So rarely is there a book that perfectly captures the transformation from teenager to young woman. I Capture the Castle is one of those rare books. The teen shelves at bookstores are now filled with shit. Books that fill teenage girls' heads with silly notions that they will find the perfect man and then on top of him being perfect they will change into vampires and than live forever. Their romances are cheap and their characters transparent. These books are not empowering all of the female teenagers out there, instead they are teaching them that when they fall in love everything will magically work out and there will be no more problem unless they involve saving the world repeatedly, mistaken identities, or the worst of all they are separated from there boyfriend for more than 20 minutes. Life and love is hard. When better to learn that than as a teenager.
Here is where someone could interject that learning everything from books is not good either. It is said that failure is the best teacher. That is true, but why are we sending girls out there to fail with high expectations of life. It only makes it so when they fall they fall further. They need a guide. I Capture the Castle can be that guide.
Cassandra the narrator of I Capture the Castle is a very well-spoken seventeen year old. She journals a year of her life living in a decrepit castle in the English country side with her family. Her father, who is a famous retired writer, feel in love with the castle while getting lost house hunting one day. He immediately signed a 40 year lease. When they move to the castle Cassandra and her family had it good, but soon things go down hill. Her mother dies, the house keepers dies, her father marries again, and slowly they are running out of money. By the time Cassandra starts her journal they are all out of work, wearing thread bare clothes, and living off their garden and the few eggs they can get from a neighboring farmer. Cassandra has adapted fine to the poverty, but her twenty-one ear old sister, Rose, has not. She still longs for the days when they had more than just enough food to go around and they could buy new clothes every year. Just when Rose considers selling her soul the devil to just get out, a light at the end of the tunnel comes.
The owner of the castle from whom Father is renting died, and his two sons have come to England to visit their estate and their mother. They wander into the castle and end up meeting Cassandra and her family. Rose is determined to make one of them fall in love with her. Both of them are rich and money is all she says she needs. The two families are thrown together.
While her sister is content to fall in love with whoever Cassandra sits to the side and watches. She nudges her sister along knowing that if she marries they will no longer be poor. What she did not expect was how deeply she was going to fall for the man who fell for Rose. After a secret kiss Cassandra falls head over heels in love with the man her sister is suppose to marry. Since her feelings are not reciprocated she is very unhappy in love. She searched for happiness through other means. She tries to push away her feelings.
When she finds out that Rose is not love with her fiance Cassandra has the small hope that they will break it off and he will fall in love with her. They end the engagement, but Cassandra does not get her wish. The man she longs for is still in love with Rose. Cassandra still loves him and even though he asked her to come to America with him she declines. In the end she is happy though she has grown out of her youthful stage and now understands what being in love is about.
That might be an awful and quickly written explanation of the book. It made the book sound silly and only about how much she longed for a man. The meaning in this book is one of those things that is hard to describe in words. Words are no match to my feeling for this book. I related to it so strongly. I have not been unhappy in love to many times, but every high school girl has her share of heart break and unrequited love. The relation to the book went much further than anything about love. Cassandra thought her life was going one way. She planned, she dreamed, she hoped for this one thing to happen. It was all she wanted in the world. For the man she loved to love her back. When it finally came she felt different more adult about her feelings. She declined his offer to leave the country with him. When something you have wanted for so long finally happens it sometimes does not meet your expectations and you are left feeling much different.
I moved to Chicago a year ago longing for freedom from my parents, my town, my old life. I left thinking that I was going to live the most exciting life in the city. I was going to be doing something I had wanted for so long. I had practically begged my parents to let me go. Now after I have been here I find that I want nothing more than to be home with them. Its such an odd feeling. I must grow up though. The saying goes that you sleep in the bed you made. The hardest thing I find with growing up is expectation verses reality. I have recently gone through that just like Cassandra and just like many young girls will go through. It is something not many are prepared for. I know that all life lessons cannot be learnt from the pages of a book, but it is better to be prepared.
I would like to close with one final statement about the book and its importance, but I really can't find the words. For me there was so much more in the book than just a teenage girl longing for love. The best I can do is to say read it. Maybe Cassandra's story will help you grow. Maybe it can help you capture the castles in your life. I know it gave me a good eye-opening.
Lindsey
