June 2025 read-along pick: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Because the potent wit of this beloved narrator is unparalleled
Are there any books you’ve lost count on how many times you’ve read?
I’m a sucker for any sort of coming-of-age tale and the journals of Cassandra Mortmain have a way of drawing me back into myself—both as a reader and a writer. Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle is the sort of novel I come back to every couple of years or so—just as the summer season starts to really warm the earth— and I am often celebrating the Midsummer rites right alongside Cassandra in my own way, contemplating the cyclical nature of life in conjunction with the inevitable changes that lie ahead.
Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain (or rather, authoress Dodie Smith) narrates her life with an honesty and ease only the most earnest of writers envy; one minute you will howl with laughter, the next you will physically clutch your heart as you read how hers breaks. Although the novel is set in mid-1930s England, it’s difficult to say exactly how old the castle Cassandra and her eccentric family resides in is. It is crumbling, to be sure, and life within such a forgotten fortress is less romantic than one might imagine. Poverty, first loves, and familial struggles are explored in this unconventional tale—and if you let yourself live this story it’s going to leave a lasting mark on you.
“When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it—or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don’t suppose many people try to do it.”
-Dodie Smith (Cassandra Mortmain), I Capture the Castle
The novel is firmly rooted in English culture—which perfectly explains my 17-year-old captivation upon discovering it—but there are a handful of American characters that make for some humorous encounters and interesting storylines. When Cassandra’s beautiful and discontented sister, Rose, decides to have one of the castle’s landlord (American) brothers, it’s not difficult to see where the tale is headed; Cassandra begrudgingly learns that perhaps love and attraction and marriage isn’t as simple as one might have it.
Perhaps it’s because I simply stumbled upon this novel at an impressionable, lovelorn time in my young adult life that I fell so head over heels for the pages of “The Sixpenny Book” and its subsequent journals. Perhaps it was the composition books I was filling in my own time, and the refuge I’d created for myself with mere paper and ink, that drew me so close to the ramblings of Cassandra. Whatever the reason, I’ve yet to outgrow I Capture the Castle—and I don’t plan on doing so anytime soon.
I strongly believe this is a book for the writers; a love letter to the ones grasping to make sense of the world around us.
From the very first page, Cassandra will draw you in, inviting you to keep a journal yourself—or perhaps reorient you back to a long-lost art you’ve never stopped needing.
I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring—I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn’t a very good poem. I have decided my poetry is so bad that I mustn’t write any more of it.
-Dodie Smith (Cassandra Mortmain), I Capture the Castle
Interestingly enough, Dodie Smith also wrote The Hundred and One Dalmatians in 1956. If you have read it (or any of her other works), I’d love to hear about your experience. It’s (probably) time I attempt to acquire a copy to read aloud to my children. I’m certain the writing will be excellent. (And both of my children are thoroughly enthused with dogs—so I am also certain they will love it.)
In the meantime, consider joining me as I revisit an old, dear friend—a tried and true novel I don’t believe I will ever tire of.
I love this selection! I am unfamiliar with her other works, but I found a beautiful edition of this book and have enjoyed her writing style. I discovered it an adult, but I found myself attracted to the setting and, as you said, the humor in it.