I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith Review

I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

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I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle 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 entertainments.

 

 

 

 

 

I Capture the Castle is a novel I included in my 10 Feel Good Books to Read While Social Distancing post back in April and one I’ve been looking forward to reading for far longer. I didn’t have any sense of where the story would go before reading it, but I did have a sense of how it would feel. I expected a charming, cozy sort of story with humor and heart—and I was exactly right. 

I adored this book. As soon as I started reading, I knew I was going to adore this book. It’s told from the perspective of Cassandra Mortmain, a 17-year-old girl living in a decrepit castle in the English countryside who wishes to be an author and keeps a journal—this book—as a bit of writing practice. From the first page, I knew I was going to love Cassandra. It was made official when her sister said she’d love to be in a Jane Austen novel and Cassandra said she’d “rather be in a Charlotte Brontë.” I Capture the Castle is so full of personality, wit, charm and emotion and it’s all due to Cassandra’s narrative voice. I’ve read several books written in a diary/journal style but this one stands out. Cassandra (Dodie Smith, really) writes with such a familiar, casual manner, capturing moments with clarity but perfectly maintaining her own voice and youthfulness. I say familiar because though this book was written in 1948 and the story takes place in the ‘30s, Cassandra is perfectly understandable and relatable. Her experiences and voice, as well as those of the people around her, don’t feel aged, a fact I found surprising. I was also surprised by the tone it often took and the topics touched on. I Capture the Castle certainly feels like something special. The writing really was fantastic, capturing life in the castle and the personalities of Cassandra’s unique family with all the personality of a 17-year-old girl in the delivery. It’s easy to feel as if you’re really right there alongside the family because of the casual diary style. The humor within this book is great. There are many, many small funny moments throughout the story—within Cassandra’s own journaling, the actual happenings of the story and the dialogue between certain very unique characters—but there was one scene that was almost too good for me to handle. It’s not often that something in a novel makes you laugh—like, really laugh—but I Capture the Castle did just that. I won’t spoil the scene with any hints but I was laughing throughout most of it. This seems another accomplishment of the wonderful writing. 

In a way, the plot of I Capture the Castle was both very much the type of story I thought it’d be and much different from my expectations. I’d say the overall feeling the story conveys and the most general outline of the plot matched my ideas but the details of it all were unexpected. I’m not sure if I knew the story takes place in the ‘30s before I read it, but I was surprised by how normal everyone seemed. “Normal” meaning not at all stuffy or rigid in the way some older novels can be. Sure, there were some moments where they stuck to formalities but even then, it was remarkably un-stuffy and full of personality and very unique circumstances. The Mortmains’ family situation and dynamic was certainly unlike anything I’d read in a novel like this before and made for a very compelling cast of characters and a much more unique and entertaining foundation for the story. Cassandra’s father is a former “genius” author who had success from his unconventional novel about a decade ago. Since then, he had a stay in jail and seems to have given up any effort towards writing another novel…or doing any work at all. He’s eccentric and strange and terribly selfish and lazy, putting the family in quite a situation. Topaz is Cassandra’s stepmother and is only 8 years older than Cassandra’s sister Rose. Topaz is also quite unique, a former model who has some strange beliefs (that often involve nudity to commune with nature) but is generally very kind, if a bit too forgiving of her husband’s laziness. I mention those two characters specifically not to ruin some of the reading experience but to exemplify just how different they are from the types of characters I expected. It was thoroughly entertaining.

The story follows Cassandra and her family over the course of about six months as the Cotton brothers become a part of their lives and present potential romances. While I enjoyed the progression of this plot, none of it was terribly unexpected. Though again, it was all told with a sense of humor and frankness that was absolutely refreshing compared to other novels with somewhat similar plots. So yes, once I started getting a feel for the direction of the story, it wasn’t unexpected….until it was. The plot took a turn I didn’t see coming and began following a path I wasn’t sure would lead somewhere I wanted it to. I had vague inklings it might go near that direction and perhaps if I’d taken a moment to extract myself from the story to look at it in a general sense, I might’ve guessed where it was going. Wrapped up in it as I was, I didn’t expect the shift. It even caused me to rethink what I thought about several characters and what I wanted to happen. And once that change in the story hit, I thought I suddenly was sure of where it was going. I ended up being wrong and I’m happier for it. I had my guesses as the end neared but was still surprised by how everything unfolded and so appreciated that the ending was not as simple as I thought it’d be. It was realistic and emotionally complex.

The story focused on more than just the drama of romances, though. It also focused on everything important to Cassandra in her daily life, including her parents and the frustration of the poverty they had to live in, complex familial relationships and expectations as well as the delicacy of unwanted, unreturned love from someone she cared about. Written in an entertaining and compelling way, Cassandra manages to express herself and these emotional situations wonderfully. It was quite interesting watching everyone’s development over the course of the novel, especially Cassandra’s. She seemed to go from helpful sister living for someone else’s potential happiness to being wrapped up completely in her own thoughts, overwhelmed by her feelings but absolutely sure of them. While I questioned her feelings at times, I always really liked her and understood her. There were subplots with other characters that added depth and interest to the story as well. I found every bit of this novel entertaining and fantastic to read. 

I loved I Capture the Castle. For me, the joy of reading it comes mostly from Cassandra’s wonderful personality that’s so apparent in her writing. I’d happily read about her everyday life even if it didn’t include all the drama this novel did. It was such a cozy book, perfect for reading outside on a beautiful spring day. It’s certainly become an instant classic for me, a novel I will return to again and again. 

5/5 

Have you read I Capture the Castle? What did you think? Let me know in the comments! 

Thanks for reading, 

Madison