Our October choice is Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson as chosen by Bint.
Here's a fun fact. The process of writing this book was the subject of a fillum in 2020 starring Elisabeth Moss. Other than all the facts they changed, it's an incredibly accurate portrayal of someone vaguely resembling Shirley Jackson sort of almost doing some of the things Shirley Jackosn might have done. One an off day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwG1blud4pI
But Hangsaman is also available in new, improved *BOOK FORM* for a limited time only.
From early on, I thought I could see the general structure. I thought the two detectives, mentioned from time to time in the early part of the book, were interviewing Natalie whom they suspected of having committed a murder, while Natalie herself, paying almost no attention to their questions, was living through her external life while her internal life (or personality) disintegrated. So I expected the two detectives, and the murder, to come back at the end, to explain it all. Which they didn't. So that wasn't the story.
Nevertheless, an atmosphere of menace seemed to pervade the book, such that I almost dreaded picking it up.
At the end, Natalie seemed to have resolved things somewhat, and could be assumed to make a more successful attempt at her life. She had got rid of Tony, who was (IMHO) only ever an aspect of herself. Or perhaps she'd reintegrated her, rather than getting rid of her.
But why Hangsaman? The Hanged Man from the Tarot pack comes in briefly, not far from the end, but its significance doesn't seem sufficient for the whole book to be named for it.
So. I liked We Have Always Lived in the Castle so was happy to read this. I still want to read The Haunting of Hill House. But this.... similar sorts of characters to WHALinC and similar sense of unease/foreboding, but.... hothing really happened. I found myself overthinking it. Was Tony real? Was it a sort of Fight Club/Sixth Sense thing? Obviously Natalie was sexually assaulted at the end of part one, but was something odd about her relationship with her father? I read that it was perhaps/perhaps not inspired by the disappearance of a teenage girl, but is Tony part of Natalie? Does Natalie really not eat at all? It was just all a bit meh, and a bit unpleasantly so.
And Natalie seems to be able to see through Langdon but also not, which I didn't really get, yet Elizabeth Langdon's fate is massively overemphasized and I felt a bit hammered over the head with it.
It was lovely writing in parts, and I think it's me, not the book, so I gave it a 6.
Mmm. The jury is out on this one. Can't say I disliked it, but can't say I liked it either. Nothing really happened. There seemed to be a lot of characters with no real purpose. Difficult to make out what was 'real' and what was 'Natalie'. Gave it a 5.
This was a very odd read and I don't think I really got to grips with it. I liked some of the writing but it didn't seem to resolve into a proper story.
I thought it captured well that overly internal view that you can get trapped in when your imagination runs away with you when you're young. There were also some quite unsettling passages with a real sense of dread. But I didn't think it properly tied together the beginning of the book where she's at home with her family with the rest of the story.
I'm glad there are rules in place that stop lecturers fraternising with their students nowadays. That part was awful with his young wife becoming an alcoholic while he hangs out with younger women!
This will be one of those books where certain passages stay with me even if the whole thing was less than the sum of its parts.
Thanks to Bint for choosing it, it's reminded me that I still need to read The Haunting of Hill House
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Book Group
Jan 2025
