Again: I Capture the Castle

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

 

published 1949

 

I’m always thinking I have a top 10 favourite novels and I’m never entirely sure what they are, and certainly not much idea of order, but for sure this one is top 5. As I always say, it’s a book that grew up with me, or I grew up with it. I first read it when I was about 14, and probably every five years since. I still remember the shock when I realized I was now older than Topaz, the girls’ stepmother. (she is 29 FYI, still surprising).

I have already blogged frequently on the book. I am particularly pleased, still, with the early Mother’s Day entry when I recognized the great work done by stepmothers – Topaz plays down her beauty, effaces herself, to try to help her ungrateful step Rose. I still love this version of her best dress (which she at first discards in favour of something more conventional). The description of the book is this:

When they came down, Topaz was as white as usual and her silvery hair, which was at its very cleanest, was hanging down her back. She had her best dress on which is Grecian in shape, like a clinging grey cloud, with a great grey scarf which she had draped round her head and shoulders. She looked most beautiful – and just how I imagine the Angel of Death...

And this is a theatrical costume from the Denishawn theatrecompany. I’d been blogging for less than two months at this stage, and I think this was the point where I realized that I could give it a go, that I really was able to find surprising pictures to match my favourite books…

There is also Cassandra dressed up for midsummer

Midsummer - alone and summoning up her future (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)

This comes from the State Library of New South Wales (weirdly, the picture shows PL Travers who in some ways was similar to D Smith)

And then there are the ‘fake’ entries – twice for April Fool’s day I wrote about the books-within-the-books: Jacob Wrestling and Enigmatism by James Mortmain. Always very proud of those two entries.

Those nearest and dearest to me always know what an important book this is to me. Someone once made me a Kindle cover from a cover for ICTC, there is the embroidery, and this Christmas – a new and very spiffy copy of the book. (you can never have too many copies) So obv I had to read it again, and then watch the film (which could never match up , but is still pretty good) and cry at the end at those last words. It’s a book of footnotes and margins. ‘Just room to write I love you I love you I love you.’

Clothes are of the utmost importance in the book, which may be why I loved it even though that is not where the major emphasis has come in my blogposts, apart from Topaz’s dress. The girls have no nice clothes, and they are miserable when they go up to London in their white suits and see how different women look there. Like Fanny in Nancy Mitford’s Pursuit of Love, they want to be a woman dressed in black with crinkled suede gloves.

Cassandra likes her green linen dress. Rose ends up needing slacks and shorts. There are the fur coats they inherit from Aunt Millicent.

But the book is about creating art, and about love, and the pain of love. It seems simple and romantic, and the plot would sound that if relayed, but it is neither of those things. It has an incredibly full and careful plot: my favourite thing, she has done all the work so that it seems flowing and simple. And the relation of the La-Ronde-like love circle is superb: honest and moving.

There was a recent trope about how often men think about the Roman Empire. I think this book is my Roman Empire – probably a couple of times a week I think of something from it. The Midsummer Eve where Cassandra ends up alone in the castle. The feel of being alone in a quiet summer day. ‘Your sister will be wearing that drink as a hat.’ Long prayers are like nagging. ‘I didn’t want Neil to call me Great Aunt Cassandra… and I certainly would have fainted with despair if Thomas had refused the ham.’

As I’ve got older I’ve become less forgiving of the father in the book, James Mortmain: his utter lack of responsibility for the family is appalling. They are close to starving and he just comes in and asks for a biscuit. I think when I was very young I thought fictional fathers were like that – but he is awful. He is like Mr Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, my other Bad Father of literature.

To me this is one of the great books of the twentieth century, and I will go on re-reading it every few years.

The top picture is Three Women Reading by Priscilla Thornycroft - I like to think, Rose and Cassandra (green dress) waiting for life to begin, Topaz finding meaning in War and Peace. (As I have said before, the artist is well worth looking up.)