I Capture the Castle
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| I Capture the Castle | |
 First British edition, published by William Heinemann, 1949. |
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| Author | Dodie Smith |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Ruth Steed, from sketches by the author |
| Country | United Kingdom, United States, Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | William Heinemann (United Kingdom); McClelland and Stewart (Canada); Little, Brown (United States) |
| Publication date | 1948 |
| Media type | print (hardback & paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0-099-84500-3 |
I Capture the Castle is Dodie Smith's first novel, and was published in 1948. Smith, who wrote the novel during a sojourn in America, was already an established playwright and later became famous for authoring the children's classic The Hundred and One Dalmatians.
I Capture the Castle relates the adventures of an eccentric family, the Mortmains, struggling to live in a decaying English castle in the 1930s. The story is told by Cassandra Mortmain, a bright teenager, through her personal journal. A play based on the book appeared in 1954, and Heidi Thomas wrote a screen adaptation, which was filmed by Tim Fywell in 2003.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The Mortmain family is very poor, but very interesting. Cassandra's father, whom she refers to as Mortmain, is a writer suffering from writer's block who has not published anything since his first book, Jacob Wrestling, which was a hit. Ten years before the story begins, he took out a forty-year lease on a dilapidated but beautiful castle, hoping to find either inspiration or isolation there; now, his family is selling off the furniture to buy food.
Mortmain's second wife, Topaz, is an artist's model who enjoys communing with nature, sometimes wearing nothing but hip boots. Rose, the elder daughter, is a classic English beauty pining away in the lonely castle, longing for a chance to meet some eligible (and preferably rich) young men; she tells her sister that she wants to live in a Jane Austen novel. Cassandra, the younger daughter and the story's narrator, has literary ambitions and spends a lot of time developing her writing talent by "capturing" everything around her in her journal. Stephen, a handsome, loyal, live-in family friend, and Thomas, the youngest Mortmain child, round out the cast of household characters. Stephen, a noble soul, is in love with Cassandra, which she finds touching, but a bit awkward; Thomas, a schoolboy, is, like Cassandra, considered "tolerably bright".
Things begin to happen when the Cottons, a wealthy American family, inherit nearby Scoatney and become the Mortmains' new landlords. Cassandra and Rose soon become intrigued by the unmarried brothers, Simon and Neil Cotton. The brothers differ considerably in character; Neil, who was raised in California by their father, is a carefree young man who wants to become a rancher in America, while Simon, who grew up in New England with his mother, is scholarly and serious, and loves the English countryside.
After their first encounter, the Cottons openly snub the Mortmain family by omitting to invite them to Scoatney while entertaining other local families often. Cassandra's first opinion of the Cottons is negative; she overhears the two boys talking about her family and eventually relays bits of the conversation to Topaz and Rose. After an amusing episode involving a fur coat, the two families become good friends. Rose decides that she is taken with Simon, and Cassandra and Topaz scheme to get Simon to propose to her. Cassandra, on the other hand, is at first attracted to Neil, but soon loses interest in him. Simon becomes smitten with Rose and does propose to her, which then sends Rose and Topaz to London with Mrs. Cotton to purchase Rose's wedding trousseau.
One evening, while everyone else is away, Cassandra and Simon spend the evening together, which leads to their kissing, and Cassandra is cast into an emotional tailspin. She becomes obsessed with Simon but suffers feelings of guilt since he is Rose's fiance. Rose and Neil, meanwhile, are beginning to fall in love. To conceal their budding romance, they pretend to hate each other, fooling everyone. When they elope, Simon is left heartbroken - Cassandra, hopeful. Before he leaves, Simon comes to see Cassandra again, but she deflects the conversation away at a moment she thinks he is about to propose to her.
Meanwhile, Cassandra must: tactfully deflect Stephen's offers of love, and encourage him in his new career as a model and actor; join forces with Thomas to help their father overcome his writer's block; cope with her own increasing attraction to Simon, who she thinks belongs to Rose; and record everything, wittily and winningly, in her journal. As the journal advances, the relationships she depicts become subtler and more problematic, and she concludes her narrative on a bittersweet note. When Simon departs, still crushed by Rose's defection, Cassandra, despite being saddened by her first disappointment in love, can still reflect with satisfaction on the Mortmain family's improved fortunes, and look forward to the future.
[edit] Allusions
The novel often alludes to other works ranging from classic English literature novels, various tales and legends, as well as poems and biblical episodes. They are often important to the understanding of the novel, especially as characters are at times compared with other characters from said works.
[edit] Novels
I Capture the Castle is easily compared with 19th century English novels, including Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Thackeray’s The History of Henry Esmond and Vanity Fair and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. (The Vicar describes Cassandra as Jane Eyre with a touch of Becky Sharp.) Other mentioned novels include A la recherche du temps perdu by Proust and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. At one point in the book, Rose and Cassandra begin - but do not finish - a bedtime conversation about who is better - Jane (Austen) or Charlotte (Brontë).
[edit] Plays
Cassandra once compares Stephen to Silvius, a reference to Shakespeare's As You Like It
[edit] Biblical episodes
Biblical episodes, mainly Jacob's Ladder and Jacob Wrestling, are apparently part of Cassandra's father's successful novel Jacob Wrestling; however the actual subject of that novel is never clearly represented to the reader. Samson and Delilah also play a small part in the novel, as the narrator once compares Simon and Rose to the Biblical couple.
[edit] Tales and legends
"Heloise and Abelard", Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Hansel and Gretel" are cited.
[edit] Poems
Ralph Hodgson's works are mentioned, as well as John Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci (Stephen wonders if she would have lived in a place like Belmotte Tower), G. K. Chesterton's Song of Quoodle and Thomas Nashe's Spring, the Sweet Spring.
[edit] Reviews
- "I know of few novels - except Pride and Prejudice - that inspire as much fierce lifelong affection in their readers." -Joanna Trollope
- "This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met." -J. K. Rowling
[edit] External links
- A review of I Capture the Castle from Critique Magazine.
- A reading group guide for I Capture the Castle.
- I Capture the Castle at the Internet Movie Database
- I Capture the Castle at Fantastic Fiction.
[edit] See also
- Cold Comfort Farm (1932) by Stella Gibbons, an earlier comic romance novel about an eccentric English family living on a derelict farm in an unspecified near future. In this novel, various Brontë-esque, Lawrencian and other turgidly romantic literary tropes are exaggerated for comic effect.
