I Capture the Castle ~ a book review

 

I Capture the Castle was written by Dodie Smith in 1948 and was out of print for a number of years.  The copyright was renewed in 1976 by Dodie under her married name, Dorothy Gladys Beesley.  

The story is basically the journal of a 16-year-old girl by the name of Cassandra who lives in England in a rundown castle.  Her father was once a famous author, who ended up in prison for a few months.  Her mother has died, but we see into the lives of the other members of the family...Topaz her stepmother, Rose her older sister, Thomas her younger brother, and Stephen a young man whose mother had died, and he lived with Cassandra's family.   

The father, whom Topaz declares is a genius, is often thought of as lazy by the community in which they live.  He hasn't written anything for a long while and the family has become extremely poor as a result of it.  Any furniture in the home that was worth anything has been sold, as well as dishes or anything else that people were willing to pay for.

And then one day a family by the name of Cotton came from America to see the home that they've inherited that is close to Cassandra's castle.  She journals of their visits and the two families become quite friendly.  The Cotton's are wealthy and one of the sons is quite taken by Cassandra's sister, Rose.  A wedding is planned, and the Cotton's are quite generous in seeing to it that Cassandra's family are taken care of with food and anything else that they need.

Cassandra also journals of her first love when she is 17.  

The book is 343 pages long and, for the most part, I enjoyed it overall, but I think there are a few parts of it that would not have been well accepted when it was published in 1948.   There was actually a movie made on the basis of the story and the movie is also titled I Capture the Castle.  It was put out by Walt Disney in 1963.  The book was well written, but there were a few things I objected to, so I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it here.