Hill House had stood for eighty years and might have stood for eighty more, and whatever walked there, walked alone, we're told in this 1959 classic, as four people arrive to investigate this deserted and isolated house's reputation. It's haunted, even if only by a tragic history of a strict old man, three wives, and two daughters, one of whom committed suicide by hanging herself inside the gothic tower which the house boasts.
John Montague is the one who has rented the house for three summer months. He has invited two women who have had psychic experiences, Theodora - just Theodora - who is an artistic woman who had a fight with her roommate and took off without making up, and Eleanor Vance, a highly-strung woman who has recently been freed from the oppressive demands of her mother by the latter's death. The fourth in their party is Luke Sanderson, who stands to inherit the creepy house. Designed by original owner Hugh Crain, this residence has no regular angles: everything is very slightly off, and no door remains open, although the grounds are beautiful.
Shortly before the end of the story, and for reasons unknown, these four are joined by Montague's obnoxious high-maintenance wife and her companion Arthur, who is evidently a heavy-handed school principal. While I've seen people comment on Theodora's possible lesbian persuasion, I've never seen anyone else comment on the possible relationship between Mrs Montague and Arthur Parker until I read a review today. What's good for the loose is good for the propaganda!
Mrs Montague has no first name that we learn and Arthur no last (aside from one very brief mention). She's always Mrs Montague and he is always Arthur, and so they make a perfect couple. Neither of them experiences anything in the house except for a brief spell of automatic writing which she generates when hidden away in the library alone with Arthur playing with his planchette. This writing also mentions Eleanor, now calling her Nell, and a need for her to come home - but which is her home now?
Nothing happens on that first night with just the four of them, and Eleanor wakes up refreshed after the best night's sleep she's ever had, but slowly, over the next few days, they begin hearing noises in the house at night - things, maybe animals, moving along the hallways; there's banging on the doors, low murmurings, hysterical laughter, and children's voices. The odd thing is that it is always the two girls who hear noises, or the two guys who chase an unknown animal through the house and out of the front door. The guys didn't hear the noises, the girls didn't hear the animal. It's only later, as they bond as a team, that they start to share experiences.
Mrs Dudley is the housekeeper, a minor character who is almost robotic in her behavior and habits, and who provides some unintended comic relief. She refuses to stay there at night, and only visits during daylight to clean and prepare meals for the guests. Her husband is an obnoxious lecher, but appears only at the beginning of the story, as Eleanor arrives.
Eleanor slowly becomes unhinged (or more unhinged) as the nights pass. There appears chalked writing on the walls mentioning her by name one night and shortly after, writing in red paint or blood also referring to her and talking of home. Eleanor thinks that journeys end when lovers meet, and starts to see the house as her lover, as her journey's end, as home.
Despite all of the noise and disturbance, no one is injured, only scared. The worst scare Eleanor has is in the dark one night when she's sharing a room with Theo, and the lights go out and they hold hands in the darkness, but when the light comes back on, Theo is too far away and was sleeping, so Eleanor doesn't know whose bony hand she had held. In the night, In the dark.
After the other residents discover Eleanor climbing the dangerously decrepit iron helical staircase in the tower library, they decide she's becoming overwhelmed by the house, and bid her goodbye, but when she drives down the twisting lane to exit the house, she loses control of the car and has an accident. The novel curiously doesn't expressly say she died. Wikipedia has her crashing into an oak tree but the novel doesn't actually specify what tree it is, only that it's a large one.
I recommend this novel despite the fact that it's a bit too drawn-out and tedious in places, most notably at the beginning, because it is really well written (and very avant-garde, fifties-style in places) and masterfully done with regard to the creepy events. This is not your cheesy B picture horror story. It also leaves questions unanswered. Was there really a haunting? Wikipedia and others argue that maybe the events were caused by Eleanor, but this "explanation" fails to account for the fact that Hill House had a haunted reputation before Eleanor ever came onto the scene. I recommend this novel and both movies, the earlier one being much more faithful to the novel than the more recent one.
The author died over half a century ago and isn't going to receive a penny from any more sales of this novel. Shirley Jackson stood by herself, holding darkness within; she stood for forty-eight years and might have lived for forty-eight more had the smoking and colitis not got her. Within her, ideas continued upright, plots met neatly, stories were firm, and characters were sensibly warped; now in silence she lays steadily against the vase containing her ashes, and when she died, she died alone.
