Thursday, August 17, 2006

Recommendation for I Capture the Castle

I would recommend I Capture the Castle to almost anyone as an entertaining, and sometimes touching account of life in a crumbling castle in England. Written by Dodie Smith, probably most famous as the author of 101 Dalmatians, I Capture the Castle takes a memorable look into the life of Cassandra and her bohemian family, and their destitute lives in a run-down castle.

While this can be seen as coming-of-age novel, it veers far from being cliched, and is truly entertaining. Cassandra is a lovable heroine and more three-dimensional and thoughtful than many female characters portrayed by writers. I recommend you read this story for the characters, and for the moments that it brings.

For someone who is not very visual, I found that every time I picked up this book, I could instantly envision spring in England, near the castle. It's a lovely way to spend an afternoon, and while it is not a book for children, I can see a my younger self being captured by this book.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

oooooooh, I love "I Capture the Castle" too!! I haven't read the book, but I've watched the movie and totally fell in love with it. There are so many good quotes, you can tell it was originally a novel :)

There's one thing she says to Simon near the end that broke my heart. Something like "I don't want to go through life like my mother, afraid that I'm not really loved, even if it meant I could go through that life with you."

Anyway...I'm glad you like it too ^_^

CC said...

eek this makes me want to see the movie more than ever^_^ I'll tell you what i think.

the book made me feel *spoiler warnings* really surprised when she fell for simon, i was so sure she would end up with stephen, but I have to say I appreciated the way she stayed true to herself, and did not make any choices so that the readers may have a happy ending