***SPOILER ALERT: ENTIRE PLOT AND DENOUEMENT REVEALED***
It’s fairly easy to identify what makes a film work,
particularly when that film is a mainstream Hollywood movie. In this blog, I’ve
talked a bit about superhero movies and how these tend to use a limited number
of ingredients. I think it’s not for nothing that a whole language of
scriptwriting has developed which refers to some stock devices in films, such
as the need for a ‘Third Act’.
Of course, there are many novels that mimic the structure of
a mainstream film – some of these one feels that the author has even had half
an eye to being adapted for the screen.
But I’d argue that novels are (generally) more sophisticated
and complex than mainstream films, and that anyone wanting to unpick a novel,
and ask ‘how do novels work’ is in for a tougher challenge than just putting
the latest Marvel comics movie under the microscope.
My own opinion is that books are more effective because they
stimulate the reader’s imagination in a way that doesn’t happen on film where
everything is presented in ready-made visual form to the audience. Indeed, the
most effective films are those which still leave something to the audience’s
imagination. Think of any effective horror or suspense film.
In novels, the structure is often not so heavily dependent
on external events /plot as it is on the exploration or development of
character. As an extreme, think of ‘To the Lighthouse’ where the novel focuses
exclusively on the interiority of its characters. Virginia Woolf reverses the
standard approach by spending most of the novel describing the ebb and flow of
her characters’ thoughts during a Summer’s day. Events which might normally
serve as the main subject of a novel (a war, the death of one of the main
characters) she relegates to a middle section of about five pages.
All of which is meant as a caveat to the following analysis.
I can’t really do justice to Susan Hill’s ‘I’m the King of the Castle’, as it’s
a complex and subtle work, which – like all good novels- resists attempts to
reduce it to its constituent parts. So I’ll try not to take it apart, but
rather to suggest a few ways it’s put together.
For those who haven’t read it, it’s about two boys thrown
together by circumstances, and the bullying that takes place between them, with
Hooper the tormentor and Kingshaw the victim. The novel begins with Kingshaw
coming to stay in Hooper’s house accompanied by his mother, who has applied for
the job of housekeeper, and the novel ends when the persecution has driven
Kingshaw to such extremes that he takes his own life. So there’s a natural span
to the action of novel.
The novel is given structure by the rhythms and dynamics of
the relationship between the two boys as they get to know each other, or rather
as they metaphorically circle each other, and as Hooper finds ever more
ingenious ways of getting under Kingshaw’s skin. The action is mostly confined to the house, which lends the novel
a certain claustrophobia (emphasis is
given to the house at the beginning of the novel because we learn that it
represents something quite ambiguous for Mr Hooper in its connection with his
own father). But the action is also punctuated by various events such as
Kingshaw’s aborted attempt to run away, and by a day out to the ruins of a
castle and then, near the end of the novel, by a visit to the circus.
The novel charts how Kingshaw’s metaphorical escape routes
are gradually but systematically closed off – either intentionally (as in
Hooper’s case) or otherwise. Kingshaw can’t run away without Hooper following.
To have his own privacy he has to continually evade Hooper, but knowing that
Hooper will eventually discover which room he’s locked himself into – and
Hooper frequently reminds Kingshaw that he is a guest (or worse) in his house.
Kingshaw feels that Hooper will always win, whatever the situation.
What starts as a fixed period of time before Kingshaw can go
back to school and be free of Hooper changes into a more dreadful prospect –
the decision to send Kingshaw to the same school as Hooper, where Hooper can
marshall other bullies to prey on Kingshaw. At the same time, the marriage
between their respective single parents changes Kingshaw’s stay to a permanent
one, and therefore removes any hope of a change in his situation.
The reader feels it wouldn’t be quite so bad were Kingshaw actually
listened to by either of the parents. But the adults either willfully
misunderstand him, or lack perception to interpret what is going on around them
– dismissing his complaints as just a ‘boy thing’. For a short time in the
novel, Kingshaw finds a genuine escape and enjoyment in his friendship with
Fielding because this is something that he can keep to himself, only for
Kingshaw’s Mum to unintentionally intrude on that as well.
One of Kingshaw’s final acts in the novel is to go into
Hooper’s bedroom, tear down the battle plans Hooper is so fond of, take them
outside, and tear them up into tiny pieces and burn them. It’s less a decision
to act or fight back as it is the ultimate admission of powerlessness in that
it expresses a terrible frustration that has no other outlet or hope for
relief. Indeed, Hill’s decision to have Kingshaw burn the scraps of paper is
effective in that it doubles as an act of provocation to Hooper, and also as an
act of concealment – ie burning away the evidence of what he’s done. Kingshaw’s
decision to drown himself in the wood is moving – and perhaps inevitable –
because the pool of water is the one place he has recently managed to find any
sense of freedom.
The tension created in the book is all the more effective
because of the moments of reprieve that Hill allows her character. There are
moments where Kingshaw thinks things might after all be ok (incidentally
mirroring his mother’s expressed hope that they will all be a family, and that
‘things will be ok’). He proves himself resourceful and a clear thinker in the
storm that reduces Hooper to a quivering wreck. At the time there seems every
prospect that the role reversal in the wood where Kingshaw takes charge will
defuse the situation back at home. The fact it does no such thing somehow makes
the return to the status quo all the more chilling.
Kingshaw also finds temporary relief in his friendship with
Fielding which is formed during the time Hooper spends in hospital. Kingshaw’s
initial suspicion of Fielding shows how far Hooper has got under his skin in
encouraging a distrust of others. There’s a scene where Kingshaw explains his
problems to his new friend, and you really feel that this human contact might
be a watershed moment and that Fielding might be able to suggest ways of
dealing with Hooper that will defuse the situation. But ultimately Hooper’s
influence pollutes this friendship as well.
The relationship between Hooper and Kingshaw has a certain
symmetry about it which I think acts as a kind of glue for the novel. It’s not
just that both boys have lost a parent, and are grieving about this or are both
prey to related fears and nightmares. For instance, in the wood Hooper hits his
head and becomes unconscious at risk of drowning in the water nearby, in way
that prefigures Kingshaw’s own actual drowning at the end of the book. Also the
two near-fatal /fatal events in the novel (Hooper’s fall from the masonry, and
Kingshaw’s drowning) although caused indirectly by the other boy, are both
self-inflicted.
As an aside, the fall from the castle wall is particularly
impressive in that Kingshaw has the thought that he could just push Hooper off
and kill him, and is sorely tempted to do so but doesn’t, only for Hooper to
misinterpret Kingshaw’s innocent arm movement as a sinister one, resulting in
him losing balance and falling anyway. There’s something here that reminds me
of Dostoevsky – where a character thinks of a murderous act which he could
quite easily have gone ahead with, decides not to, only for the results of that
act to occur anyway, and in such a way as to make him look guilty after all. As
another aside, it’s satisfying that Hill has this key scene take place at a
literal castle, in reference to the title.
And finally there’s an interesting contrast in the reactions
of first Kingshaw to Hooper’s supposed death, and then at the end of the book,
Hooper’s reaction to Kingshaw’s actual drowning. Kingshaw has the perfectly
normal human response of utter devastation at thinking he may have caused his
tormentor’s death. By contrast Hooper’s first (and only stated) reaction at the
end of the book is to feel pride that it is actually him who has brought about
his victim’s death.
This is the same author who brought us ‘The Woman in Black’.
So if you’re interested in hearing about her ideas on ghost stories, I”d
recommend a Christmas ‘Start the Week’ programme on Radio 4 where she discusses
this with Claire Tomalin (among others).
At the time of writing the programme can be downloaded at:
