First British edition, published by William Heinemann, 1949.
| 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 novel, narrated by an intelligent teen-aged girl, Cassandra Mortmain, is cast in the form of her journal. A play based on the book appeared in 1954, and Heidi Thomas adapted a screenplay based on the novel for Tim Fywell's 2003 film version.
Contents |
The Mortmain family is very poor, but very interesting. Cassandra's father, referred to as Mortmain, is a writer who suffers from writer's block and has not published anything since his first hit book, Jacob Wrestling. More than ten years before, he took out a forty-year lease on the 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 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 list 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, serious, and loves the English countryside.
After the first encounter between the Cottons and Mortmains, the Cottons openly snub the Mortmain family by never inviting them to Scoatney and having other families from town over often. Cassandra's first opinion of the Cottons is poor; she overhears the two boys talking about her family and eventually relays bits of the information to Topaz and Rose. After an amusing episode involving a fur coat the two families become good friends and Rose decides that she is taken with Simon. Cassandra and Topaz work to secure a proposal from Simon for Rose. Meanwhile Cassandra believes that she might be attracted to Neil Cotton, but that notion goes away. Simon becomes smitten with Rose and does propose which then sends Rose and Topaz to London with Mrs. Cotton to purchase Rose's trousseau. One evening, when everyone else is away, Cassandra and Simon spend the evening together, eventually kissing which sends Cassandra into an emotional tailspin. She becomes preoccupied with loving Simon and feeling guilty since he is Rose's fiance. Rose and Neil, however, begin 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 Cassandra deflects the conversation away when she thinks that he is going 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, whom 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, although 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.
The novel often alludes to 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 some characters are at times compared with other characters from said works.
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).
Cassandra once compares Stephen to Silvius, a reference to Shakespeare's As You Like It
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.
"Heloise and Abelard", Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Hansel and Gretel" are cited.
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.