‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is the depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring – I wrote my best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn’t a very good poem. I have decided my poetry is so bad that I mustn’t write any more of it.’ *
Cassandra Mortmain, is one of my favourite characters from literature. She is 17, a passionate writer, determined to ‘capture’ the world around her, including her eccentric family and the neglected English castle in which they live. So many of the characters are memorable but especially Topaz, Cassandra’s bohemian step-mother, a former artist’s model who loves nothing more than communing with nature in the nude, frightening many a local villager in the process.
The literary allusions are many: mainly to classic English novels, Pride & Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, The History of Henry Esmond, Vanity Fair and Jane Eyre, also Proust and Tolstoy. As well as the biblical story of Jacob’s Ladder. These are lightly weaved into the story – it’s wonderful, whimsical: undeniably melodramatic, occasionally a bit silly. Cassandra’s reflects on life, romantic feelings and the existence of God as she attempts to understand her own progress from late childhood to the beginnings of maturity and adult misery; a mix of Jane Austen and Nancy Mitford – waspishly jolly, with little jolts of sadness. Wonderfully funny in places.
I first discovered I Capture the Castle when I was around 11 or 12. It is the one book I return to again and again. I found this first edition on eBay about 5 years ago. Just a few clicks and it was mine. It is one of my greatest treasures.
* the first paragraph of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
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