I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith — tiresome novelty
In 2003, the British public voted I Capture The Castle one of the best loved novels of all time. At number 82 in the list of 200 novels chosen for The Big Read, Dodie Smith’s debut work ranked higher than Dracula, Jude the Obscure and The Handmaid’s Tale.
A few years earlier the BBC commissioned a panel of six writers and critics to choose 100 English language novels “that have had an impact on their lives”, I Capture The Castle was listed in the “family and friendship” category alongside George Eliot’s Middlemarch and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.
Many readers seemingly found Smith’s novel of two sisters and their crumbling castle home an endearingly charming tale but I’m not one of them.
I Capture The Castle depicts eight months in the lives of the eccentric Mortmain family as seen by the youngest daughter, 17-year-old Cassandra. Through her journals, she “captures” the people around her as practice for the novel she aspires to write.
So we get to know her father who once enjoyed international fame as the author of an experimental novel. James Mortmain used the proceeds to rent the castle but since he hasn’t written anything for the last twelve years, the coffers are empty. He spends all his time in the gatehouse reading detective stories while his second wife Topaz and two daughters deal with real world like creating meals from next to nothing.
As a former artist’s model, Topaz brings a touch of the exotic to the castle, often to be seen communing with nature by wandering about the grounds dressed in nothing more than gum boots. She does have a practical side however, particularly adept at re-purposing her glamorous dresses into garments for her step daughters.
Then there’s Cassandra’s elder sister Rose who longs for an Austen-like romance and younger brother Thomas who is a bright lad. The remaining member of the household is Stephen, orphaned son of the Mortmain’s former maid whom the family have taken under their wing.
Life in the castle is miserable until the Cottons, a wealthy American family, inherit nearby Scoatney Hall and become the Mortmains’ new landlords. Friendships ensue and love blossoms, bringing sweeping changes in the fortunes of the Mortmains.
I Capture The Castle is a simple coming of age story that has a quirky opening:
I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring – I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house.
There are some amusing scenes — especially one farcical episode where the two girls hide in a train luggage carriage and are mistaken for wild animals. But the comic tone lost its novelty value the further into the narrative we got, and actually became quite tiresome.
Even more irritating was Cassandra’s tendency to document every emotion, every conversation and every episode in meticulous detail. Nothing escapes her attention and she feels the need to document it all in her journals in microscopic detail.
I believe it is customary to get one’s washing over first in baths and bask afterwards; personally, I bask first. I have discovered that the first few minutes are the best and not to be wasted– my brain always seethes with ideas and life suddenly looks much better than did.
The exact location where she’s sitting to write the latest entry in the journal,; the whereabouts of the various family pet; what she’s wearing, what she’s just eaten and how she feels at that precise moment. All in such meticulous detail that one episode can easily take up 20 pages or so. The relief when I got to the end of each entry was swiftly followed by dismay that the next section was just more of the same.
If I Capture The Castle was so lacking in entertainment value, why did I keep reading to the end? A question I asked myself multiple times. Really it was because I kept believing that at some point the “this happened, then that happened” steady pace of the narrative would erupt and we’d get into something far more interesting. It did pick up in tension in the final quarter and with the kind of ambiguous ending that I enjoy.
But a memorable opening and a strong ending were not enough to make up for the mush in the middle.
Would I have found it more engaging if I’d read it when I was closer in age to Cassandra? Maybe. Her spirit of adventure would certainly have made her a fun friend to have around on the odd occasion (though I wouldn’t have cared as much as she did for cherry brandy). She’s essentially a girl trying to make sense of her feelings and working out where her future lies, issues that many of us went through in our teen years. But I still think my 17-year-old self would have found her propensity for introspection irritating.
I Capture The Castle by Dodi Smith: Footnotes
Dorothy (known as Dodi) Smith spent her childhood in Manchester, England, moving to London when her widowed mother remarried. She studied at at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, hoping to make a career as an actress. Unable to get roles, she got a job as a toy buyer for a furniture store and began writing plays. She married a work colleague, moving with him to the US during World War II to avoid legal difficulties because of his stance as a conscientious objector. She wrote her first novel I Capture The Castle in 1948 out of spirit of nostalgia and homesickness for England.
She enjoyed greater success with her children’s bookThe Hundred and One Dalmatians, published in 1956. She died in England in 1990, three years after her husband.
Hear hear! I read this a little while ago after reading all the raves reviews and then spent the whole time wondering if I had the wrong book!
Well I’m glad to hear that I’m not alone in wondering what all the fuss is about regarding this book
I read this years ago and I do like the artless, almost flat style – but I enjoyed The Town in Bloom and The New Moon with the Old better, even though they had similarly young and naive heroines.
You’re a glutton for punishment! I struggled to finish it once and can’t face the thought of reading it all over again…..
It’s been a bit since I read this – I liked it even though I didn’t like the main character. Lol. I think what I most enjoyed was the idea of living in a crumbling old castle. I thoroughly enjoyed your review of this book!
I like my creature comforts too much to have seen the appeal of living in a castle without endless supplies of hot water and heating!
Lol!! Yeah I am sure I wouldn’t actually enjoy living in a falling down castle too much in reality.
I thought I’d read this, but now I’m not sure. I have found some classics to be disappointing, I suppose because there are so many expectations built up around it. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was one of those for me. Sorry this one didn’t work for you!
Good point about expectations – when a book has been around for decades and “everyone” says how wonderful it is, we anticipate something quite special. So the disappointment of finding out it’s not that special is the more acute
I agree with everyone who says some of the love for this book is nostalgia. I liked it when I first read it, but might feel more like you do if I tried it without that nostalgic sense now.
it’s always a tricky question isn’t it – will a book we enjoyed so much in our younger years have the same appeal now? It’s why I’m reluctant to re-read some of my old favourites
Oh, sorry this disappointed you, I absolutely loved it (even though I’m far and away older than Cassandra and, worse, a man). I got a lot from the adolescent witterings and enjoyed the Austenesque touches (as I burble on at length in my review: https://wp.me/s2oNj1-capture). Ah well, one can’t win ’em all. 🙂
I think if you don’t relate to the main character then it;s a difficult book to enjoy.
I’m sorry you didn’t like it. I guess the idea of living in a crumbling castle intrigued me. Plus she was journaling all the time like I did at that age thinking it would somehow help me as a writer (lol). And then there was the squalid aspect–the horrible meals, the lazy-ass father–it was compelling to me. You HAVE made me see it in a new way though–congratulations. Not that I now dislike it, it’s just made me look at it differently. I read it at about age 45 or so.
The squalid conditions in the castle were depicted really well. I enjoyed also the father’s character but couldn’t get into the other aspects of the book
Like I said, you really did make me stop and think!
I was thoroughly enjoying the first third of it before I had another reading commitment and got distracted. However, whenever I see a grand house with a tower in Norfolk on the television, I always wonder if that was the one it was based on. Was it actually set in Norfolk, or was that my imagination?
I understand that Wingfield Castle, Suffolk was the inspiration: https://wp.me/s2oNj1-capture
Ah, Suffolk, not Norfolk! One less thing I need to wonder about. 😊
It’s near Diss, virtually on the border between Suffolk and Norfolk. I’ve passed near it a couple of times but never diverted to see it (one can see it from an adjacent road as the castle and grounds are in private hands).
I’ll have to see if I can finish reading the book and peer at the castle next time I visit my sister in Norfolk. She actually lived in Diss for a while, in between houses, but I couldn’t visit that one due to Covid travel restrictions.
Do you think you’ll return to it and finish the book?
Oh yes, definitely. I expect it will be December, when my theme is ‘home’. Fingers crossed!
I’ve not read this for quite a long time – in fact, I’m not entirely sure I finished it if I’m honest – and I suspect it’s one of those books which definitely reads better if you’re young….
It was a case of the sunk cost fallacy for me – you know the one where you think you’ve invested so much time in something that you may as well finish it?
This is a book that I’ve always felt that I *should* have read, but now I don’t feel to bad about skipping it!
I’m very sure you have many more interesting books among the 300 remaining from your project 😉
Oh I do! I think when I get to about 200 I’ll publish a list of what’s left…
Such a refreshing review! There are frequent outpourings of love for this one in my Twitterfeed but they’ve never persuaded me to read it. I suspect some of that love is nostalgia but I may be wrong.
I wonder what those readers are nostalgic about though? Young love maybe?
Perhaps for the time they read it themselves?
Possibly
Thanks for the warning. 🙂
I’m always wary when I write about a strong dislike of a book because other people, including yourself, might enjoy it far more.
I love your honest review! I think I remember waiting for something to happen! I love The Blue Castle more than this castle one.
Something does of course happen towards the end but by then it was too late for me
I thought for sure she was setting up for a sequel!
I couldn’t remember anything about this book, even with your description, so I checked out my journal from 2005. I seem to have focussed on the going-nowhere romance with Simon, and how Cassandra has another admirer, a servant who is loyally working for no wages, but “of course” is not suitable to her class-conscious mind.
Dodie Smith is, I believe, the author of 101 Dalmatians, which enchanted me as a child. I still think of it at dusk when all the dogs in the neighbourhood start barking.
I did feel sorry for Steven (the servant figure) because he is so clearly infatuated with Cassandra but just can’t compete with the wealth of Simon and his family
Good review! I first read this about 20-25 years ago because several of my friends said it was the best book they’d ever read. Okay fine – I’ll go.
My opinion? The book is over-rated but I smiled a lot reading it. As Nsfordwriter said, being written FOR teenagers is one reason to cut it some slack, but written just after WWII is another. Many authors of that era were still stuck on the Henry James / Virginia Woolf brand of literary realism – that just doesn’t cut it with the likes of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins sitting on the shelf as competition – not in 2022!
I didn’t know it was aimed at teenagers but as I said, even when I was in that target readership, I think it would have annoyed me.
It probably wouldn’t appeal to today’s younger readers as you say
I agree with you on this one, I have read it twice (the second time to remind myself of why I didn’t like it much!) and the romance of living in a crumbling castle is appealing if you like that sort of thing but the narrative style is pretty annoying. However, it was (so I understand) one of the first books aimed at teenagers so we can cut it some slack I think!