I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith, had been sitting on my TBR pile for many years. I was aware it was a classic text, originally aimed at young adults but with crossover appeal. As a child I very much enjoyed the author’s other well known work, The Hundred and One Dalmations.
This earlier novel, set in rural Suffolk during the inter-war years, is structured as a journal written by seventeen year old Cassandra and is something of a bildungsroman.
The story opens with Cassandra sitting with her feet in the kitchen sink starting to write in her new, sixpenny exercise book. She introduces her family and describes their home and circumstances. They are poverty stricken, living off money gained by selling anything of capital value. As a result they now have only the most battered furniture left, few clothes, and whatever food they can grow or raise themselves. Most of the work is done by a young man who lives with them, Stephen, whose mother was their servant until she died. He is in love with Cassandra. Much as she likes him, his feelings are not reciprocated.
There is an older sister, Rose, and a younger brother, Thomas. They have a stepmother, Topaz, who although only twenty-nine had been married twice before she married their father. The father made his money writing a successful novel but has published nothing since. They live in a crumbling house built around the remains of a castle dating from the time of Charles II. The family rent this on a long lease, agreed with a wealthy, local landowner who has since died.
Having set the scene, explaining background and current circumstances, plot is moved forward by the arrival of two young men from America, Neil and Simon. The latter has inherited the landowner’s estate. Rose, who ‘hates most things she has and envies most things she hasn’t’, determines to marry Simon. Her family becomes complicit in this scheme.
The narration is believably naive, written as it is by a teenager who has been sheltered from many life experiences. She appears to have accepted the lack of social life chosen by her father, something Rose deeply resents. Cassandra does, however, enjoy being allowed to join in when her family befriend their new neighbours and she gets to observe how those with reserves of wealth can live.
It is interesting to note the class divisions that remain despite the lack of money, and the help the family receive from those whose own means are not extensive. When the landowning family start to take an interest, their generosity is accepted without apparent qualms. I was reminded in some ways of James Joyce, who gets a brief mention. The father is lauded for his literary skill despite making little effort to provide for his family, emotionally or financially.
Other authors mentioned are Jane Austin and the Bronte sisters. Rose and Cassandra imagine living lives such as they wrote of – and then get to do so. Plot development may all be a little too thin but the writing style fits with the narrator and the secondary characters are entertaining. Love between couples is shown to be complicated and often short lived.
An enjoyable read with engaging tension and a degree of humour that is never overplayed. The ending in particular is satisfying, Cassandra finally showing more sense than most of the adults featured.
I Capture the Castle is published by Penguin.
