not the fun part.

Sara:

leaving the house gross.

Lilly:

We got a new heating system installed in our house, which is very exciting.

Sara:

Nice.

Lilly:

we might be able to get our inside temperature above 62 this winter.

Sara:

That is exciting.

Lilly:

Well, fingers crossed everybody 62 is not that cold except when you're inside. It is.

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

So right now everything is very warm and cozy. But it's also like a September, so,

Sara:

the, the real stress test is still to come.

Lilly:

yeah, very much so. But it's exciting regardless. What are you drinking to pair with this spooktacular book?

Sara:

Well, I should be drinking brandy to soothe my nerves the way that the characters in this book do constantly. But I don't have any brandy in the house. And also it is 11 o'clock in the morning. So

Lilly:

Not that this has stopped us before, but

Sara:

it, it hasn't but it's stopping me this time. So I'm just drinking tea.

Lilly:

fair enough. That is like 50% of this book doctor, what was it? Montague,

Sara:

I, I believe so

Lilly:

Dr. Montague saying, I need brandy to calm my nerves. Everyone drinks some brandy so they're, they're investigating this haunted house. I know I'm skipping forward,

Sara:

we are skipping forward.

Lilly:

but there's a doctor whose whole thing is. I want three other people in the house with me so that there's more than one person's observations because he is trying to like scientifically investigate the haunting of this house. And then they keep drinking the whole time. It's like it is never addressed at all in the book that their perception might be affected by the copious amounts of alcohol

Sara:

It's true. They drink a lot of alcohol,

Lilly:

like, I'm fine with them drinking, but they never like talk about it at all. It was very funny. Anyway, I'm drinking coffee, which is also consumed quite a bit in this book the morning, but mostly at night when they're like hanging out, getting ready but between dinner and going to bed, just kind of killing time. They drink a lot of coffee. Coffee and brandy. No wonder they don't sleep very well.

Sara:

Exactly. And martinis. Occasionally

Lilly:

that's true. Except apparently Luke doesn't make a good martini.

Sara:

he uses too much for moose.

Lilly:

Yeah, the doctor complains about it. Anyway, so if someone is reading this book, we highly recommend a glass of brandy to sip along as you read it. I think that would be the perfect vibe for this discussion. That's not where we're at.

Sara:

No.

Lilly:

Have you read anything that wasn't podcast related recently?

Sara:

I've been back to reading Tolkien's letters,

Lilly:

Oh, nice.

Sara:

Which is very slow going because I, you know, I just read a letter or two at a time. But it's not something that has plot, so it doesn't matter.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

And it's really nice. I'm enjoying it. is such a good writer. I mean, you do get the,

Lilly:

from Sarah.

Sara:

I know, I know this is a really controversial statement. Like you do get the, the grumpy old man complaints a little bit. And he occasionally is, uses language that I'm like, those aren't words that I would expect from, from you Tolkien not like rude words or anything. Just terms and, and phrases that I find entertaining coming from, from him. And then sometimes he'll write something really beautiful and it's like, man, I would listen to, well not listen. I would, I would read your, your stuff all day long.

Lilly:

I can't imagine. My personal email's getting published in a book posthumously, that's genuinely nightmare fuel.

Sara:

I love reading letters and collections of letters. It is. I mean, you're, you're right. Like, it, it bears your soul in a way that is uncomfortable or can be uncomfortable. But it's also so fascinating for that exact reason.

Lilly:

Fair enough. Fair enough.

Sara:

and sometimes, sometimes letters can be really funny.

Lilly:

Yeah. You talking about him using language that you wouldn't expect reminds me of. Is it the Tiffany Paradox? Is that what I'm thinking of? I'm pretty sure

Sara:

Funny, yes. Where people don't expect Tiffany to be a middle medieval name, but it actually

Lilly:

Yeah. It, it's like perfectly appropriate to use. For medieval settings, but it feels

Sara:

Very modern.

Lilly:

yeah. Wait, there's a word for it. Anti something. Shoot. My brain is saying antich chromatic, which is not a word.

Sara:

That is not a word.

Lilly:

Anachronism.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

I had some of the syllables. Right. anyway, I haven't done any reading. I read The House. No. The Haunting of Hill House, which I'm gonna start by saying I did some very light Googling, completely unrelated to the house on Haunted Hill. I assumed that they had the same source material in some way because the words are the same, but no, completely different.

Sara:

There's also apparently a movie, the Haunting of Hell House which is based on something completely different as well.

Lilly:

But see, that at least has a different word in it.

Sara:

I mean, it has, one letter is different. One letter.

Lilly:

The house on Haunted Hill and the H of Hill House are I misspeak constantly and probably will again, but we are talking about Hill House, not the house on the hill.

Sara:

Yes, we are, we are talking about the haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

Lilly:

There have been a couple of adaptations. I haven't seen the older ones. And I saw the, the Netflix one when it came out. And don't remember it super well, except I do remember it enough to say nothing like the book vaguely inspired by maybe

Sara:

you had mentioned that when we were writing out our notes for this episode, and so I went to the Wikipedia page to see if I could get like a summary of the TV show. And you were correct. It sounds entirely different. There are some character names that are the same and the setting is technically the same, but otherwise it's entirely changed.

Lilly:

yeah. Com, like not completely unrelated in the way that the House on the Hill is unrelated. But, yeah,

Sara:

The title, the title is,

Lilly:

by I think is maybe the right way, although some of your complaints that you have about the book. I think are fixed in the, the miniseries, although that's it's almost not even relevant since they're so different to say that it's fixed. anyway we're here to talk about the book by Shirley Jackson. It came out in, I wanna say the early fifties. Am

Sara:

Late fifties, 19, 19 59.

Lilly:

Okay, excellent. I guess there is one quick content warning for the novel itself. I don't know how much it'll come up in our conversation. But there is a lot of discussion of suicide in the book. I don't think we actually see it on the page. No, we do see it on the page.

Sara:

I would argue that we see it on the page.

Lilly:

Yeah. But there's a lot of talk about the, the history of the house and one of the occupants has killed themselves. So if that is a topic that you're not interested in, don't read this book. like there's no getting around that in the book itself in our conversation. Other than that content warning, I don't think that actually comes up in our notes much.

Sara:

No.

Lilly:

So you're probably mostly safe to listen to this episode. We're, we're not gonna get into it too much. But just wanted to, to put that out there up top. It is spooky month after all. We are delving into books that more often than usual require content warnings or if not require, are helpful.

Sara:

Benefit from,

Lilly:

the biggest problem I had with this book is that it took immense concentration to read.

Sara:

I mean, it, it is more complex prose. I think just by dint of being written in the late fifties that's the style. I liked it. I thought the prose was enjoyable enough. I wasn't a huge fan of this book. Both for reasons of Reader Mismatch. As you probably know, if you, you're listening to this episode, I am not a spooky month person really. And so I tend to have a harder time with these books. But also I had some like just structural issues with this novel. some things that I think are valid complaints and not just me going, I don't like horror.

Lilly:

Right. It's, it's not the genre for you, but there are also some aspects of this book that you have, I would say genuine issues with. I also complained about them, so I can't say anything.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

I also really loved the prose. It was just, I tried to start reading it while I was in a room with a TV on and like some books you can read while there's a TV on. This was not one of those. So I had to like, actually make sure I had like a quiet room. I couldn't hear other conversations'cause my brain would just like start sliding off the page if there was any other words in my vicinity. But that's like a nice vibe though. I, I really think, yeah, curled up with this book in a calm moment. A glass of brandy on like a, well, in my mind it should be a stormy night, but it's not actually.

Sara:

it's summer in the book. But I entirely agree with you that the vibes for reading this novel are like stormy, the, the. Wind is, lashing through the trees and the rain is coming down and you know, it's dark. you've got your brandy, you've got like a nice little, you know, soft, fuzzy blanket around you. Very cozy atmospheric.

Lilly:

Well, cozy is one way to put it.

Sara:

I, I mean like your, your surroundings are cozy. You, you are physically cozy. Not that this is a cozy book.

Lilly:

And so the book is, like you said, very atmospheric. It is a ghost story. I mean, I would say. It firmly fits in the horror genre. I wouldn't call it too, too stressful as a reading

Sara:

It's, not. I mean, I didn't like, I wasn't particularly scared through, reading this book, and I feel that I'm a pretty good barometer for, for people who don't like horror unless there are bones in it. But this book did not have any bones

Lilly:

No, none bones.

Sara:

very tragically.

Lilly:

actually, I think what stressed me out the most reading this book was our main character. Eleanor is so anxious and she is just constantly overanalyzing her, like conversations and interactions with the other characters and reading that experience, I was just like, like my heart hurt for her.

Sara:

Yeah. That, that I agree, was harder than the actual, like, spooky stuff.

Lilly:

The, the ghost parts were not, not a trial

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

for the reader anyway.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

So what, what the heck is going on in this book? We mentioned Dr. Montague. He is some kind of professor of natural philosophy or some other made up subject. And he hears about this house that has some kind of history. We get a little bit of it told to us throughout the book. No one will live in it. No one in the neighboring towns will talk about it very Dracula. He in his instructions, he's like, do not tell the townspeople that you are coming here. They will try to tell you not to come. So, but he recruits two young women. Then the owner insists that her nephew also come with just to like watch them. I guess.

Sara:

For some reason

Lilly:

He doesn't do very much of that. I mean, he, he helps with the investigation, but he's not like the authority figure or anything.

Sara:

No. And the core premise of this book really boils down to this house is evil for some reason.

Lilly:

Let's poke it and see what happens.

Sara:

yeah, and I, I, that was one of the problems I had with it. Not, not the reactions of the characters to it but I wanted there to be a reason for the house to be evil, not just, this is an evil house because houses can be evil inherently. They were built that way.

Lilly:

Yeah. There's a, an attempt to explain it by. The, the man who built the house made all of the rooms slightly off square. So that where when you expect one room to be above the other, based on how you turned through the hallways, it's not actually because all of the angles are a couple degrees off. And so the whole house is shifted from how you expect and it, it makes such a strange experience that everyone who like looks at it or is in it, is just upset all the time. And like most rooms aren't perfectly square.

Sara:

Yeah, I mean that just, that just sounds like a house built in, you know, the 18 hundreds.

Lilly:

Yeah. Maybe it being on purpose is insane. I don't know how you would do that, but I cannot tell you how many floors in my house are not level.

Sara:

Yeah. I mean, it just, it's a thing that happens to houses, especially houses that are old.

Lilly:

The idea that a couple of degrees, it's very specifically not enough that you can tell just by looking at it, but an effect that builds up in the overall house as a whole. And that just didn't, yeah, it didn't work for me.

Sara:

the entire time reading it, I was like, this is old house slander. Like this house is perfectly lovely. Why are you trying to convince me that it's evil? Houses are not evil.

Lilly:

Well, so one of my early notes was, oh, this like fits perfectly with that concept of gothic literature where this, the setting the house itself is a character. And I think, I'm actually walking back that opinion after having read the whole book because as lovingly described, lovingly described,

Sara:

carefully described.

Lilly:

I mean, Jackson was clearly into it. She loved it as lovingly described as this crazy house is, and all of its effects that it has on its occupants. At the end of the day, this book is really much more a character study for, well, Eleanor, and to some extent all of the characters who are experiencing these things in this house. It, it feels a lot more like Shirley Jackson wanted to create a stressful situation, a supernaturally stressful situation, and throw some people in it and shake'em up and see like, and like, show us how they react, not see how they react. I think it, it felt like she had a very intentional arc for her characters, but,

Sara:

She, she does, and I like the character arc. I think that's really well done. I just personally wanted slightly more of an explanation, like more, I guess more background for what was going on.

Lilly:

Me too. And that is the, that I'm gonna say the fantasy reader in me. Whenever I, I come up against a horror novel where it's like, it's mysterious and that makes it scary. I'm like, no, tell me why. I wanna know why I don't care that the mystery is more scary. Like, that's not, that's not what I'm here for.

Sara:

Yeah, I just, yeah, that, that particular issue. And I don't know if that's the fantasy reader or just like, I want there to be an explanation'cause I'm a more of a practical bent but

Lilly:

I, I guess I just think that that's something where, like in fantasy, you expect a magic system, right? You want to be told how it works. Not always, but there's usually some, some, it's more common in fantasy, whereas in horror it's much, it's more common at least than in fantasy to go. Yeah. I don't know. What could it be? Obviously those aren't universal, but

Sara:

Yeah, and maybe it's just the kind of horror that we have mostly read. There does tend to be some kind of like reason for why things are happening. It might not be a reason that is like fully explored,

Lilly:

mm-hmm.

Sara:

but I think there's, there's usually more of an explanation behind why something is haunted or, or why there are spooky things going rather than just house evil.

Lilly:

I do have some. Feelings about that for this book, but they're definitely for the spoiler section, so I will hold off. As far as the characters go, I really loved how the novel set up these four characters and then we kind of saw their relationships and build and then devolve over the course of the novel. Going through, these experiences together, especially Eleanor and Theodore, I mean that was, to me made the novel, like just their arc and an arc is almost oversimplifying it their coaster.

Sara:

Yeah, they, they do have some very high highs and some very low lows in their relationship. I did like seeing the relationships change over the course of the novel. It made sense because these four people have been thrown into something quite stressful which, like you say, it initially brings them together and then as the stress continues, they start to, to kind of fracture the relationship, starts to fracture. But I found Eleanor a frustrating protagonist, partly because she's so anxious. I just wanted to like, shake her and be like, it's not all about you.

Lilly:

That's social anxiety, baby.

Sara:

yeah. and, and so it's, I felt that she brought a lot of her relationship troubles on herself.

Lilly:

Yeah, but she has no self. She has no self. I mean, like her entire life has been caring for her mother, and then she spent three months like oppressed in her sister's household. She never learned how to interact with people.

Sara:

I, I sympathize,

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

but that still doesn't make me like her or enjoy reading about her.

Lilly:

I mean, that's fine. I guess it's, it's like sometimes when you read about a character bringing trouble down on themselves and you think you ought to know better. Like, I get why Eleanor doesn't know better.

Sara:

I do understand why she doesn't know better. But it's still not something that I enjoyed.

Lilly:

That's fine. I'm just saying as far as frustrating characters go, I, I was mostly sympathetic.

Sara:

It didn't feel too much like a plot device.

Lilly:

Yeah, it was very sincere.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Okay. I think we, we must, we must talk about spoilers.

Sara:

Yeah. It, this is a novel, but it's hard to have a nons spoilery discussion about, there's, there's a lot that I wanna say.

Lilly:

So before we do, Sarah, who should read this book?

Sara:

You should read this book if you like, 1960s, 1950s horror with like gothic horror vibes.

Lilly:

It's very psychological. Like I, I mentioned there's so much of it is about the characters in that way. for me, that's why I enjoyed it even though I also had some problems with some of the framing. And it is just also interesting. It's a very, I, I can't call it a period piece because it was written a long time ago, but it feels very much a product of its time in a couple of different ways. Both like Eleanor's, lack of agency and also just the general setting. And so that's really cool and neat. So

Sara:

I mean, it, it feels like a 1960s novel because it is a 1960s novel.

Lilly:

yeah. The, the angst over wearing pants was very fun to some definition of fun. You know what I mean?

Sara:

It was entertaining for the modern reader to see angst over wearing pants because we wear pants, so thoughtlessly.

Lilly:

yeah. No, it was like, I, I just care so much for Eleanor. Like, goes through like this huge, not rebellion exactly, but kind of like she buys pants for herself and then never wears them. Heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. Yeah. Anyway, spoiler time.

Sara:

Spoiler time, This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by fiction fans.

Lilly:

That's us. We really appreciate our patrons because otherwise we fund this podcast entirely ourselves.

Sara:

Patrons can find weekly bonus content, monthly exclusive episodes, and have free access to our biannual zine sotia.

Lilly:

You can find all of that and more at patreon.com/fiction fans pod. Thank you for all of your support,

Sara:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers. Okay, so the the introduction that I read in my version of the novel made it sound like Jackson definitely intended for the supernatural elements to actually be supernatural. But I honestly wasn't convinced that it wasn't all in Eleanor's head or like in the heads of them all.

Lilly:

but how can they have the same shared delusion?

Sara:

I mean, that is the one thing, but

Lilly:

The whole point. Dr. Montague brings multiple people so that he has multiple perspectives so that he can try to objectively put together what's happening.

Sara:

but the only thing that really, that really is like a shared delusion, well, I guess there's the knocking. But the main thing is when Theodore is, clothes get destroyed and like the room gets, gets messed up. But everything else could just be in Eleanor's head.

Lilly:

Okay. My counterpoint to that is also my explanation for what everything is that's going on. Eleanor is the one haunting the house. So I think the way I, I feel this is not backed up by anything. This is just my. Emotions towards this novel. There is something going on with the house, but I think it, it more unlocked something in Eleanor and she is the one haunting the house. And that is why all of the manifestations are about her.

Sara:

I mean, I like that explanation. I don't think it's necessarily supported enough in the text.

Lilly:

Well, because you, you get lines like, how can everyone else hear this? If it's coming from inside my head and I know you could read it in one way, that it means that it's not actually happening, except then how can they all hear it?

Sara:

I mean, but they don't all hear everything.

Lilly:

No, but enough of it.

Sara:

Yeah. I like, I like that explanation.

Lilly:

There, the, there are moments of vandalism, like the, the writing on the wall in chalk. Eleanor is not alone at any moment in that evening. Is she? I thought she was with them the whole time.

Sara:

I do think that she's with them. Yeah.

Lilly:

So like at the end, there's the scene at the end where she is like completely mentally broken and she's the one running around banging on doors. Yes. That is her.

Sara:

Yeah. Well, yes.

Lilly:

But I do think there is, like, I think in, in the fiction of the novel, there are supernatural something, not beings, but there is something supernatural about the house that has like pulled the haunting out of Eleanor.

Sara:

I just needed that aspect to be stronger.

Lilly:

Okay. It was definitely like. Like I said, I'm, I'm, I'm building a lot of it up, but there, there's enough in the book and it's so much of the book is about her that it feels good as a theory.

Sara:

I mean, like I said, I like that theory. I think it makes a lot of sense.

Lilly:

But it's definitely a theory and not something that I can go, no, I think the author intended it,

Sara:

yeah, I, but I, I needed there to be less of a light touch with the supernatural elements for me to really feel like. There were supernatural elements. I don't know, this, this book for me this book kind of felt like it didn't go far enough in either direction to be actually effective.

Lilly:

it did feel like it was walking the line between, is this real or is this fake?

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

I think there was enough. Pushing it over. So we did have a third person narrator, right? It was not Eleanor telling us the events that happened. So to some extent we trust the narrator, although I also read the introduction and they were saying in mind that the narrator was untrustworthy because it so closely follows Eleanor sure accept. Like at the beginning it's telling us what Dr. Montague is doing. So unless that's just Eleanor making it up, I don't know. At, at some point we have to decide where the trustworthy information is. Right.

Sara:

Right.

Lilly:

Did any of this happen? Was it all a dream? It, the book starts with Eleanor daydreaming a lot. Maybe she never makes it to hill house like that. I, I think if we start going down that road, it gets pointless.

Sara:

Yeah. That, that, that is a step too far, I think.

Lilly:

so everyone's seeing the writing on the wall on an evening where Eleanor was with them the whole time. I'm pretty sure now a, a listener, feel free to correct me that actually that wasn't the case. I don't, I feel like it was though

Sara:

I mean, was that hallway, A hallway that they would've passed?

Lilly:

hard to tell'cause the house is so bonkers.

Sara:

Yeah, like it, even, even if she was with them all evening that doesn't necessarily mean that she couldn't have done it when they go for like their afternoon nap or whatever.

Lilly:

That's true.

Sara:

Like I feel like there were opportunities during the day for someone, like one of the four members of the house to actually do this. Now I'm not saying that it's that someone like, for sure did it, but, but just I think it's inconclusive.

Lilly:

Yeah. It's, it's not a smoking gun for Yes. In this book, there are supernatural

Sara:

Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, I just, it was not heavy enough in either direction

Lilly:

There's also the, the plan it or the sort of, automatic writing, I think it's called yeah, yeah. Automatic writing that Dr. Montague's wife does. And she doesn't even know Eleanor's name.

Sara:

Well, no, she, she does know Eleanor's name. She doesn't because she thought that Theodore was Eleanor. She gets them mixed up.

Lilly:

but like all of the, the automatic writing about Nelly and her mother, like, that'd be pretty nuts.

Sara:

I mean, it's just kind of like, it, it would be nuts. You're right. But that also can be faked.

Lilly:

Sure. If Mrs. Montague was paying any attention to the people around her, like, yeah, cold reading is totally a thing. I I didn't get the impression that Mrs. Montague was that observant, she was pretty dismissive of everyone in the house

Sara:

she was quite dismissive.

Lilly:

or maybe that's just Eleanor's impression of her and everything we know is a lie, but

Sara:

I,

Lilly:

that makes having a conversation hard.

Sara:

it it does, it does. Like I do feel like it prob the, the supernatural is probably the explanation that Jackson wants. The introduction is probably correct.

Lilly:

You just wanted it to go harder and

Sara:

yeah. Yeah. Like, it just, it left me with the impression that it could have all been, you know, Eleanor making it about herself, and this is her dissent into madness, not caused by anything supernatural necessarily, just by being in a stressful situation. So yeah, I, I wanted it to go harder.

Lilly:

Yeah, I really wanted some more explanations as well. What is the deal with this goddamn house?

Sara:

Yeah, that's really the only thing that I wanted. Like we get a little bit of the backstory of the house with

Lilly:

The man who built it, his, his wife died before she got there. His two daughters grew up in the house, but then he left, and then they left, and then they fought over it, and then one of them had a companion. There are a few implied lesbian relationships in this book that are not gone into at all, which was just like a fun Easter egg, I guess.

Sara:

yeah. But none of, none of that seemed like enough for the house to be this haunted.

Lilly:

No, I could see it getting a reputation with the, the townspeople

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

but.

Sara:

Like I was expecting, like, you know, one of the sisters died as a child and that's, you know, something. But no, they both lived to an old age.

Lilly:

yeah, and it's, it's the companion who completes suicide in the historical events of the house.

Sara:

But the house is already haunted because by that point, because she's complaining about like things going missing and

Lilly:

Well, she's blaming it on someone stealing stuff and the townspeople go, Nope, just haunted.

Sara:

Yeah. Okay. So, so she is, she is blaming someone for it, but and the sister that she blames says that, no, she's not doing that. But, but the implication there is, is that if we are to believe that this house is genuinely haunted, the implication there is that it was haunted before. And it's basically been haunted since like Hugh Crane built it. And I just that bothered me so much.

Lilly:

It's because of the angles. Sarah, any angle that's not 90 degrees, it's an evil number.

Sara:

Yeah. Why gimme a reason?

Lilly:

Yeah. In the Netflix adaptation, Eleanor and Theodore are the sisters that grew up in the house and Eleanor is haunted by the crooked neck lady throughout her life. Quick spoiler for that TV show. It turns out when in the show Eleanor ends up taking her own life and she was haunted by herself, which is a fun twist.

Sara:

Oh, interesting.

Lilly:

Yeah. Nothing to do with the book at all,

Sara:

No.

Lilly:

except for it maybe being Eleanor. Her mental state that is affecting the surroundings.

Sara:

yeah.

Lilly:

Also, what is up with the housekeepers? We have Mr. And Mrs. Dudley who take care of the house, refuse to spend the night there and are both weird as hell for no reason.

Sara:

I mean, I, that didn't bother me quite as much because I kind of just assumed that they live in the village. The village people all hate this house and think it's haunted, so they're going to be grumpy and weird. So that just kind of felt in keeping with that theme.

Lilly:

Mr. Dudley. I agree. Mrs. Dudley didn't sound like a person. She had her like three lines that she said, and no matter what someone asked her to do or said to her, all she would do is repeat these lines at them, which is not like what,

Sara:

Yeah, I, I would've loved for her to be like a manifestation of one of the hauntings or, or like, part of the hauntings. She's not, she's just a person.

Lilly:

or if she had been affected. I mean, maybe it's supposed to be that she's been affected because she has to spend so much time in this house.

Sara:

but she's really nice to Mrs. Monague,

Lilly:

yeah, that was funny.

Sara:

like we see her have a normal conversation at the end with Mrs. Monague.

Lilly:

Mrs. Monague might've been my favorite character because I hated her so much.

Sara:

I, in, in one sense, I agree. Mrs. Monarchy was. Delightfully terrible. So she shows up maybe in like the last third of the book. She's Dr. Montague's wife. She comes to stay with them. She brings along her, her friend Arthur who is a headmaster at a school.

Lilly:

Or something.

Sara:

or something also pretty terrible. Also you cannot tell me that Mrs. Mongie and Arthur are not

Lilly:

Oh, they definitely are for sure.

Sara:

yeah.

Lilly:

No question.

Sara:

So they show up late in the book. They're both terrible. They are really over the top. they're believers in the supernatural, but the kind of like oblivious kind who miss that, there's actually something supernatural going on here. Mrs. Montague is very much a, a woowoo. These ghosts just wanna be loved and understood. And like I said, delightfully terrible hilarious. But why were they there? They added nothing to the plot. They, they do nothing in the story. They are just there to be terrible. And I wouldn't mind so much, except they come in so late. And so it really feels like they're just there because Jackson needed another source of conflict if they had been there from the beginning and were that terrible, I wouldn't have minded them as much.

Lilly:

I feel like their purpose was to upset the social dynamics because at this point, our four original intrepid explorers have been there for a week, I think, or not quite a week.

Sara:

Yeah, not quite a week. I don't think

Lilly:

and they've kind of settled into a routine. And within that routine, I mean, Eleanor kind of found her footing as she's, she's struggling because she's not good with people.'cause how could she be? But there is like some kind of. Happy place found. I think she even says like, this is the first time I've ever been happy. She has decided that all of these people are her best friends and she's gonna be with them forever. And she even tells Theodora like, oh, after this I'm gonna come home with you. And Theodora's like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Sara:

so, yes, but. I don't think that Mrs. Montague and Arthur disrupt the social structure enough in order for that to be their purpose.

Lilly:

Interesting.

Sara:

Because like they're there for what, one day before the book ends. There's, there's just not enough time. We don't see the effects of that disruption enough.

Lilly:

okay. I mean, that's fair. It, it felt to me like. Eleanor has built up this fantasy in her head. I mean this additional fantasy she has, the, the, the stories she tells herself while she's driving that are obviously just stories. But then, then she has created this world that's dramatic. She has convinced herself that her and Theodore are actually really good friends and not just friends by circumstance. And then having Mrs. Montague come in and sort of calling it as it is, like Eleanor is just a silly little girl, like, and no one's standing up for her, I think makes her realize that she is not, like her version of reality is not correct or her wishful version. I think she, like part of her knows, right?

Sara:

But we've already seen before Mrs. Monague shows up, we already see, eleanor, like decide that she actually doesn't like Theodora. She thinks Theodora is a lying, conniving little snake. And Luke is a swindler. Like we see her change her feelings beforehand. So it's not like she is completely invested in this fantasy version of these people.

Lilly:

But that's before she decides she's going home with Theodora. Like no matter how much she hates Theodora, being with her is still better than her life before.

Sara:

Sure. But I don't think that she needs Mrs. Montague to, to decide that.

Lilly:

I guess I think Jackson needed a, a nudge to escalate, and I agree that it probably didn't work perfectly, but I enjoyed Mrs. Montague so much. I don't mind.

Sara:

I just, you know, if, if Mrs. Mongu and Arthur had shown up like, I don't know, at the halfway point and just had had a little more time on page to, to do all of this, I think I would've enjoyed their presence more.

Lilly:

It's a pretty short book.

Sara:

it is a short book.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

I guess my complaint seems to once again boil down to, I wanted Jackson to go harder.

Lilly:

yeah, I don't know. There, there's something in Eleanor breaks well, I mean, she starts to decline, right? Like the, the last couple of scenes. She has her episode where she was running around the house at night. And goes up the rickety staircase that needs to be rescued, and that's when they decide she has to leave. But being told she can't, like being kicked out of this little, insulation from reality is where she just like absolutely either taken by the house or it was just too much for her she didn't wanna be sent back home. She hates her life. She doesn't have a life, and that's when she escalates is every time they push her away and then it, it does end with her taking her own life instead of being sent home. I just thought she was sad. More hot takes.

Sara:

she is sad.

Lilly:

was sad.

Sara:

Yeah, like, like seeing her decline is tragic.

Lilly:

And that's what, that's, I think where I was going with that is that's another reason why it feels like the house is reacting to her and not the other way around.

Sara:

Hmm. I don't disagree with you.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm. Her ups and downs with Theodore though,

Sara:

they do have some ups and downs.

Lilly:

oh man, they, they meet and they're like, yeah. Best friends. Best friends forever. Which is very, very like summer camp friendship, which I think Theodora even says at some point.

Sara:

Yeah. she calls that out.

Lilly:

Yeah. But Eleanor just wants to be Theodora so badly. Mm-hmm.

Sara:

It's understandable that she feels this way.

Lilly:

And. Every time that she mentally calls Theodora out for being selfish. It is very we hate in others what we see in ourselves.

Sara:

Mm-hmm.

Lilly:

and no matter how much she hates her, she's still better than the alternative.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Heartbreaking.

Sara:

Honestly, I mean, I wanted Eleanor to just, to leave and not go back to the sister, but like to make, do her own thing afterwards. She's the one with the car. She could just drive away.

Lilly:

And she fantasizes about that at the very beginning. Right. But there's a, there's an amount of agency that takes that she just never has, even coming to Hill House, Dr. Montague, I mean, recruits her for this project because she had been haunted as a child or something very unclear. And she denies it. And everyone's just kind of like, okay, whatever. But he gives her like step-by-step instructions for how to get to Hill House and other than taking the car without permission, which is half hers, she didn't really steal it. I know her sister says she stole it, but I disagree with that intellectually.

Sara:

I mean, she does have the right to that

Lilly:

Yeah. Yeah. Her sister's just being a controlling bitch.

Sara:

Yeah. Her sister's terrible for some reason,

Lilly:

yeah, so she even getting to Hill House, she's following these instructions step by step. She never actually takes charge. She's always just kind of following along.

Sara:

but when she like if she had actually left and not killed herself, not, not driven into the tree or whatever, like she could have at that point taken agency, like that was not, no one was denying her agency at that point, except for herself.

Lilly:

Yeah, but I mean that's'cause that's, she doesn't know how she's been so controlled her whole life. It really, part of it reminded me of the yellow wallpaper and

Sara:

I have not read that. So

Lilly:

really

Sara:

yeah,

Lilly:

short story it is about a woman who is, again, having all, all agency and all choice taken away from her until she just breaks to way grossly oversimplify it. And, and like also the, the haunting. Is it all in their head? Are they the ones haunting themselves? The, the, just those kinds of things remind me of this book. Which was a diversion, but, yeah, I don't know. The, this book, the Buildup of Dread was, I thought, very well done, very atmospheric. And as the book is starting, like I was so worried for these characters and then kind of nothing happens.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

I mean, Eleanor has a bad time.

Sara:

Things, things do happen, but it I just wanted it to go harder.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Yeah, it, it ends up feeling kind of a bit like a nothing burger. even though things do go very poorly for Eleanor.

Lilly:

I, maybe that's it. It feels like a letdown, that she is the only one who has consequences.

Sara:

yeah. Yeah.

Lilly:

And I don't wanna say she did nothing wrong because she is, well, okay, you don't deserve to die because you're awkward. But, and everyone is pretty mean to her, although, how much of that is her perception? I

Sara:

Yeah. I mean, so I think for me, I wouldn't mind if Eleanor was the only one who had consequences. if your theory had been more explicitly like woven throughout the book that Eleanor is the one doing the haunting actually.

Lilly:

Well, and that totally fits with what you said earlier, which is she's doing it to herself. She is literally doing it to herself.

Sara:

Yeah. And if that had been a stronger theme of the book, I think that the ending with Eleanor being the only one to suffer, would. Have much more impact. But because the house is kind of set up as this like general haunted house that's doing this to everyone in it indiscriminately for the most part, except that it is picking on Eleanor a little bit, the fact that the other characters basically don't suffer at all just doesn't feel appropriate.

Lilly:

Yeah. I mean, I agree. It it part of you wonders if that is just us being. Readers and wanting more action or something. I don't know.

Sara:

Maybe. I mean, I don't know what, someone reading this in the 1960s felt and it's true that as readers like, your reactions do get shaped by the styles of, things that you read and, you know, modern modern views and, and everything

Lilly:

Well, I like part of me wonders if it's just this expectations of this being considered a horror book

Sara:

maybe.

Lilly:

because it, like a horror, has a lot of baggage around it. And while I won't argue that this isn't horror, it also is like so, so light. Like you said earlier, like it's such a light touch.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

There is the psychological horror of Eleanor's decline, but

Sara:

yeah, it just. It doesn't commit enough to anything, I don't think. And that lessens the impact for me.

Lilly:

Or would a woman in the 1960s read this and go, I would also rather drive into a tree than go back home to my awful family and we just don't have that relatability because we have options because it is 2025 and I can still vote for now.

Sara:

no, but like, okay. That I, I think that comes back to, is Eleanor the one, like is this all in Eleanor's head? She's not choosing to, to drive into the tree because of her awful family she's choosing. She does it because the house is somehow like in her head,

Lilly:

See, I think it's the other way around. I think she triggers the house. I don't think the house triggers her.

Sara:

Okay. But, but either, either way. Like, I don't know. I just, I think. Like I, yes, I would rather drive into a tree than, than go back to Eleanor's horrible family. like I understand that, but I don't know. It, it, yeah, I don't know.

Lilly:

it feels unsatisfying. And part of me thinks like maybe that's the point, but also if that was the point, give me more.

Sara:

I actually didn't mind that ending per se.

Lilly:

No, I mean the more of setting up the point, not.

Sara:

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lilly:

No, I like, if you look at it as a haunting character study of Eleanor and her mental health crisis, I think it's a very, very good book. It's just set up as a ghost story. It's set up as a horror novel. And so, like, I wanted more, I wanted the explanation of the supernatural. I wanted the backstory for why this house has these forces in it. Instead of just taking it as it is. I

Sara:

Yeah, It didn't work for me on a lot of levels. And not just because I'm not a hoard person. but I, did like the pros.

Lilly:

the prose was great. I enjoyed reading it. Probably won't reread it. And I agree that I had some, most of your issues I agree with. But I think I enjoyed the process of reading it a little bit more,

Sara:

I think you did too.

Lilly:

but also it's my month.

Sara:

But I would argue that most of my lack of enjoyment came from the like. Genuine issues I had with the book and not with the genre of the book,

Lilly:

yeah, yeah.

Sara:

which is not the case with some books that we read

Lilly:

I find it actually quite ironic because it's so light on trauma as far as the, the course of reading it goes that I would've thought that this would be one of your preferred spooky month books as opposed to some of the goopier horror that we've read, perhaps.

Sara:

in, in that, in that aspect. Yes. But in the sense that I came out of this book unfulfilled because I feel like it could have been something that I, and I don't know. I just, I wanted it to be different and it was not different.

Lilly:

So that I wonder, well, like I said, the Netflix adaptation, nothing to do with the book. But it does put a lot more time, if I'm remembering correctly, into explaining why these things are happening.

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

Why the house is haunted, or why Eleanor is haunted.'cause it does turn out that it's her and not the house, which is kind of related to the book.

Sara:

kind of, it sounds like the Netflix show I would not enjoy because I don't like horror. Not because I had issues with like the plot.

Lilly:

Yeah. And I, I think it does go farther to explain things in a way that you would prefer, except then you'd hate watching it because a, watching horror can be harder than reading it. And b, like there's jump scares. Like it's, it goes hard.

Sara:

I'm not, gonna watch the

Lilly:

No, I will not ask you to.

Sara:

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Lilly:

But no, I'm glad. Yeah, all in all, I'm glad I read the book. Probably won't reread it. Might read another Shirley Jackson eventually, but.

Sara:

Honestly, the, the Shirley Jackson that I wanna read was the, like housewife stuff, because the introduction made it sound like she wrote regular columns about like her family life for women's magazines.

Lilly:

And like cooking tips and stuff.

Sara:

yeah, like I would read that.

Lilly:

Yeah. It was interesting reading about her. So I went back and read the introduction after I read the book because when I started reading it and it started quoting things from the book, I was like no, I, I would like to read the book first. But I did read it and I wonder if we had the same introduction

Sara:

Maybe it was a very long introduction. I read it first because I do tend to read things in the order in which they're presented to me in a,

Lilly:

It was interesting hearing about her life and how, I don't know, I, it's fun when authors lives don't parallel their writings.

Sara:

Yeah. I.

Lilly:

Like Edgar Allen Poe lived a pretty spooky life and wrote some pretty spooky books, and it's like, okay. Even if he preferred comedies, sorry dude, you dug yourself that hole. She was apparently like ran a boisterous house, had a healthy social life, and then wrote all of these books about. Isolation and lack of agency, and that is like, it's chilling.

Sara:

It's an interesting juxtaposition. I,

Lilly:

Although, apparently her and her mother had a very fraught relationship and from reading this book, I believe it.

Sara:

yes. And it sounds like she did feel pretty isolated from the community in which she and her husband found themselves.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Sara:

But so like, there are some I think elements of her life that maybe do show up in this book. it does sound very different. Like she doesn't sound like she was particularly traumatized or anything. Not that you have to be traumatized to write horror,

Lilly:

But I like seeing those examples.

Sara:

yeah, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Lilly:

Come disagree with us. We're on Blue Sky and Instagram at Fiction Fans Pod. You can also email us at fiction fans pod@gmail.com or leave a comment on YouTube.

Sara:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Lilly:

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Sara:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!