From the UK Guardian: http://gu.com/p/3zgf9/tw
It’s not often there’s an opportunity to read new material from the departed (outside of the plots of horror fiction, anyway). Very interested to learn a new collection is being drawn together. I am a big fan of Jackson’s work, very understated and unsettling.
I agree with the author of the article, Allison Flood, that the first paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House is one of the strongest horror novel openings:
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
The last six words are a masterpiece of simple yet powerful prose, and they were retained for the narrated voiceover by actor Richard Johnson in Robert Wise’s 1963 film adaptation. But it is the first four words of the second sentence that impress me. This almost offhand clarification sets the tone for the entire book.
I shall look forward to this new collection.