Just like I Capture the Castle
Jan. 27th, 2012 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ladyherenya and I have been chatting about “books like I Capture the Castle, because we both love books that could be so described and thought that, hey, it would be so much easier to find them if there were a master list somewhere.
But in making a list it became apparent that “books like I Capture the Castle” needed to be defined, so here’s an attempt at itemizing the necessary qualifications for a book to make the cut.
1. The voice. Cassandra’s voice is, for me, the heart of I Capture the Castle. She’s young and sheltered, but clever, inquisitive, funny; intoxicated with language and all its possibilities. She could natter on about dust bunnies and be brilliant.
I tend to lump everything that echoes Cassandra’s voice into the umbrella category, but there are other qualities that many of these stories share.
2. A eccentric family. The parent figures are loving but somehow deficient - either too distant or too immature to hold the family together - and the sibling bonds are tight, often acting as the support that parents can’t provide. There’s often a sense of isolation from the world, at least at the beginning.
3. The coming of age story. There are lots of kinds of coming of age stories, and this particular sort involves the heroine breaking free of the aforementioned isolation and stepping into the world - both socially and intellectually; and, in The Montmaray Journals, politically. There’s more to say about this, I think.
There’s often a lot of writing about books. I love books about books, and books about the intellect taking shape, and they’re so rare.
4. A peculiar house, preferably a castle, although a decrepit country house is also acceptable. I think this is as much for atmosphere as anything else - doubtless a Cassandra-ish story could be set in a split-level; but who doesn’t love atmosphere?
Those are the main qualities that I’ve thought of so far. Am I missing anything?
***
If you, too, wish to read more books like I Capture the Castle, so far our list contains:
1. Michelle Cooper’s brilliant Montmaray Journals - A Brief History of Montmaray and The FitzOsbornes in Exile, soon to be joined by The FitzOsbornes at War. I’M SO EXCITED. I WANT TO READ IT NOW.
2. Eva Rice’s The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
3. Jean Webster’s Daddy-long-legs
With honorable mentions to:
1. Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, because Juliet sounds like a grown-up Cassandra and because there’s lots of talking about books and ideas even if there’s no coming of age story - Juliet being already quite grown-up - and no castle, worse luck.
2. L. M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon trilogy. I’ve only read the first, butladyherenya says the later ones follow a Cassandra-ish coming of age story.
It’s not a very long list. If you have any possible additions, please suggest them.
ladyherenya and I have been chatting about “books like I Capture the Castle, because we both love books that could be so described and thought that, hey, it would be so much easier to find them if there were a master list somewhere. But in making a list it became apparent that “books like I Capture the Castle” needed to be defined, so here’s an attempt at itemizing the necessary qualifications for a book to make the cut.
1. The voice. Cassandra’s voice is, for me, the heart of I Capture the Castle. She’s young and sheltered, but clever, inquisitive, funny; intoxicated with language and all its possibilities. She could natter on about dust bunnies and be brilliant.
I tend to lump everything that echoes Cassandra’s voice into the umbrella category, but there are other qualities that many of these stories share.
2. A eccentric family. The parent figures are loving but somehow deficient - either too distant or too immature to hold the family together - and the sibling bonds are tight, often acting as the support that parents can’t provide. There’s often a sense of isolation from the world, at least at the beginning.
3. The coming of age story. There are lots of kinds of coming of age stories, and this particular sort involves the heroine breaking free of the aforementioned isolation and stepping into the world - both socially and intellectually; and, in The Montmaray Journals, politically. There’s more to say about this, I think.
There’s often a lot of writing about books. I love books about books, and books about the intellect taking shape, and they’re so rare.
4. A peculiar house, preferably a castle, although a decrepit country house is also acceptable. I think this is as much for atmosphere as anything else - doubtless a Cassandra-ish story could be set in a split-level; but who doesn’t love atmosphere?
Those are the main qualities that I’ve thought of so far. Am I missing anything?
***
If you, too, wish to read more books like I Capture the Castle, so far our list contains:
1. Michelle Cooper’s brilliant Montmaray Journals - A Brief History of Montmaray and The FitzOsbornes in Exile, soon to be joined by The FitzOsbornes at War. I’M SO EXCITED. I WANT TO READ IT NOW.
2. Eva Rice’s The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
3. Jean Webster’s Daddy-long-legs
With honorable mentions to:
1. Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, because Juliet sounds like a grown-up Cassandra and because there’s lots of talking about books and ideas even if there’s no coming of age story - Juliet being already quite grown-up - and no castle, worse luck.
2. L. M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon trilogy. I’ve only read the first, but
ladyherenya says the later ones follow a Cassandra-ish coming of age story.It’s not a very long list. If you have any possible additions, please suggest them.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-28 04:49 am (UTC)I think I have an addition for the list: Raider's Tide by Maggie Prince, about an English teenager during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I who goes against her community and their laws when she helps an injured Scottish raider.
It doesn't always have a Cassandra-ish quality to its first-person - although I'd have to reread it to be sure about that - and nor is it a book about books. However, the heroine challenging conventions, questioning her previously-held world view and the personal discoveries this all leads to, strikes me as being the same sort of breaking-free (intellectually) and-stepping-out-into-the-world coming of age story.
Also, she lives in a tower with her eccentric family (her mother is a dreamer, her father secretly a highwayman; she and her headstrong sister run their farm).
I reviewed it here.
As I was writing this, my computer started playing the Tangled soundtrack. Tangled! Not a book, and perhaps it's a confused candidate because Flynn, not Rapunzel, is the narrator. But I feel like it belongs in this category anyway.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-29 12:50 am (UTC)And I love Tangled. Hmmm. I think coming up with movies that fit this category might be a profitable endeavor - there's a whole genre of movies about quirky girls coming of age. Have you seen New Waterford Girl? It doesn't have a castle, but it has everything else.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-05 09:56 am (UTC)I've just realised that I haven't actually seen very many coming-of-age films at all (and only then if they've been an adaptation of a book). I should do something about that.
no subject
Date: 2015-04-03 12:29 pm (UTC)Emily of New Moon is awesome (I love them so much more than the Anne books) but I agree they're maybe a half-fit for this list.... Damn, I feel like I've read things that would fit but nothing immediately comes to mind. I'll have to think on it.
no subject
Date: 2015-04-03 05:37 pm (UTC)Maybe I just think there are more such books than there are because books like this tend to leave a strong impression on me.