  You're OK to turn the lights off!, 2005-09-13
This is a strange novel. I didn't find it particularly exciting, but I did find it compelling because, as one reviewer says, it charts the disintegration of one woman's mind. However, it is not a ghost story in the usual sense and I felt disappointed that there wasn't more scary stuff in it that would have made me keep the bedroom light on. Thumbs down, I'm afraid.
Visitors may bring their own madness, 2005-07-06
Doctor Montague has a passion for studying the paranormal and hopes his doctorate in philosophy and degree in anthropology will lend his work in this area an air of respectability. He has rented a haunted house for the summer and, from his list of possibly psychically turned-on individuals, he has selected the most promising candidates and invited them to join him there to stimulate the monstrous pile into providing him with material for his 'definitive work' on the subject. Two of the candidates, Eleanor and Theodora, duly arrive and immediately start as they will go on, with the house and its old retainers, the Dudleys, kicking off their sense of unease. Montague and Luke (not one of the psychically sensitive chosen, but a relative of Hill House's owner) arrive later. As they get to know each other, the house gets to know them and to find and exploit their weaknesses. Poor, lost and lonely Eleanor feels she has found friends - a family even. The house performs for them and terrorises them, but Eleanor begins to enjoy the frisson of terror which gradually diminishes as she feels chosen by the invisible powers within Hill House. She has a growing sense of belonging, not to the new friends from whom she feels more and more alienated, but to the house. The signs of Eleanor's mental disintegration eventually become obvious enough to alarm Montague and the team and the decision he takes in order to remove Eleanor from harm's way, provides the final push as she teeters on the edge.Shirley Jackson's characters are definite 'types' if not stereotypes and the relationships that develop between them are plausible and interesting. The house is described as 'not sane' but the house is certainly not the only lunatic element. Its visitors bring their own range of mental disfigurement with them. Most of the men in this story and all of the women are deeply neurotic, with Eleanor being the top of the heap, 24 carat wacko. They are all excellent subjects for the house to work with. The terror generated is more restrained than the sort you expect to find in the modern 'bloodfest' type of horror. The tale would fail to terrify any reader who could not bring the power of their own imagination to The Haunting of Hill House. For a reader with imagination however, the book is a potent generator of fear. Recommended.
Creepy, but not a classic., 2008-05-04
This is not a ghost story in the usual sense, and the various psychic manifestations that occur are not the outlandish ones you see in Hollywood movies. It's more a study in psychological disturbance and disintigration, and is often quite creepy. However, the internal dialogue and self-questioning of the main character, Eleanor, does get rather tedious, and it needs some trimming to warrant its reputation as a supernatural classic.
Not quite the Haunted House of expectations., 2006-04-14
For anyone who wishes to read a classic tale of supernatural suspense and ghostly spirits, stop now. The Haunting of Hill House is not a typical 'haunting', as the title may suggest. Shirley Jackson wields more psychological aspects in her characters, rather than evoking ghostly or supernatural apparitions.
The psychological vulnerability rests largely with Eleanor Vance, invited along with two other guests, to stay at Hill House to aid Dr. Montague in his pursuit of paranormal investigation. Eleanor, suffering from isolation and insecurity on the outside, is exposed to the most manipulation inside the house. There is an attempt to show that the evilness of the house is turning characters against each other, as can be seen with Theo and Eleanor, but this is more reminiscent of school yard bitchiness than anything else. When the evil house does come alive it fails to generate any terror or suspense.
Good but not great, 2005-03-15
I bought this book with great excitement as I love a good ghostly tale, but after reading it, I felt a little disappointed.
Shirley Jackson does paint some amazing characters throughout the book, espcecially that of Eleanor. Each character feels real and alive, and their actions and reactions true to life in the time it was written. The house itself is a brooding, dark character, so wonderfully written that you believe it is a real place, and it lives on in your memory.
The spooky goings on are well written and really are spine-tingling and exciting. But there simply aren't enough of them. Just as you think the book is really building pace, and leading up to some amazing and horrifying event, the book ends. Fair enough, it ends well, but I was left expecting something more.
The Haunting of Hill House could have done with being an extra 50-100 pages long, but it is an enjoyable read.
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