Yam Cake reviewed The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
We'll never know who she could've been
4 stars
Content warning Spoilers for both the book and the Netflix series follow
My first introduction to The Haunting of Hill House was Mike Flanagan's Netflix series. Shirley Jackson's book was something I've always meant to dive into, since I am fond of spooky stories and was curious about the differences between Flanagan's Hill House and Jackson's. While the show is about how Hill House haunts the family who used to live there, even long after they have left its grounds—the book is mainly about Eleanor "Nell" Vance.
If Nell was an emotion, she would be longing or maybe loneliness. She's experiencing the exhilarating freedom of adulthood for the first time at 32, after being her domineering mother's caretaker for more than a decade until her death. The only other human in her life is her sister, not that Nell is close to her. So when a mysterious letter arrives from a Dr. Montague inviting her to Hill House to record her experiences with things that go bump in the night, she says yes. Things are great at first. She exercises radical volition by stealing her sister's car to get to Hill House, explores the neighbouring town of Hillsdale and quickly befriends the other guests. But things ultimately do not end well for Nell.
It's impossible to know for sure if Nell was always meant to be doomed. Maybe it's some kind of bad alchemy involving clashing psychic energies that make Nell and Hill House a bad combination. Maybe she is experiencing a mental break with reality because of her deferred adulthood, because the real world is just so overwhelming. Maybe things would have gone differently if Theodora and Nell could have said what needed to be said before they both chance upon the ghostly picnic when they were trying to make up.
The truth is, we just don't know for sure. All we have is Nell's perspective and in her head, it's far easier to submit to Hill House then to truly begin living a life of her own. Even if she has to start over and over, by shouldering past rejections big and small, because that's just life, isn't it?
Note: Nell is played by Victoria Pedretti in the series but it is Carla Gugino's Olivia Crane who utters the line that Nell would repeat to herself over and over in the book, "Journeys end in lovers meeting." I think of that scene a lot because of the look of longing in Gugino's eyes; you can see her yearning for eternal rest. Context: Her husband is joining her at long last so Hill House will spare his children. There's malevolence but there's also so much sadness, ultimately she's just... tired.
