I am not sure why I came to this book so late. The Haunting of Hill House is a wonderful novel. Four people gather together in a reputedly haunted house to experience and record supernatural phenomena. According to the unreliable narrator, Eleanor, it is the first time she has felt she has belonged anywhere. More than the others, Eleanor is affected by the house. Her relationships with the others are strained, although she seems to feel obsessively close to them at times, especially the other woman, Theodora.
We share some terrifying and confusing experiences with these four “investigators”. After dark, the house and grounds produce nightmarish knocking and visual hallucinations. By the end of the novel, Eleanor is completely insane, although it is quite possible that she had severe problems before she arrived.
Humour is provided by the demanding spiritualist wife of Doctor Montague, who strangely enough experiences none of the phenomena that rocks the sanity of the Doctor and his guests. She, her odd friend Arthur, and her trusty Planchette are oddly immune to the violence of the house, suggesting that its focus is the unfortunate Eleanor.
It’s frightening at times and very clever indeed. A book to read more than once, but perhaps not in a reputedly haunted house.
5/5 stars