The Haunting of Hill House: Did I miss the window?

 

I think that this book may need to be recategorized from Psychological Horror to another more relevant genre like 20th Century Gender History et al. Explanation below:

First- total props out to the creators of ground breaking media. There is so much of it that whether through innundation or generational constraints, we can never get to everything we want at the time of optimal relevance.

In the last couple years, I finally got around to watching Twin Peaks. While I could see how it was innovative at the time of release, being late to the boat by 25 years I had experienced a great deal of the cinema that was influenced by it and which had taken it steps further. It was interesting to see, but it was a bit like watching a familiar old dog sleep on the couch.

Reading the Haunting of Hill House 60 years after it’s release was similar in that I have experienced a great deal of referencial work. I can understand the build up and time appropriate horror this would have provided. Did I miss the window for enjoyment as a horror novel? I found the suspense of the book to be slow, taking far too long for such a short work to find it’s thematic legs. The scares were minimal and underplayed. The ‘horror’ was arguably tedious.

What I found far more fascinating was the mystery of characters. With loosely guised Lesbianism and a strong undercurrent of mental illness, the frequent character roleplaying at princess and gentleman were even more poignant.

Enjoyable! But not for the reasons I picked it up.