The Sundial
Ratings12
Average rating3.5
Before there was Hill House, there was the Halloran mansion of Jackson’s stunningly creepy fourth novel, The Sundial When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when the somewhat peculiar Aunt Fanny wanders off into the secret garden. But then she returns to report an astonishing vision of an apocalypse from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared, and the family finds itself engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence as they prepare for a terrible new world. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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See my full review on The Emerald City Book Review.This is a very strange book. It is funny, sometimes hilariously so, but it's also disorienting and savage and mystifying. The premise is, to say the least, odd: a megalomaniac matriarch, along with various descendants and hangers-on, have gathered in her walled estate to await the end of the world, of which they expect to be the only survivors. Given that most of the characters detest most of the others, the mind boggles at what will happen when their already-insular social circle is made even smaller. Classic country-house scenes of deliciously venomous dialogue are interspersed with visions and mysterious occurrences that give the whole book the quality of a nightmare from which it is singularly difficult to wake. I kept wondering what it would be like on stage or in a film, though sadly, I don't think this has a chance of coming to pass.
This one started off with a bang - pushed down the stairs, or fell? Ghost encounter or madness or lies? - but then slowed waaay down. At first I resented the change in tempo, but after finishing the book I understand how necessary that change was to the plot. And it works, it really works.
The word “horrid” seems to have fallen into disuse, how lovely that I get a chance to use it now! Not the book—its characters. Dreadful, the lot of them: self-absorbed, venal, contemptible from the very first page and increasingly more so.
Jackson had a gift for depicting us at our ghastliest. Here she uses a variety of paintbrushes, at times inspiring disgust, other times pity, once in a while veering into almost (Preston) Sturgesesque levels of farce. Her dialogue is believably natural. Her social commentary a bit heavyhanded at times but always spot-on. I’m left with mixed feelings: I want to read more of her work, but not for a while.
