Hailed as one of the greatest haunted house stories ever written, “The Haunting of Hill House” is widely considered a gothic horror classic. That’s why I got so excited to see that the group “Horror or Heaven” chose it is as their group read for September 2024. I think it’s impressive how the book manages to stand out from all the previous haunted house tales, but as I recently discovered, Shirley Jackson did her research: She read papers by psychic researchers and a lot of traditional ghost stories, and she made sketches of fictional buildings as aid for plot development. She seemed so intent on creating a house that seemed uniquely alive and uninviting - an antithesis to the very concept of home.

It was an act of moral strength to lift her foot and set it on the
bottom step, and she thought that her deep unwillingness to touch Hill
House for the first time came directly from the vivid feeling that it
was waiting for her, evil, but patient. (36)

She succeeded. From the very moment I read the first page and stepped into Hill House myself, I knew I was in the clutches of an offensive abomination. Jackson famously opens the novel by warning you that “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”. (2) It was sometimes hard to visualize the house in a concrete and detailed manner in my mind, but then again far too easy to feel and understand the essence of it, to be enveloped by paranoia and nausea by its depressing and menacing presence. An architectural ill will as it is, unmistakably uncanny by a subtle, yet hostile ambience coming off the designs, features and interior that are all demanding to the eye and strenuous on the soul. As such, the house is a character, with its own body, presence, voice and spirit.

Hill house is practically the antagonist of the entire story, challenging, provoking and confronting its residents at every turn.

It had an unbelievably faulty design which left it chillingly wrong in
all its dimensions, so that the walls seemed always in one direction a
fraction longer than the eye could endure, and in another direction a
fraction less than the barest possible tolerable length […] what
nightmares are waiting, shadowed, in those high corners – what breath
of mindless fear will drift across my mouth. (40)

This experience is therefore made possible by the cast of characters, as Jackson renders the Hill House-effect more vividly through, in my opinion, some very likable people. You have the amiable and curious doctor of philosophy and supernatural investigator, Dr. John Montague, who’s just looking for people who “have been involved in abnormal events” in order to “observe and explore the various unsavory stories which had been circulated about the house for most of its eighty years of existence.” (5) You have the sassy and friendly Theodora, the helpful and down-to-earth Luke and - what I perceive to be the main character – Eleanor, who’s deserving of all the sympathy in the world, for she is finally free of her mother’s clutches and able to explore the world and figure herself out and grow and smile. Yet I feel so much for her, for she is self-deprecating to a fault. Eleanors journey in the beginning from when she decides to accept Montague’s invitation and to when she reaches Hill House is a marvel and delight, told like a wonderful fairy tale. Which brings me to my final point.

“I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought,
and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.” (42)

Part of what makes Hill House the perfect haunted house is not just the untimely deaths of previous residents, it’s how it seems to change people. How it seems to have such an adverse effect on them. These characters shine so brightly in the beginning, but they subtly regress or corrode mentally and physically as the days go by, as if corrupted by a house which seems to pray on their fears to feed whatever dead things lurking in its diabolic recesses, to strengthen whatever ghost is banging on the walls or whispers somewhere in that dark hallway, to oppress sound and force an atmosphere of eerie silence upon you.

“The sense was that it wanted to consume us, take us into itself, make
us a part of the house.” (139)

I won’t spoil what, but the characters do of course have their fair share of experiences. The purpose of their stay there is scientific, and theories are suggested along the way about what happens – events that are not explicit enough to be supernatural, yet still far enough from merely suggestive of some natural circumstance. Does Jackson ever reveal the source of the haunting? Readers are left to their own devices with that question.

Or rather: it will forever haunt them.

1. David Grann - "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI"
2. Featuring an inheritance: Janice Hallett - «The Twyford code»
3. Title starting with the letter “G”: Talia Hibbert - «Get A Life, Chloe Brown»
4. Title starting with the letter “H”: Tamsyn Muir - «Harrow the Ninth»
5. Title starting with the letter “I”: Maurene Goo - "I believe in a thing called love"
6. Under 200 pages: Sjón - «The blue fox»
7. A city or country name in the title: Karin Tidbeck - «Amatka»
8. Dystopian Fiction: Stephen King - «The waste lands»
9. A book with a dedication: Shirley Jackson - "The haunting of Hill house"
10. Takes place during the roaring twenties: Agatha Christie - "The murder of Roger Ackroyd"
11. A book about secrets: Ann Cleeves - "A lesson in dying"
12. High Fantasy: Leigh Bardugo - «Shadow and bone»
13. Published posthumously: Jean-Dominique Bauby, «The diving bell and the butterfly» (unntatt i Frankrike)
14. A survival story: Thor Heyerdahl - "Kon-Tiki-ekspedisjonen"
15. Set in Australia: Benjamin Stevenson - «Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone»
16. Featuring one of the “seven deadly sins”: Taylor Jenkins Reid - "Carrie Soto is back" (pride)
17. By a Caribbean author: Jamaica Kincaid - «Lucy»
18. Set during a war other than WWI or WWII: Guillermo del Toro og Cornelia Funke - "Pan’s labyrinth - the labyrinth of the Faun" (spanske borgerkrigen)
19. Typographic cover: R. F. Kuang - «Babel»
20. A book about siblings: Helga Flatland - «En moderne familie»
21. A second-hand book: Philippa Gregory - «The White Queen» (kjøpt på loppemarked)
22. A body-positive message: Lisa Fipps - «Starfish»
23. An alliterative title: Margarita Montimore - «Oona out of order»
24. Nordic Noir: Jo Nesbø - «Rødstrupe»
25. A fashionable character: Danielle Steele - "Dorothy Must Die"
26. Has an epilogue: C. S. E. Cooney "Saint Death’s Daughter"
27. Newbery Medal Winner: Kate Dicamillo - «Flora & Ulysses»
28. Includes a funeral: Teodora Goss - «The strange case of the alchemist’s daughter»
29. Sends you down a rabbit hole: Neil Gaiman - "The Sandman: Act 2"
30. An author with a same name as you: Jenny Erpenbeck - «The End of Days»
31. Set in a workplace: Rainbow Rowell og Faith Erin Hicks - «Pumpkinheads»
32. Published by Macmillan: Tamsyn Muir- "Nona the Ninth"
33. A banned book: Adam Silvera - «They Both Die At The End»
34. Featuring mythology: Ellie Griffiths - «The Janus stone»
35. A book you meant to read last year: J. K. Rowling - "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"
36. Chapters have cliffhangers: Hervé Le Tellier - "The Anomaly"
37. Written in present tense: Øyvind Hatterud - "Mjøsa rundt med mor"
38. An enemies-to-lovers plot: Chloe Gong - «These Violent Delights»
39. The final book in a series: Fredrik Backman - «Vinnerne»
40. Written by a comedian: Lauren Graham - «Talking As Fast As I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls and everything in between»
41. A character who is a refugee: Jeff Vandermeer - «Borne»
42. Time in the title: Richard Osman - «Thursday Murder Club»
43. A book “everyone” has read: Emma Cline - «The Girls»
44. A contemporary setting: Bjørn Vatne - "Underliv"
45. First word in the book is “The”: Danielle Paige - «Yellow Brick War»
46. Script font on the spine: Jon Kalman Stefansson - «Sommerlys, og så kommer natten»
47. Set in the city of Dublin: Caimh McDonnell - «A man with one of those faces»
48. A book by Octavia E. Butler: Octavia Butler - «Parable of the Sower»
49. Books on the cover: Sangu Mandanna - «The very secret society of irregular witches»
50. Related to the word “Murder”: Kerstin Ekman - "Hendelser ved vann"
51. A book that doesn’t fit any of the other 51 prompts: Solvej Balle - «Om utregning av romfang 1»
52. Published in 2023: Leigh Bardugo - «Hell Bent»

Mini-utfordringer (kan bruke bøker fra hovedutfordring):
February 2023 Mini-Challenge:
1. Set in either winter or spring (depending on what the groundhog says!): Benjamin Stevenson - “Everyone In My Family Had Killed Someone”
2. A shadow on the cover: Adam Silveira - «They both die at the end» (Audible-versjonen)
3. A time loop: Solvej Balle - «Om utregning av romfang 1»

October mini-challenge:
1. «It was a dark and stormy night»: Shirley Jackson - «The haunting of Hill house»
2. Steampunk
3. Includes a funeral scene: Teodora Goss - «The strange case of the alchemist’s daughter»