Ok, but nothing to rave about.
Shirley Jackson’s penultimate novel, The Haunting of Hill House, constitutes a masterpiece of psychosexual anxiety. Her wickedly disturbing passion play, enacted by the four (later, six) individuals gathered at the cursed mansion known as Hill House, perfectly equates the interior state of the spinsterish protagonist, Eleanor Vance, with the confusing, calamitous rooms and the surrounding acreage of the titular dwelling. Besides serving as a quietly horrifying testament to one woman’s disintegration, Jackson’s mordant 1959 book also brings a fresh sophistication to the horror genre through its characters’ recognition of what the plot will demand of them. By their conversation when they first meet, they make clear that they know they’re enacting clichéd roles from myriad films and novels. But their ultra-modern awareness fails to forestall the actual terror, and this is perhaps Jackson’s scariest assertion: The intellect is no real bulwark against the darkness.
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