I CAPTURE THE CASTLE

I CAPTURE THE CASTLE

by 

DODIE SMITH

ISBN 978-0-099-57288-6

This caught my eye while I was browsing at MPH Bookstore because it was categorised under Vintage Classics. I have a thing for these type of books. More so a book I had never heard of before. The other books on that shelf were the usual classic staples. Quickly, I whipped out my handphone and did a Google search for this book. Not bad..... the reviews seemed good and what got me convinced immediately was that J.K. Rowling (creator of Harry Potter, in case you didn't know) gave a super glowing review totally gushing about how wonderful this book was.

Cover of" I Capture the Castle" published by Vintage, Random House Group

Well, to cut a long story short, it was a pain to finish the 566 pages in this edition published by the Random House group. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that JK had given it a superb recommendation and that the back of the book contained a 2 page story on how Dodie Smith came to write I Capture the Castle sometime during the Second World War. Considering how much painstaking effort she had put into it, I was expecting things to improve. So I kept on reading.

So..... what was so bad then? Wait, before I begin, here's a short summary taken from the back of the cover. It's about the diary of the heroine, Cassandra Mortmain whose mother is dead and lives with her elder sister (Rose), younger brother (Thomas), has-been writer with a one hit wonder book Dad (James), ex-model eccentric yet very, very kind and maternal step-mom (Topaz) and son of dead maid who is now the handyman and i quote "incredibly handsome" Stephan who naturally has the hots for the heroine and kisses the ground she walks upon. So the whole family live in this romantic crumbling castle with very little money and even less to eat. Things get exciting when a pair of American brothers who are naturally rich (far more wealth than poor Stephan can imagine) come to claim their inheritance (yup, even more money for them) in the form of a dead relative's property which is, you guessed it, the castle. With them is their mother, who is even richer than both the boys put together but the good thing is that she is "very kind, generous and intelligent". 

As expected, the castle girls become rather excited with the arrival of the 2 American brothers. Rose, the big sister, can only think of one thing......how to get hitched to Simon (the elder brother whom we are told is "intelligent, friendly and hospitable despite his detestable beard"). Rose hates all that facial hair but because the guy is rolling in it, hey, she figures she can get him to get rid of it after marriage. Seriously, Rose is about 19 or 20 in the story and I have not come across a character so fixated on hooking a guy. By today's standards, Rose would simply be called a gold digging bimbo. She doesn't have any talents and revels in being totally useless. At the beginning of  the story, everyone comes together for a meeting to rack their brains on how to earn some money to stop them from starving to death but we are  told Rose "isn't good at things like gardening and housework". In short, Rose isn't good at ANYTHING. Honestly, I find this kind of character totally unbelievable. I don't know whether it was the fashion to be useless in the 1930s but this kind of portrayal really irks the shit out of me. 

Anyway, the story goes on and on about how Cassandra falls for the bearded guy (secretly of course) despite the fact that everyone is rooting for Rose and Simon to be an item. Heck, they even get engaged and there is a whole lot of elaboration of how Rose shops for her terribly expensive wedding trousseau in London. Somewhere along the way we learn that Rose isn't happy and has to keep convincing herself that she is. Seriously, those parts are a pain to read because you just want to slap her. Hard. Errrm, then we also learn that Stephan who has carried a torch for Casssandra since goodness knows when, finally accepts that he can never compete with Simon despite his god given looks and decides to go to London to be a photographer's model. Here the story gets a little weird because we are told the lady photographer who is a cousin of the American boys, and is nicely married to an architect, develops the hots for Stephan (eeeuw, cos Stephan is like old enough to be her son!) and they have some sort of affair, perhaps with the knowledge of the husband but he can't do anything because he is such a pussy and his wife is some alpha female. 

I think I shouldn't go on anymore because despite my feelings about this book, I think there are a lot of fans out there plus I don't want to be a spoiler to anyone who has not read the book yet. You obviously don't want me blabbing out who ends up with who in this blog. So, read it if you want and judge it for yourself. As for me, I'm quite sure I won't be reading this again. It will either remain on my shelf as part of my collection or I'd sell or trade it later for something else. Worse case, I'll donate it to my old school library so that some other kid can read about how girls who didn't go to regular school had in store for them and the pain and angst they went through to sort out their muddled feelings about love and life. 

By the way, this was also made into a movie in 2003 starring a lot of beautiful people. Henry Cavill was cast as the handsome Stephan. Another interesting thing is that the author of the book, Dodie Smith also wrote the book One Hundred and One Dalmations which was made into a famous cartoon by Walt Disney.