Books to Read Before You Die.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1949)
PLOT
During the 1930s, in a rambling, part-ruined castle deep in Suffolk, the Mortmain family are living a life of eccentric penury. James, the father, is struggling with writer’s block, trying to follow up the success of his first novel. His seventeen-year old daughter Cassandra has no such difficulty. She’s starting to write a journal in a six-penny notebook, and the rest of the household are a huge source of inspiration. There’s her stepmother, Topaz, an artist’s model, who enjoys painting, lute-playing, and naturism (but only at night-time, so as not to upset the neighbours.) Rose, Cassandra’s older sister, despairs at ever finding an eligible young man to rescue her from poverty. There’s also Stephen, the young odd job man, adopted into the family after his mother (their maid) died. He’s started to fall in love with Cassandra, and is copying out love poetry to prove it.
And then new neighbours arrive – Neil and Simon Cotton, young, well-to-do, half-American brothers, visiting their inherited ancestral home. Cassandra will soon fill up the six-penny notebook and move on to a shilling notebook as she describes their impact on the Mortmain family – and how her feelings for them, and her hopes for Rose, become more and more complex. And which brother will buy her the two guinea notebook, which will end with the words “I love you, I love you, I love you” written in the margin?
NOTES
“I Capture the Castle” was Dodie Smith’s first novel, written after she had established herself as a successful playwright. She wrote it whilst living in Malibu, California, feeling by all accounts exiled from England – her husband was a conscientious objector and they had emigrated when war broke out.
An instant critical and commercial success, “I Capture the Castle” has been cherished by generations of readers. Joanna Trollope, Armistead Maupin, Antonia Fraser and Nick Hornby are among the book’s devotees.
WHY THIS IS ONE BOOK EVERYONE SHOULD READ
“I Capture the Castle” is captivating. Cassandra is an enchanting narrator, a keen observer of her entertaining and complicated family. She’s always honest about herself, even when she thinks she is falling in love with the wrong person. (She’s very sharp, too, on what is required of ‘a(chǎn) successful writer’, and if she measures up.)
The descriptions of life in the castle and the Suffolk countryside are idyllic – and unsentimental. The novel is comforting, delightful, screamingly funny at times…. and deeply moving about love and falling in love.