Week One: I Capture the Castle CBBC

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Welcome to the first week of the Cool Bloggers Book Club (CBBC) where we will be discussing I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith! CBBC makes it sound like this is some exclusive club, but anyone can join, blogger or not, cool or not. I'm happy you are here and making this journey with all of us. As always, the ground rules for CBBC are:

1) Don't apologize. Don't apologize for having a lot or a little to say in the comments. Don't apologize because you're not an expert on something. Don't apologize because you don't have a doctorate in English literature. Don't apologize if you fall behind or can't keep up. Have fun and say what you have to say. You and your thoughts are important.

2) Feel free to come back and respond to comments more than once! I love it when there's a dialogue in the comments.

3) Have fun reading, thinking about the book, and discussing it! Don't feel limited to my discussion prompts - talk about whatever you feel like talking about.

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Who is Dodie Smith?

I Capture the Castle (ICTC) came on my radar because the folks over at Slate's Culture Gabfest podcast LOVE this book. It recently came to my attention again because Stephen on the Culture Gabfest mentioned reading an article called "The Small Girl's Proust" about why ICTC is something beyond a mere romance novel. Dodie Smith was an English novelist and playwright and her most famous book was a children's novel called The Hundred and One Dalmatians. The critics of the time suggested ICTC was trifling and unimportant it made Smith very unhappy. But the book was listed as one of the BBC's Big Reads and has had a lasting impact on its readers. 

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What happened in these chapters?

This is Cassandra Mortmain's journal. She's a seventeen-year-old growing up in poverty in the ruins of a castle. She lives with her older sister, Rose; younger brother, Thomas; the son of their former maid who is sort of a man of all work, Stephen; her father, a man who wrote a semi-successful book called Jacob Wrestling and has since been suffering from writer's block; her stepmother, Topaz, an artist's model who fears that as she ages she'll get less and less work; Heloïse, a white bull terrier; and Abe, a pale ginger cat. They live off the royalties from Jacob Wrestling, but that amount is dwindling every year. 

They have no furniture, very little in the way of clothing or food, and haven't paid the rent in years on their 40-year lease of this crumbling castle. We spend the first few chapters learning how they live their day-to-day lives with little contact with the outside world except for a librarian who stops by once a week. Rose is very unhappy with her lot in life because she never meets eligible men and knows her only way out is through marriage. 

The Cotton brothers arrive, though, from America. There are two brothers and the oldest, Simon, is the heir to the very estate where the Mortmains lease the castle. Rose sets her hopes on Simon, but Cassandra overhears the brothers talking smack about Rose after a visit. 

The girls' Aunt Millicent dies and leaves her clothes to Cassandra and Rose and they take a train trip to London to pick up the clothes. They soon learn that Aunt Millicent has also left them furs and then there's a weird scene about the fur coat and getting off the train and it seems like Rose is going to be able to catch Simon Cotton as a suitor after all. 

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Hat mentions (why hats?):

And though I can still see the shape of her that day huddled on the steps, her back view when we were in the car, her brown tweed suit and squashy felt hat, I can't visualize her face at all. (page 33, Chapter III)

Topaz came downstairs just then, in her black oilskins, sou'wester hat and rubber boots, looking as if she were going to man the lifeboat. (page 47, Chapter IV)

I looked this up for all of you. A sou'wester hat is a waterproof hat with wide, slanting brim. These folks don't have dresses suitable for being in public, but they have this type of hat? 

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Lines of note:

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-cozy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a 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 very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. (page 3, Chapter I)

What an opening line! Can you even imagine it? Also, gross to put your feet in the kitchen sink! I love that this lets us learn a little about our narrator and how funny this book is going to be from the very beginning. 

I like the idea of a lute, but not the noise it makes; it is seldom in tune and appears to be an instrument that never gets a run at anything. (page 13-14, Chapter II)

LOLOLOL. I thought these chapters were very funny.

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing. (page 25, Chapter II)

Is this the most famous pull quote from the book? Or is the first sentence? Hard to say. 

She had been too busy to cook, so we had cold Brussels sprouts and cold boiled rice - hardly my favorite food but splendidly filling. (page 54, Chapter V)

Gross. Brussels sprouts are gross. Imagine cold ones. I'm gagging over here. 

Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle. (page 74, Chapter VI)

This is so smart. When things are hard, you really need to double down on love and kindness. 

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Things I looked up:

Auto de Fé (page 13, Chapter II) - From Portuguese auto de fé, meaning 'act of faith'; Spanish: auto de fe was the ritual of public penance, carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries, of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexican Inquisition as punishment and enforced by civil authorities. Its most extreme form was death by burning.

By Pedro Berruguete - [2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=279413

The Lancaster Witches (page 33, Chapter III) - The only one of William Harrison Ainsworth's forty novels that has remained continuously in print since its first publication. It was serialized in the Sunday Times newspaper in 1848; a book edition appeared the following year, published by Henry Colburn. The novel is based on the true story of the Pendle witches, who were executed in 1612 for causing harm by witchcraft.  The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history, and some of the best recorded of the 17th century. The twelve accused lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire, and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft.  Of the eleven who went to trial – nine women and two men – ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty. (I might have really gone down a rabbit hole on this.)

Home Chat (page 48, Chapter IV) - a play by Noël Coward, written in 1927 and presented in London in the same year. It depicts the domestic affairs of a married couple and their family and friends, and revolves around an unjustified suspicion that the principal female character has committed adultery.

...and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park...(page 55, Chapter V, bolded mine) - I didn't know the word raven could be used as a verb. It means to seek plunder or prey.

catkins (page 71, Chapter VI) - a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated but sometimes insect-pollinated

squashed-fly biscuits (page 83, Chapter VI) - also known as Garibaldi, it's shortbread biscuits with currants

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Questions to ponder (as always, feel free to answer as many or few of these as you'd like - talk about what you want to talk about!):

1) Do you like the framing device here that Cassandra is writing a journal? What are the advantages and disadvantages to this? 

2) Did you find this book as hilarious as I did? What amused you the most (I loved how they made Miss Blossom talk)?

3) What's up with the father here? Do you think he's depressed? Secretly somehow getting his hands on booze? Is he just lazy? Too scared to write another book?

4) There is a little room between them and us which we call "Buffer State"; Topaz uses it as a studio. (page 13, Chapter II)

After my husband watched too many episodes of The West Wing, we started calling our living room "The Situation Room." Do you have a fun name for a room in your house?

5) I have rarely heard such rain as there was during the meal. I am never happy when the elements go to extremes - I don't think I am frightened, but I imagine the poor countryside being battered until I end by feeling battered myself. Rose is just the opposite - it is as if she is egging the weather on, wanting loud claps of thunder and positively encouraging forked lightning. (page 40, Chapter IV)

Are you a fan of extreme weather or does it put you out of sorts?

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Homework for you:

How are you reading this book? Paperback, ebook, audiobook? Where are you reading it? If you have a photo of your book (maybe in the cozy chair where you read!) you'd like to share with the rest of the group, send it in and I'll make a collage for next week.  dominique100 @ hotmail dot com

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Upcoming CBBC schedule:

August 12: Chapters 7-10
August 19: Chapters 11-14
August 26: Chapters 15-16
September 2: Wrap-up