I Capture the Castle

English teenager Cassandra Mortmain lives in a crumbling castle with her delightfully dysfunctional family, which includes her father, a writer who once scored it big with a literary masterpiece but now spends all of his time doing crossword puzzles and reading detective novels because he has a decade long case of writer's block; her stepmother, a ditzy but wise flower child model who means well--no, really, she does; her older sister, Rose, whose idea of romance and marriage are outdated by a good century; her younger brother, Thomas, who is almost as sly as Cassandra herself; and Stephen, a young retainer who is obsessively devoted to Cassandra. Cassandra--a budding writer--decides to record her family's impoverished life in a journal, thinking that it will improve her writing. What she doesn't count on is recording the hijinks that occur when the Mortmains, who are living the best they can on virtually no income, meet their new American landlords. Perhaps all of those years of not paying rent are going to come back to haunt the Mortmains unless the quirky family can ingratiate themselves with their extremely wealthy neighbors, preferably through marriage. ^^

Miss Marm recommended this novel for all devoted Anglophiles and I am so glad she did. (Thank you, Miss Marm!)I loved this charming book! This is an odd book to describe. The best I can come up with is it is as if Anne of Green Gables kept a diary, a la Anne Frank, but was a character in a Jane Austen novel. Cassandra is a wonderful narrator: funny, perceptive, sympathetic, and always believable, even when she isn't on her best behavior. Her spunk leads to a series of comic adventures, some painful, others hilarious. Overall, the funny far outweigh the sad, with my favorite one being the scheme Cassandra and her brother concoct to cure their father of his writer's block. I don't want to give anything away, but I laughed out loud for a long time while reading it.

As much as I Capture the Castle is an amusing comedy of manners, a touching coming of age story, and a wry tale of a writer's development, it is also a romantic comedy about Cassandra and her sister's often inept attempts to ensnare their young and quite available landlords. I am not a huge fan of romances--Terminally Single Zella can be jaded in these matters--but the resulting comedy of errors is genuinely engaging and author Dodie Smith crafts a charming romance that is neither too sappy or too serious. (Bonus points for a perfectly fitting ending that is neither too sappy or too serious as well.) Though the male characters are not quite as charming as Austen's heroes--who is?--they are definitely likable.

I used to think that the sad thing about being a Jane Austen fan is there are only six novels and once you've read them all, well, there is nothing else to read with Jane's trademark wit and style. Ah, but I was wrong. If you're a fellow Jane fan seeking a new favorite read, look no further than I Capture the Castle. Even better, you don't have to like romances to like this book. If you also enjoy a good coming of age story, quirky crazy British families, and light domestic comedies, this book is the perfect summer read.

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Next: The Return of the Unblogged Chronicles. I forgot about them the past two months until Eric mentioned a book I hadn't blogged about. I shall try to post this before the end of June, but I may have to wait until next Sunday. We shall see. ^^

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This Week in Literary History: 24 June 1842. Ambrose "Bitter" Bierce is born in Ohio. Ooooh, I so love Bierce! I say we celebrate by being snarky to each other. Ahem. Allow me to explain: I adore Bierce's delightfully wicked Devil's Dictionary, a must read for all fans of acerbic cynical humor, which sports such definitions as "To be positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's voice" and "Politics: Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles". Bierce was also a talented fiction writer. You have not lived until you have read his haunting Civil War short story "The Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge." (Here, I am so nice, I'll give you a link to it.) In addition to being a superb writer, Bierce led an exciting, adventurous life, which culminated in him disappearing off the face of the earth in 1914 while tagging along with Pancho Villa in Mexico.