Finally, I have actually read the book that Kate chose as part of the Six Degrees of Separation meme for this month. The idea of Six Degrees of Separation is that Kate chooses the starting book, and then you nominate six books that are linked in some way to that title.
In fact, I just didn’t read the starting book I Capture the Castle (1949) just once: I read it many, many times as a teenager. In my family, we didn’t tend to buy books, even though I was an inveterate reader, and so I borrowed this book from Banyule High School library over and over and over again. Strangely, I can’t remember if this was the cover or not, but it looks vaguely familiar.
In keeping with the retro nature of the starting book, I’ve tried to show the book covers as I remember them. I read many of these books before I started blogging, so there’s only one link to my review.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (who also wrote One Hundred and One Dalmations) was about two sisters, and is told from the perspective of the younger sister, Cassandra. It reminded me of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. In both cases the narrator is a young aspiring author living in a ‘big house’, who is romanticizing her older sister’s love life.
Another book about sisters, of course, is Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women – another book that I just loved as an adolescent. Part of me still wants to be Jo March, writing books in my attic, even though I am now probably older than Aunt March!
My love for Little Women meant that I just loved Geraldine Brooks’ March as well, where she writes herself into the character of Mr March, the absent father who is off as a chaplain in the American Civil War. Brooks takes a much loved story, but she makes it her own, spiking it up with Marmee’s perspectives as well.
It was probably Little Women that spurred my love for American Civil War books as well. I really enjoyed Alan Gurganus’ Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All which, set in the present (it was written in 1989) was presented as the memoirs of an old lady who at the age of 15 married a much older Confederate veteran in 1900.
In fact, so much did I enjoy it that I purchased Alan Gurganus’ Plays Well With Others, which wasn’t about the civil war at all. Instead, it was about AIDS cutting a swathe through the artists and writers in New York during the 1980s.
Tuberculosis was another disease which cut down young people in their prime. Say No to Death by Dymphna Cusack is the story of two sisters (sisters again!) in post-war Sydney when Jan contracts TB. It was a contemporary book when it was written (1951) but now it’s a fascinating slice of social history and critique. My review is here.
My Six Degrees this month has taken me back to older books that I read ages ago, but obviously they made enough of an impression to spring to mind again now. Where did I Capture the Castle take you?
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 
I bought Say No To Death after I read your review!
It’s a good book- I haven’t read much of Cusack’s work but I did enjoy this.
I’ll probably read it when there’s a 1951 Club. The 1962 Club is coming up next…
So what are you reading for 1962?
It’s called Chowringhee, and it’s by a Bengali writer called Sankar, translated by Arunava Sinha. I bought it when it was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction prize, so it must be a recent translation though the book was written in 1962.
I loved this chain. Both Little Women and March were favourites once. But would I like Little Women now? I don’t think I want to find out. Atonement is an inspired way to begin your chain!
I haven’t re-read I Capture the Castle in the last fifty years- I wonder how well it would stand up now. I’m not sure about Little Women- certainly the recent film versions (particularly the 2019 Greta Gerwig one) have put a more feminist spin onto it.
I don’t know if I’ll get this meme done, but I’ve read your whole list to Plays Well With Others. Loved I Capture the Castle and March and Little Women – I wonder how I would do –