21
Jun 2010

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

By 7 Comments

Don’t you just love the cover of this book? I have a thing for clouds and blue sky but the scene of the father running with his two daughters underneath a bright blue sky is totally endearing. It’s the cover of Dodie Smith’s first novel, I Capture the Castle.

The story is narrated through journal writing by 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain. She intends to capture everything and everyone around her by writing about them in her journal. Her family is poor and they live in an old, rented but fascinating castle called Godsend in the county of Suffolk. Cassandra hopes to improve her writing by jotting down her thoughts and observations religiously in her journal.

Her family is an interesting mix of characters. Cassandra’s father, James Mortmain had a one hit wonder of a book but has ceased writing ever since. Now his family can only wonder if he’s trying to write anything else. Topaz, their stepmother, is described as a stunning woman who loves to play the lute and indulges in nudism to commune with nature. Cassandra has a beautiful older sister, Rose and a younger brother, Thomas. Stephen, the handsome, sensible servant-boy also lives with them and is utterly devoted to Cassandra. He takes extra care of her and showers her with small gifts every now and then.

Cassandra also compares her family’s situation with the Bennet family from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. She wonders if their luck would be as fortunate as the Bennet sisters whose marriage to men from rich families had helped them rise to a better social status.

When two American brothers arrived unexpectedly at the castle one night, the Mortmain family had hopes that it could bring a good change for them. The Americans who are the Cottons also owned Godsend Castle and thus are the Mortmains’ landlords. Desperate to capture the hearts of the wealthy brothers, Rose behaves in a silly way during their first few encounters. But after a turn of events, they learnt more of one another and became friends.

It was the ultimate good news when Simon Cotton made a marriage proposal to Rose. She accepted it readily as she thought she was in love with him. Cassandra and almost everyone were happy for the newly-engaged couple. But she was puzzled when the other brother, Neil Cotton did not share their joyful sentiments. He pointed out that Rose was only marrying Simon for the money.

However, Simon kisses Cassandra when he visited for a Midsummer Eve family ritual. With it being her first kiss and because she enjoyed being in Simon’s company, she believes to be in love with him. Knowing that the man she loves would be married to her sister, Cassandra carries around with her the heavy weight of her love struck and shattered heart.

The first person point of view is used to narrate the story and by that, the reader sees everything that’s happening from Cassandra’s eyes and can only understand from what she can mentally absorb. She ought to get credit because she has an eye for detail and manages to describe almost everything in the most creative manner. She tends to ramble at times but that’s part of the point of having a journal.

I admit that the book was a slow start for me. It was alright in Chapter One but the pace went slightly downhill after that. It got better with the appearance of the Cotton brothers. They were “fresh” characters who brought life to the story. Meanwhile, Stephen is just so sweet that you couldn’t help but want to knock some sense into Cassandra and tell her that he’s the one for her.

Cassandra’s father is a mystery in the beginning. You would think that it’s sheer laziness as he hasn’t made the effort to do anything to improve the living conditions of his family who are already stuck in poverty. I thought it was ironic that the servant (Stephen) had to take up a second job elsewhere to bring money in. But then he’s already considered as part of the family so that can be overlooked.

All in all, this coming of age novel is beautifully-written and you’ll just bask in the vividness of the descriptions. Follow Cassandra’s journey as she learns about love, life, the people around her and herself. There is also a 2003 movie of the same name, which is based on the book and stars Romola Garai, Rose Byrne and Henry Cavill.

Pssst…..did you know that Dodie Smith also wrote The Hundred and One Dalmatians? I loved that cartoon!

Other reviews: Bending Bookshelf, Things Mean a Lot, ImpishIdea, The Roof is on Phire, The Literary Pursuit

Popularity: 9%

Categories: Authors S, Genre - YA Classics, Titles I
30
Apr 2010

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

By 5 Comments

I don’t like Holden Caulfield. I don’t hate him either. I’m not sure what I’d say if I met him but I would like to meet him anyway. From reading The Catcher in the Rye, I daresay he’s one of the most interesting characters I have ever come across in books.

Holden is not your normal teenager. In fact, I do not really know how normal a teenager is. But he certainly is different from the rest as he has already been expelled from a few boarding schools since he has not done well in his studies. He decides to leave school a little earlier and so spends a few days hanging out in New York before going home to face his parents who will be upset to know that he has been kicked out of school again.

The novel is basically Holden’s narration of his time spent in New York during the course of a few days along with his thoughts and opinions of the rest of the world. The hilarious part of the story, for me, was how he considered almost everyone and everything as being phony. His school was a phony, his headmaster was a phony, his parents were phonies, his older brother, D.B.’s a phony. Almost everyone is a phony to him except his younger sister Phoebe, his younger brother Allie who died of leukemia, his friend Jane and these two nuns who he met in New York.

Holden believed that once somebody grows up, he or she automatically loses his or her innocence and consequently becomes a phony in pursuit of materialism. Therefore he wants to be some sort of a catcher who prevents children from falling into the world of all things phony. He wants to help the children preserve their innocence.

As I read the novel, I know why it has been banned so many times since it was published. Profanity is abundant throughout the story as Holden likes to use them a lot. It seems that he uses them frequently to sound mature and to show that he knows what he’s talking about. Unfortunately it only shows his immaturity and unreliability. He tends to digress a lot too as he does not like to stick to one topic.

I really like this novel. It’s written in a conversational manner so you feel as if Holden is speaking to you. He is indeed speaking to somebody – his shrink actually. If you thought that some parts or most of the novel was repetitive, it’s because of Holden who’s suffering from a mental breakdown. Perhaps that’s one reason why he tends to ramble a lot.

After finishing the book, I wondered if it has been adapted into a movie. Guess what, J.D. Salinger has not sold the movie rights to any filmmaker ever since the book’s publication in 1951 so there’s no movie on it. Yet, I think. So far there are some amateur adaptations on YouTube. Do check out this one though. It’s good. This too.

Anyway, it would be a contradiction towards the book if a movie is made based on it. Holden hates the movies as he thinks they are phony too.

Other reviews: The Book Chick, 1001 Books

Popularity: 3%

Categories: Authors S, Genre - YA Classics, Titles C
12
Oct 2008

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

By 17 Comments

Margaret Murry or Meg as she’s called, is quite an awkward young girl who’s not popular in school. She wears glasses and has braces, the typical description for girls who are unpopular. Nobody understands her in school, not even her teachers. She also doesn’t do well in lessons but in reality, she’s extremely brilliant at Math! It’s because she finds the teaching methods in school too different from what her father used to teach her.

Her father has been missing for quite a long time. People gossiped that he’s probably run away with another woman. He used to write to the family but stopped after a while. Meg’s mother still continues to write letters to him but they go unanswered and this has caused more unkind stories to be spread about the Murry family.

Meg has 3 younger brothers, 10-year-old Sandy and Dennys are twins while five-year-old Charles Wallace is the youngest. Meg is closest to Charles Wallace and usually turns to him for comfort after having a bad day. He also seems to know what she’s thinking, making Meg feel that he can actually read her mind. Besides Meg, Charles Wallace also always knows what their mother is thinking and feeling.

One day, Charles gets Meg to go with him to a supposedly haunted house to meet three strange women with strange names: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which. They reveal that they are there to help Meg and Charles find their father who is in grave danger. Another boy, Calvin joins them too. He is considered to be of the same kind as Charles Wallace so he’s accepted by the three women to take part in their journey.

After that, they travel to another planet that’s very, very, very far away from Earth and they discover something sinister called IT. IT has captured their father and they have to save him. IT is evil. IT wants everybody to act like robots and unable to think for themselves. IT is in favour of uniformity. IT is also just a brain. I have no idea why IT was represented in the form of a brain though. The only way to handle IT is to try to resist what IT wants them to do.

One of my favourite parts in this book is Meg’s and Charles’ encounter with Calvin where Charles interrogated Calvin and Calvin being surprised that Charles wasn’t as dumb as everyone else thought he was. It shows that you can’t truly judge a person unless you got to know them! Actually I find Charles Wallace an absolutely interesting character. Such bombastic words and ideas from a mere five-year-old!

I decided to read A Wrinkle in Time because a lot of other people have already read and loved it. It’s also a banned book so I wanted to find out what could contribute to it being such a book. This story reminds me of something out of a Diana Wynne Jones book. I can’t say that I really liked this book. It wasn’t thoroughly enthralling but still something that we need to read. There are some scientific terms in it and they are explained in simple ways so even science-phobic readers can easily understand how science plays a part in the story.

Other Bloggers’ Reviews: Nymeth, Natasha, Book Dads, Trin, Penny

Popularity: 3%

Categories: Authors L, Genre - YA Classics, Titles A