I Capture the Castle is at heart a love story about coming of age, discovering men and longing for a better life. It's set in 1930s England. 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain unceremoniously introduces us to her world - 'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink' - and introduces, little by little, the impoverished and eccentric Mortmain family, and the dilapidated old English castle they have come to call home.

Cassandra is a dreamer, and it is through her romantic eyes that we meet Simon and Neil Cotton, the two Americans who have inherited the castle she and her family live in. They show up unexpectedly to view their newly-acquired property, but soon are responsible for spinning the two Mortmain girls, Cassandra and her sister Rose, out of their secluded man-free lives, and into a world of London finery, America culture, and - most importantly - love and sexuality. Driven by a desperate need to escape the hardships she has endured for years, Rose sets her sights on the older of the Americans, Simon Cotton, and by turns repels him with her over-enthusiastic and antiquated flirting, and seduces him with her beauty and natural charm. Cassandra is left negotiating the largely unwanted affections of Stephen, the farm boy who lives with the Mortmain family, and trying to decide if she truly likes Simon's brother, Neil.

The girls' father - author James Mortmain - is a constant presence in the story's background, as he wrestles with years of writer's block. He is in some ways the stumbling block of the family. His inability to write is the reason they have no money and have to live as they do. It is as James's block is finally cured (in the most unorthodox of ways) that resolutions to their problems finally roll into place for all the book's characters. Topaz, James's wife and the girls' stepmother, flutters between the family members, looking after her unusual brood. She provides light entertainment to the reader during heavy moments, with obscure statements that Cassandra calls 'Topazisms' - 'One must sink to the depths in order to rise to the heights' - and a tendency to go out and commune with nature, naked.

The Mortmain sisters take separate paths of self-discovery. They drift apart as each asserts her will and confronts her true emotions. It becomes a story not just of love, but of growing up, and finding one's place in the world. The book makes no pretence to be daring, or racy. Nothing more than passionate kisses are described in any detail. Instead the feeling is that writer Dodie Smith was creating a story for an audience who knows that love can be painful and unrequited, and that innocence can be lost. Happy endings are not a guarantee. What is more important to Smith's characters is admitting the truth about their situations, and settling for nothing less than true love.

Although I Capture The Castle could fall many times into melancholy, Cassandra's dry observations and wit keeps spirits high. She often drops in absurdities in a carefully-droll way, lightening an otherwise serious scene: 'Topaz is wonderfully patient – but I sometimes wonder if it is not only patience, but also a faint resemblance to cows. It is rather like her imperviousness to cold.' Cassandra's obsession with herself, her thoughts and dreams, can at times be trying, and another perspective would be welcome. But there is a sweetness, a resilience, to her character which makes her endearing.

I Capture The Castle is in some ways idealistic about love, in others harsh about the truth of relationships and finding out about men. Ultimately it is a story of wistfulness, dreaminess, and romance with unexpected strangers - which can be very welcome, now and again.

(c) Ellen Andersen 2009

reviewed 2009 / London

NOTES - I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith (1896-1990); first published in 1948. Available by publishers including St. Martin's Press, and Vintage Classics, from eg Amazon.com. One edition for example is : St. Martin's Griffin, Published: April 2003, ISBN: 978-0-312-31616-7, ISBN-10: 0-312-31616-X, Trim: 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 352 pages, black & white drawings (thanks to http://us.macmillan.com/icapturethecastle for this info). Websites about the book include http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/dodie-smith/i-capture-castle.htm.

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