Paperspine Blog

I’d heard of I Capture the Castle (by Dodie Smith, author of “The Hundred and One Dalmations”) before, but going off of the description, I’d often decide to read something else instead. I shouldn’t have, really, because this book is quite good.

I Capture the Castle is about seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in a castle in England. Or, rather, they live in part of a castle – their home was built onto the remains of a crumbling old castle. Time are not good for Cassandra and her family. They are quite poor – her father is a writer who hasn’t written anything in a long time. The book was published in 1948 when it was still quite difficult for a woman to work to support her family. So, while Cassandra’s stepmother, Topaz, earns money sitting for artists, but it isn’t much.

Help comes in the form of a boyfriend for Rose, Cassandra’s sister. He is one of the new owners of the property that they live on. When Rose becomes engaged to Simon, things start improving for the family. Suddenly, she can help them afford to have decent meals. But Cassandra worries that Rose doesn’t really love Simon. Or does she? Cassandra can’t tell.

Cassandra dreams of becoming a writer and keeps a journal to practice for the novel she hopes to one day write. The book is that journal. It isn’t, however, the somewhat-clunky “Dear diary” format that some “journal as book” novels have taken. Instead, Cassandra is writing a story as a journal. Over the course of six months, we watch Cassandra respond to her life changing in ways she couldn’t imagine.

At the beginning of the book, Cassandra talks about how she is hoping to “capture all our characters and put in our conversations”. By the end of the book, not only has Cassandra captured all of their characters, but she has “captured the castle” perfectly.