![]() A weathered copy of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Other Stories from Free Library of Philadelphia, among which is included “Flower Garden” They are broken into sections and given epigraphs to distinguish them from Joseph Glanvill‘s Saducimus Triumphatus, a 17th-century tome on witchcraft. What is the order for these stories? Cannot say. Many of the stories are fairly short, with the exceptions of “Flower Garden” and “Elizabeth” (haven’t read yet). “Flower Garden” was collected in The Lottery and Other Stories. The latter, a knowledgeable friend has it, conjures Shirley Jackson. Hadn’t heard of it before, but sounds like my wheelhouse.Īs well as Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. Want to read The Charterhouse of Parma and The Betrothed sometime soon, after reading in the NYRB about the new translation of The Betrothed. Have not yet read her other novels, I regret to say. The descent into madness of the central character in that book seems, inasmuch as I can judge it, terribly realistic, compelling. Its narrator, Merricat Blackwood, is such a lovely fantastical creature with whom one cannot but be charmed.īut in some ways Haunting is more insightful, more effective (but possibly only insofar as it’s considered a genre work). We Have is the more important work, everyone agrees, and the work that doomed her to literary posterity. Not so for Jackson (and perhaps one reason why she’s considered a genre writer and not a literary figure, per se).īoth of the above mentioned novels I consumed somewhat voraciously (and I’ve been well trained to be suspicious of too much enjoyment). But most of it isn’t “just enjoying”: it requires work on the reader’s part for enjoyment, nay, appreciation, to occur. A lot of what I read, all of it probably, falls into that category. Reading someone like Jackson reminds me of the joy of just enjoying good, interesting stories. I’ve read both of these over the past year, enjoyed both more than a little. Jackson is known for-when she is known-the aforementioned novel, We Have …, and The Haunting of Hill House.
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