I Capture The Castle

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I Capture the Castle is Cassandra’s diary. She’s an aspiring author, and she is setting out to capture in words the ruined castle where she lives with her family, in the middle of the English countryside in the 1930s. When the Mortmains moved into the castle, the plan was for it to be a romantic and bohemian home, maintained on the royalties earned by Cassandra’s novelist father, a high modernist James Joycean type — but he stopped writing years ago, the royalties from his first book dried up, and now the castle is dreary and crumbling. There was a formal dinner party where Cassandra observed the oddness of gathering to eat, the servants central to the experience but not involved with conversations, the food going in and words coming out. I agree that food doesn't mix well with stiff formality. I do love how people come together over food though - meeting friends usually centers around food, my favorite gifts have been food, and nearly every party I've ever been to has ended up cramming into the kitchen at some point no matter where the host/hostness intended to contain the crowd. I've heard some people complain about kitchen-centric parties...pssh. Conversation still flows and everyone's closer to the food&drink. On 5 November 2019, the BBC News listed I Capture the Castle on its list of the 100 most influential novels. [8]

NO THIS BOOK IS NOT LIKE "POND SCUM" AND USING THAT DESCRIPTION FOR IT SAYS MORE ABOUT YOU THAN IT DOES ABOUT THE BOOK. Now he is chatting to Topaz. I regret to note that he is in his falsely cheerful mood—though I think poor Topaz is grateful for even false cheerfulness from him these days. She adores him, and he seems to take so little interest in her. I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic—two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by. But I won’t attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now. The originators among writers--perhaps, in a sense, the only true creators--dip deep and bring up one perfect work; complete, not a link in a chain." NO THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A "YOUNG ADULT" BOOK! IT IS A BOOK ABOUT YOUNG ADULTS. SOMETIMES THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.After Disney released the film rights to the novel in the late 1990s, Heidi Thomas wrote a screen adaptation. [4] This resulted in a 2003 feature film directed by Tim Fywell for BBC Films. It starred Romola Garai as Cassandra. Rebel Voices: Disruptive Stories from Trailblazing Women - a new Puffin Classics collection, celebrating International Women's Day 2023 Smith’s I Capture the Castle is a delightful read as it is both poignantly dramatic, even tragic at times, but also laugh-out-loud funny. The earnestness with which Cassandra and her sister Rose approach life and love perfectly captures the drama of first love as childhood blurs into adulthood. And while the Mortmain sisters may blunder in love, Cassandra’s coming-of-age inspires her own literary pursuits as well as those of her father. Here we have a potential recipe for a comedy of manners, a farce, a TV soap opera or even a Wodehouse-ian extravaganza. The narrative could have easily slid into any one of these genres and we would have had a mediocre novel. The fact that it does not happen is due to the consummate mastery of Dodie Smith over her medium, in keeping the voice of the teenage narrator so consistent and endearing throughout.

A beautiful, deluxe edition of Dodie Smith’s beloved novel, I Capture the Castle, featuring a new foreword by New York Times bestselling author Jenny Han, a stunning new cover, and designed endpapers that is perfect for devoted readers and those discovering this timeless story for the first time. The summary is accurate and pointless. It is about Cassandra writing about herself in a journal. Their family is penniless. They do live in a castle. She is, as it promises, deeply, hopelessly in love.So says the vicar about Cassandra Mortmain, the semi-precocious narrator of this novel - and one has to accept that he has put his finger on the nub. Rem acu tetigisti, as Jeeves would say. Determined to forge her own path, Cassandra practices her writing skills by keeping a diary - observing the eccentric comings and goings of her beloved-but exasperating family, and pondering what life may have in store for her. But things are about to get delightfully more dramatic with the arrival of two glamorous Americans - and soon the Mortmain's lives will never be the same again. At one point in the novel, unaware that she is listening in, Simon wonders whether Cassandra is being “consciously naive” i.e. putting it on as a show to attract people. She is incensed, and rightly so; because if there is one thing to be said for the girl, it is her perfect honesty about everything including herself! For example, you have respect a person who can say that a piece by Bach made her feel that she was being repeatedly hit on the head by a teaspoon! On the word God: "It's merely shorthand for where we come from, where we're going, and what it's all about."

Sacrifice is the secret--you have to sacrifice things for art and it's the same with religions; and then the sacrifice turns out to be a gain." I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea. Through Cassandra’s sharply funny, yet poignant, journal entries, she chronicles the great changes that take place within the castle’s walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has “captured the castle” – and the heart of the reader – in one of literature’s most enchanting novels. Even when she is encountering the difficulties of first love and first heartbreak, Cassandra remains a wonderfully likable heroine, with a strong narrative voice and a distinctive sense of humour. Whimsical, charming and beautifully written, this engaging classic novel will appeal equally to both adult and young adult readers. Cassandra's Father is the most pig-ignorant and frustrating character that I've come across in literature in a while. He's arrogant, rather abusive, sexist to the very core, he ignores his wife and children (yet they still dote on him) demands meals when he wants them from the women even though there is no money coming in because all he does all day is hide upstairs twiddling his thumbs and doing the odd crossword. He is a character that added nothing to the plot, except annoyance and irritation for me.

Gioia, Michael (24 January 2013). "Pace University Will Offer Free Concert Readings of Drew Gasparini and Alex Brightman's Make Me Bad Musical". Playbill . Retrieved 2 October 2021. In general I feel the whole character of Cassandra just changes 100% after a midsummer encounter, that kind of pops up in the narrative randomly. This might be realistic of teenagers developing, but for me felt forced or overly constructed. Quinn, Anthony (4 February 2014). "I Capture The Castle (PG)". The Independent . Retrieved 2 October 2021. The characters are rather exuberant in how they are portrayed by Dodie Smith, Topaz for instance is tall and pale as a slightly dead goddess.