Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (2013), Paperback, 208 pages
Description
Fiction. Literature. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:The compelling novel that began Shirley Jackson's legendary career Pepper Street is a really nice, safe California neighborhood. The houses are tidy and the lawns are neatly mowed. Of course, the country club is close by, and lots of pleasant folks live there. The only problem is they knocked down the wall at the end of the street to make way for a road to a new housing development. Now, that�??s not good�??it�??s just not good at all. Satirically exploring what happens when a smug suburban neighborhood is breached by awful, unavoidable truths, The Road Through the Wall is the tale that launched Shirley Jackson�??s heralded career. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Tyllwin
AS I was cataloging my books, I was looking at my Shirley Jackson. An older part of my library, tattered and banged up, and prone to omnibus and ex-library editions. "I should replace some of these," I thought. And pulling them out to look at them, I was struck that it's been quite a while since I
My copy is a creased Popular Library edition from 1976, with an utterly wrong back cover blurb written by someone who had apparently never read the book, or who simply had little love for the truth. My name on the inside cover along with my ex-wife's.
The book is a quietly scathing portrait of a block-long suburban "community" ostensibly in the late 1930's, but with much more a sense of the post-war forties, when it was published. Jackson is always, always, understated as she describes their lives. Devoid of love, devoid of principles, devoid of thought, their lives are hollow and they form a community that is likewise hollow, held together only by weary aggregation and geographical proximity. The people she describes are complacent: though their faults outweigh their virtues, they are so without passion or conviction that they never notice it. There's mostly nothing real in their lives, and when ugly reality forces itself into their lives, they are wholly unprepared for how to deal with it.
It's a harsh judgement, possibly of her own childhood upbringing, albeit one delivered in quiet, polite terms. Even the two characters, Marilyn and Harriet, who embody different parts of the author herself, are viewed without pity.
This is not an eventful novel, barely a novel at all in fact. Still, Jackson's potential shows through. She continually conveys more than she seems to. Take this one fragment, for example:
"... the blue-patterned plates, always seemingly set the same, although the chipped one was not always Tod's, but sometimes went to James or to Mr. Donald; the cup by his mother's plate and the cup by his father's plate, and the straight glasses with daisies on them, that sat by Tod and James and Virginia, full of milk."
The sentence is not remotely the throwaway bit of description which it seems. Jackson is not trying to paint a picture of a table with blue plates. She doesn't give a damn about that. No, she means instead for us to learn a great deal about Tod's mother from it. The chipped plate only goes to the male members of the family. So, Mom is the sort to notice it, and she doesn't like it. The family either can't afford to replace it, or the husband is so dully practical that she isn't able to get the idea of replacing them past him. But it matters to her. She and her daughter never have to use it. Does she give it to the males out of a belief that men are not sensitive enough to notice, or as a bit of passive-aggressive revenge for being forced to use chipped china? Then, note the sharp distinction where the adults get cups, the kids glasses. This isn't a family where everyone shares a pitcher of iced tea, or drinks what they like. It's formal, and rules-driven, and by someone who chooses tacky glassware.
This understated description by implication will serve her well by the time she gets to Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
One of the things that will make these latter two books such masterworks will be the cool, studied way in way in which she can give straightforward, comprehensible descriptions and narrations, and still leave us uncertain about exactly what's real and what isn't. She doesn't pull out that skill here, but she does pull out something similar: We don't know, at the end of the book, what's true and what's not. Is Tod culpable at all, or just ready to fall apart at any hard enough shove? If he is culpable, in what exactly? If not, who? The symbolism of literally tearing down a physical wall is clear enough, but what are we to make of Frederica and her strange family? A serpent? A storm-crow? Maybe a stand-in for the reader? Certainly not a dangling loose end, not with Jackson's cool precision and economy.
In all, not, by far, Jackson's best work. But a decent freshman effort hinting at what the author may be when she later comes into her own.
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read through them. So I took down the first published, _The Road Through The Wall_ and reread it over the weekend.My copy is a creased Popular Library edition from 1976, with an utterly wrong back cover blurb written by someone who had apparently never read the book, or who simply had little love for the truth. My name on the inside cover along with my ex-wife's.
The book is a quietly scathing portrait of a block-long suburban "community" ostensibly in the late 1930's, but with much more a sense of the post-war forties, when it was published. Jackson is always, always, understated as she describes their lives. Devoid of love, devoid of principles, devoid of thought, their lives are hollow and they form a community that is likewise hollow, held together only by weary aggregation and geographical proximity. The people she describes are complacent: though their faults outweigh their virtues, they are so without passion or conviction that they never notice it. There's mostly nothing real in their lives, and when ugly reality forces itself into their lives, they are wholly unprepared for how to deal with it.
It's a harsh judgement, possibly of her own childhood upbringing, albeit one delivered in quiet, polite terms. Even the two characters, Marilyn and Harriet, who embody different parts of the author herself, are viewed without pity.
This is not an eventful novel, barely a novel at all in fact. Still, Jackson's potential shows through. She continually conveys more than she seems to. Take this one fragment, for example:
"... the blue-patterned plates, always seemingly set the same, although the chipped one was not always Tod's, but sometimes went to James or to Mr. Donald; the cup by his mother's plate and the cup by his father's plate, and the straight glasses with daisies on them, that sat by Tod and James and Virginia, full of milk."
The sentence is not remotely the throwaway bit of description which it seems. Jackson is not trying to paint a picture of a table with blue plates. She doesn't give a damn about that. No, she means instead for us to learn a great deal about Tod's mother from it. The chipped plate only goes to the male members of the family. So, Mom is the sort to notice it, and she doesn't like it. The family either can't afford to replace it, or the husband is so dully practical that she isn't able to get the idea of replacing them past him. But it matters to her. She and her daughter never have to use it. Does she give it to the males out of a belief that men are not sensitive enough to notice, or as a bit of passive-aggressive revenge for being forced to use chipped china? Then, note the sharp distinction where the adults get cups, the kids glasses. This isn't a family where everyone shares a pitcher of iced tea, or drinks what they like. It's formal, and rules-driven, and by someone who chooses tacky glassware.
This understated description by implication will serve her well by the time she gets to Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
One of the things that will make these latter two books such masterworks will be the cool, studied way in way in which she can give straightforward, comprehensible descriptions and narrations, and still leave us uncertain about exactly what's real and what isn't. She doesn't pull out that skill here, but she does pull out something similar: We don't know, at the end of the book, what's true and what's not. Is Tod culpable at all, or just ready to fall apart at any hard enough shove? If he is culpable, in what exactly? If not, who? The symbolism of literally tearing down a physical wall is clear enough, but what are we to make of Frederica and her strange family? A serpent? A storm-crow? Maybe a stand-in for the reader? Certainly not a dangling loose end, not with Jackson's cool precision and economy.
In all, not, by far, Jackson's best work. But a decent freshman effort hinting at what the author may be when she later comes into her own.
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LibraryThing member KLmesoftly
I was NOT expecting that ending! I'm glad I went into this one with low expectations, because it really impressed me - it was both quintessential Shirley Jackson (ambiguous ending, slowly-building tension, the warping of commonplace occurrences and character types into something sinister) and not
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at all (the setting: sunny suburbia, nothing supernatural in sight). I kept comparing it to a Sinclair Lewis novel; she's pulling back the curtains on an overly-idealized bit of Americana and revealing the (bigoted, judgmental, gossipy) rot within. The ending, though - 100% classic Shirley Jackson. The last 20 pages were a gut punch. Show Less
LibraryThing member BooksCatsEtc
Life in the suburbs of California during the mid-century. The small-mindedness, the casual bigotry, the adolescent angst, the mean girls and the losers -- none of it's changed but here it has the benefit of Jackson's excellent writing.
LibraryThing member Bookmarque
Normally I like subtle, but this was torpid beyond belief. Boring, repetitive and finally I just skimmed the last 100 pages, desperately looking for something to happen. When it finally did it landed with a thud and then just lay there. No upshot or resonance. Everyone either just moved or went on
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with their boring, constricted, suburban lives. If that was the point, I got it, but it left me wondering how Jackson ever got anything else published. Luckily she produced The Lottery for a magazine and it jump started what was probably a dead career. I'm glad it did because her other books are better, but oy, this one was torture. Show Less
LibraryThing member CurrerBell
This isn't a novel about a character. It's a novel about a whole neighborhood, and that's quite a number of characters, and that's quite a bit difficult keeping them all straight. I'm going to have to reread this because it's interesting and I think I'll get more out of it on a second read, but on
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a first read I give it 3*** because of the confusing number of characters. Show Less
LibraryThing member chrisblocker
Shirley Jackson brings her uncanny wit and astute observations to SUBURBIA!
A huge ensemble cast makes this a difficult one to connect with, but it's oh so clever and filled to the brim with absurd reality.
This isn't the best Jackson for readers looking for a strong story or character arcs, but as
A huge ensemble cast makes this a difficult one to connect with, but it's oh so clever and filled to the brim with absurd reality.
This isn't the best Jackson for readers looking for a strong story or character arcs, but as
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good as any looking for top-notch irony and a deeper understanding of people. Show Less
LibraryThing member ElizaJane
Shirley Jackson's first book was an engrossing tale. Genre-defying I'd label it as psychological fiction. At its heart, it is a neighbourhood drama. The plot takes place on one street and includes the inhabitants and their comings and goings, especially the children. Everything seems idyllic but
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there are slight indications that each has a darker story kept private. Until the last fourth of the book, it is a slow story. The rising action and climax happen close to each other and leave an ending with many questions. My third book by the author is my least favourite but an edgy, enjoyable read. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1948
Physical description
208 p.; 5 x 0.55 inches
ISBN
0143107054 / 9780143107057