1916: Jackson: The Sundial

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1916: Jackson: The Sundial

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1rebeccanyc
Jan 31, 2016, 2:38 pm



Shirley Jackson is at her creepiest best in this novel, although nothing can compare to We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The story concerns the Hallorans, who live in the "big house" in a New England village, and starts just after the grown son of the family (the grandson of the house's builder) has been killed when his mother pushed him down the stairs. The family consists of the widow and her young daughter, Fancy, as well as the murderous mother, Orianna, her husband Richard, the son of the builder (who is confined to a wheelchair) and his never married sister Aunt Fanny. Hangers-on include a strange young man named Essex, apparently hired to organize the library, and Miss Ogilvie, the tutor for young Fancy.

After her son's murder, Orianna consolidates his control of the household, to the displeasure of many of the other residents. Soon Aunt Fanny has a vision that her father, long dead, has told her that the world will soon end, but that those in the big house will survive to inherit the new world that will replace it. And so they prepare for the end of the world. They buy so many supplies of every kind that they confound the people in the village and the servants and have to burn books from library to turn the shelves into storage bins. They welcome some others into the safe big house, some who just turn up and one who they recruit so he can help produce the future generations that will be needed after the end of the world. In her total deviousness, Orianna prevents people from leaving the house. And then she trows a party for the villagers on the eve of destruction where, under the influence of alcohol, much is revealed, some that is true and some that is made up.

It is the idea of this group of more or less crazy people preparing for the end of the world that informs the novel and gives Jackson wondrous opportunities to satirize everything from people's pretensions (we learn that family is not as "old" or "good" as it pretends to be) to people who predict the world's end (there is another, much more déclassé, group in town with their own ideas about this) to interpersonal to dramas and village-big house relations. And so much more.

I marvel at Jackson's ability to create such a sense of creepiness when, as readers, we know the world isn't going to end, and to create such a variety of sleazy and crazy characters, who differ in the the nature and degree of their sleaziness and craziness, and to subtly satirize class pretensions in so many ways -- and to make some of this almost laugh-out-loud funny! I really enjoyed this book.

2pamelad
Nov 8, 2016, 8:11 pm

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

A family, with assorted hangers on, lives in a mansion on the edge of town. The house is owned by Richard Halloran, a feeble-minded, wheelchair-bound invalid, dominated by his scheming wife Orianna, who may have pushed her only son down the stairs in order to inherit the house. The other inhabitants are Richard's sister, Aunt Fanny, his son's wife, Mary-Jane, his grand-daughter Francy and her tutor, Miss Ogilvie, and a young man, Essex, whose duties are undefined. Later they are joined by others who seek refuge from the world outside.

The first Mr Halloran, dead father of Fanny and Richard, and the builder of the house, appears to Fanny and warns her that the world is ending and only the people in his house will survive. I do not normally read a lot of science fiction, horror or fantasy, but I have made an exception for Shirley Jackson because she is such a good writer. I was caught up in the domestic comedy-drama as the house's inhabitants prepared for the end of the world.

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