Shirley Jackson and Great Prose

The Haunting of Hill House

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.” – Shirley Jackson

Hot damn, what an incredible way to open a book. I don’t suppose there are many people who could finish such a paragraph without wanting to push on. One of the things I really enjoy about good prose and well-written passages are the easy way in which they can be read or spoken aloud. Instead of tripping up the narrative, the abundance of commas and semi colons serves to add a great deal of imagery that sings as you read it- and all of it in a bare three sentences!

“To learn what we fear is to learn who we are. Horror defies our boundaries and illuminates our souls.” – Shirley Jackson

As a huge fan of horror I can’t help but concur. As is often the case, the fear we feel from horror comes less in the form of evil monsters or houses, but in the forced confrontation of every day worries that we frequently choose to bury.

“No human eye can isolate the unhappy coincidence of line and place which suggests evil in the face of a house, and yet somehow a maniac juxtaposition, a badly turned angle, some chance meeting of roof and sky, turned Hill House into a place of despair, more frightening because the face of Hill House seemed awake, with a watchfulness from the blank windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of a cornice.” – Shirley Jackson

This is just great. As with the opening chapter, Shirley Jackson does such an amazing job at setting an extraordinarily unsettling atmoshere for Hill House. That she managed it in a single sentence makes it all the more impressive.