I Capture the Castle is the journal of seventeen year old
Cassandra Mortmain. She lives in a house come castle with her father,
stepmother, sister, brother, Stephen the son of the, now deceased, house keeper
and her dog and cat. Her father wrote a bestselling book but has stopped
writing and as a result the family now has no income and are making do as best
they can. That all changes when the man they rent the castle from dies. His
grandsons from America inherit and come to England to claim what is theirs.
This excites Cassandra and her older sister Rose and what ensues is a tale of
love, jealousy, family and growing up.
I really enjoyed Cassandra as a narrator. She has some
amazing turns of phrase that make me laugh and she mentions that she’s a Jane
Austen fan and that comes across in her writing style. Although her family
doesn’t have any money and no foreseeable future of that changing, she takes it
all in her stride and does what she can to help out around the house. She is a
practical person, which I like, and doesn’t understand her sister sometimes,
who is less practical. I’m not a massive fan of Rose but I did like most of the
other characters, even if it is difficult to tell what they’re really like as
it’s from Cassandra’s point of view.
I liked the writing style of having it as journal entries,
but some went on too long for me, I prefer shorter chapters. There were also
points when it would suddenly jump a few hours between paragraphs, which I
don’t mind, but there’s no warning. It would have been nicer to have a space
between paragraphs. The book is split up in to three parts because she ends up
writing in three different journals. That works out well because the story does
take place over several months and a lot happens in that time. The first part
is mostly setting things out but the rest is what happens to them when the
Americans turn up.
The descriptions of rural Suffolk are beautiful. Dodie Smith
wrote it when she was living in America and feeling nostalgic for England. You
can tell this from the way she describes it. It does have an idealistic feeling
to it, like something out of Midsomer Murders. Nonetheless it is nice to
picture their surroundings, living in this strange-looking building sat in the
outskirts of a village surrounded by farmland. It’s all very idyllic. They go
to London a couple of times and that too is a bit more fanciful than it is in
reality. But to be fair I haven’t been to London that much and some parts of it
are quite nice. It is a bit of a homage to England.
I did like this book and it felt just really fun to read.
Despite not having the best living conditions and having enough food to eat,
Cassandra enjoys her life and wouldn’t change it for anything. The family is
stuck in a rut when we meet them but their life turns around and it’s for the
better. They grow as a family and Cassandra gets to know the male members of
her family a lot better. Before she spent most of her time with her sister. In
some ways Cassandra grows up a lot but in other ways she stays the same. She
doesn’t take life or herself too seriously and that is refreshing to read. I
would definitely recommend this book as an easy classic to read, although the end
does drag on a bit and gets a bit philosophical.
Overall rating 4 out of 5
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