Book: I Capture the Castle

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.
Published in 1948.


First line:
"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."










I picked this book up on a recommendation from one of my favourite vloggers. This is a modern classic, written in 1940s by an English author Dodie Smith, famous for writing 101 Dalmatians. I'm genuinely surprised I haven't heard of this book before.

I ordered it from the library and a few days later started reading it on a rainy afternoon (big surprise there, I am in Dublin after all) at a tiny table in the corner of Starbucks just off Grafton street, while waiting for my friend to join me for coffee after she finished her shift. I was so happy. It was one of those days when I really enjoyed walking around the city, did some shopping, picked up a few very promising books from the library and finally, finally! got that much needed hazelnut latte. There was an incredibly stylish Italian couple sitting on my left, talking animatedly. They looked like they just stepped from the pages of Vogue and talked like business executive. I was fascinated. And of course in front of me, next to the much appreciated latter was the copy of I Capture the Castle, the book I was already in love with because of its cover (it's too bad this edition is not in the shops anymore, as I don't like the covers currently available and I really want to buy this book for my personal library).

It's set in 1930s in an English countryside. There is a family of a once famous writer living in poverty in an old castle. The story is narrated through the diary entries of  a 17 year old Cassandra Mortmain and it follows the life of the occupants of the castle and its newly arrived American owners. Cassandra, or perhaps I should say the author, wonderfully captures the life in the castle, to the point where I felt I was a part of it.  The author painted a very vivid picture and superbly demonstrated the growth of the main character through the changes of the writing style of Cassandra's journal entries.

I loved this story. It's simple, poetic and unpretentious. It's marketed for a young adult and I wish I've read it when I was younger, but I still enjoyed it tremendously and can easily see myself re-reading it time and time again in the future. I want to buy a few copies and give them to my friends, especially younger ones.

According to the back cover, J.K. Rowling praised this book stating, "This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met."