The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House
Cover of the first edition
Author Shirley Jackson
Country United States
Language English
Genre Gothic fiction, psychological horror
Publisher Viking
Publication date
 1959
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 246

The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 gothic horror novel by American author Shirley Jackson. A finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the 20th century,[1] it has been made into two feature films and a play, and is the basis of a television series. Jackson's novel relies on terror rather than horror to elicit emotion in the reader, using complex relationships between the mysterious events in the house and the characters’ psyches.

Summary

Hill House is an eighty-year-old mansion in a location that is never specified but is in between many hills, built by long-deceased Hugh Crain. The story concerns four main characters: Dr. John Montague, an investigator of the supernatural; Eleanor Vance, a shy young woman who resents having lived as a recluse caring for her demanding invalid mother; Theodora, a flamboyant, bohemian, possibly lesbian artist; and Luke Sanderson, the young heir to Hill House, who is host to the others.

Dr. Montague hopes to find scientific evidence of the existence of the supernatural. He rents Hill House for a summer and invites as his guests several people whom he has chosen because of their past experience with paranormal events. Of these, only Eleanor and Theodora accept. Eleanor travels to the house, where she and Theodora will live in isolation with Montague and Luke.

Hill House has two caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley, who refuse to stay near the house at night. The blunt and single-minded Mrs. Dudley is a source of some comic relief. The four overnight visitors begin to form friendships as Dr. Montague explains the building's history, which encompasses suicide and other violent deaths.

All four of the inhabitants begin to experience strange events while in the house, including unseen noises and ghosts roaming the halls at night, strange writing on the walls and other unexplained events. Eleanor tends to experience phenomena to which the others are oblivious. At the same time, Eleanor may be losing touch with reality, and the narrative implies that at least some of what Eleanor witnesses may be products of her imagination. Another implied possibility is that Eleanor possesses a subconscious telekinetic ability that is itself the cause of many of the disturbances experienced by her and other members of the investigative team (which might indicate there is no ghost in the house at all). This possibility is suggested especially by references early in the novel to Eleanor's childhood memories about episodes of a poltergeist-like entity that seemed to involve mainly her.

Later in the novel, the bossy and arrogant Mrs. Montague and her companion Arthur Parker, the headmaster of a boys’ school, arrive to spend a weekend at Hill House and to help investigate it. They, too, are interested in the supernatural, including séances and spirit writing. Unlike the other four characters, they do not experience anything supernatural, although some of Mrs. Montague's alleged spirit writings seem to communicate with Eleanor. Mrs. Montague's haughtiness and self-importance provide another source of comic relief.

Much of the supernatural phenomena that occur are described only vaguely, or else are partly hidden from the characters themselves. Eleanor and Theodora are in a bedroom with an unseen force trying the door, and Eleanor believes after the fact that the hand she was holding in the darkness was not Theodora's. In one episode, as Theodora and Eleanor walk outside Hill House at night, they see a ghostly family picnic that seems to be taking place in daylight. Theodora screams in fear for Eleanor to run, warning her not to look back, though the book never explains what Theodora sees.

By this point in the book, it is becoming clear to the characters that the house is beginning to possess Eleanor. Fearing for her safety, Dr. Montague and Luke declare that she must leave. Eleanor, however, regards the house as her home and resists. Dr. Montague and Luke force her into her car; she bids them farewell and drives off, but before leaving the property grounds she propels the car into a large oak tree, and it is assumed that she is killed. In the short, final paragraph that follows, the reader is left uncertain whether Eleanor was simply an emotionally disturbed woman who committed suicide, or whether her death at Hill House has a supernatural significance.

Reception

Stephen King, in his book Danse Macabre (1981), a non-fiction review of the horror genre, lists The Haunting of Hill House as one of the finest horror novels of the late 20th century and provides a lengthy review.[2] According to the Wall Street Journal, the book is "now widely regarded as the greatest haunted-house story ever written."[3] In his review column for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Damon Knight selected the novel as one of the 10 best genre books of 1959, declaring it "in a class by itself."[4]

Reappraising the book in The Guardian in 2010, Sophie Missing wrote, "Jackson treats her material – which could be reduced to penny dreadful stuff in less deft hands – with great skill and subtlety. […] The horror inherent in the novel does not lie in Hill House (monstrous though it is) or the events that take place within it, but in the unexplored recesses of its characters' – and its readers' – minds. This is perhaps why it remains the definitive haunted house story".[5] In 2018, three of thirteen writers polled by The New York Times identified it as the scariest book of fiction they have ever read.[6]

Adaptations

The book has been adapted to film twice, in 1963 and again in 1999, both times under the title The Haunting. The 1963 version is a relatively faithful adaptation and received critical praise. The 1999 version, considerably different from the novel and widely panned by critics, is an overt fantasy horror in which all the main characters are terrorized and two are killed by explicitly supernatural deaths. It was also parodied in Scary Movie 2 (2001).

The book was first adapted for stage in 1964 by F. Andrew Leslie.[7] In 2015, Anthony Neilson prepared a new stage adaptation for Sonia Friedman and Hammer for production at the Liverpool Playhouse.[8]

In 2017, it was announced that Mike Flanagan would be adapting the novel into a television series for Netflix. [9] In the same year, Timothy Hutton, Carla Gugino, Michiel Huisman, Elizabeth Reaser, Kate Siegel, Lulu Wilson, Victoria Pedretti and Henry Thomas have been cast in the show. It first aired on Friday, October 12, 2018.[10][11]

References

  1. ↑ Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House
  2. ↑ King, Stephen (1981). Danse Macabre. New York: Gallery Books. p. 310. ISBN 978-1-4391-7116-5.
  3. ↑ John J. Miller, "Chilling Fiction," Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2009
  4. ↑ "Books", The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1960, p.98
  5. ↑ Missing, Sophie (7 February 2010). "The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  6. ↑ "The Book That Terrified Neil Gaiman. And Carmen Maria Machado. And Dan Simmons". The New York Times. July 16, 2018. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
  7. ↑ Leslie, F. Andrew (1964). The Haunting of Hill House: A Drama of Suspense in Three Acts. New York, NY: Dramatists Play Service, Inc. ISBN 9780822205043. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  8. ↑ "Liverpool Playhouse to Present The Haunting of Hill House". Broadway World. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
  9. ↑ "Netflix Orders TV Series Adaptation Of 'The Haunting of Hill House' Book From Mike Flanagan, Amblin TV & Paramount TV". Deadline. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
  10. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie. "Timothy Hutton To Star In 'The Haunting Of Hill House' Netflix TV Series Adaptation". Deadline. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
  11. ↑ N'Duka, Amanda. "'The Haunting Of Hill House': Lulu Wilson & Victoria Pedretti Cast In Netflix Series Re-Imagining". Deadline. Retrieved 15 September 2017.

Further reading

  • 1984, The Haunting of Hill House, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-007108-3
  • Nazare, Joe (February 2010). "Haunting anniversary : a half-century of Hill House". *The Internet Review of Science Fiction. VII (2). Retrieved 2 November 2010.
  • Pascal, Richard (2014). "Walking Alone Together: Family Monsters in The Haunting of Hill House". Studies in the Novel. 46 (4): 464–485.
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