4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent And Emotional Investment Beyond The Ordinary, April 6, 2000
It happens to me every time I read a Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine novel. At about page three I have entered the reading equivalent of a new romantic relationship. The book sits right down in the middle of my life, becoming a bigger presence than anything else, and for a time I can't just live a balanced life. The House of Stairs, like all of Barbara Vine's novels requires an investment of intelligence and emotional involvement that far exceeds the easy effort involved with a nice quick read or cozy murder mystery.
By the time the main character and narrator, alternately a young and middle-aged woman, goes to live with her wealthy widowed aunt she has already fallen under the spell of the poisonous and beautiful Belle. Belle wears Oxfam clothing with dazzling style, has the best hair in England, and avoids work to the point that nobody with a inheritance is safe from her natural murderous inclinations.
The narrator's aunt Cosette, on the other hand, is so pathetically trusting and generous with those who appeal in the slightest to her tragic vanity that she evolves with as few admirable qualities as the amoral, lazy Belle.
The narrator, obsessed by Belle and favored magnificently by her aunt, is by turns the dispassionate, impeccable reporter of the progression of this tale. Just as importantly, the poor thing is also the catalyst for just about every unfortunate event leading to its grim conclusion. She just can't help herself.
As the rest of the characters file into the story, the good, the users, the charming, and the ill-mannered, we take a bittersweet trip back to the 1960's as we spiral up and down the staircase. That's all I am going to tell you because the biggest delight of Barbara Vine's novels is that you have absolutely not the vaguest idea where the story will take you. Just head for The House of Stairs and savor one of the best reading romances of a lifetime.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply Stunning!, January 20, 2005
Another stunning effort by Ruth Rendall writing as Barbara Vine. Ms. Rendall is a master of the psychological thriller, and this one is as fine an example as you'll find. It is a book that is difficult to read because you know as you read that something terrible is going to happen. Something terrible does happen, but the denouement does not occur until the very last pages. The book is unputdownable and maddening because I kept waiting for the terrible thing to happen. What is really so brilliant about Ms. Rendall's books is that nothing that she writes anywhere in her books is superfluous. Everything means something, and you have to read carefully to get it. In this book, everything centres around an impossible house that has 106 stairs, and all of life seems to occur in around these stairs. The book has a dreamlike quality because she weaves the past and the present together, so seamlessly, that you hardly know what kind of game is being played with your head as you read. Great stuff!
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A book with no one to like., July 27, 2002
I have just finished House of Stairs for the 3rd time. I know little about writing and read mostly commercial fiction. However, the quality of Rendell's writing is at times breath taking. Her device is this book for shifting from the past to the present is simple and elegant. There is really no who done it here, only a why done it. And when you find out why, its so ordinary that you wonder why you read so long to get there. The why is that Rendell writes so good and dribbles the information out is dribs and drabs that you keep reading. You know early on that the narrator may or may not have a dread disease but it isn't identified until about 15% into the book.
One of the drawbacks to this book is the lack of sympathetic characters. Maybe its my age, but there is really no main character is this book who is likeable (although there are a couple which you care about). Elizabeth is the narrator but has an unfathomable weakness when it comes to Belle with whom there cannot be any type of healthy relationship. Belle is a flagrant sociopath who is only interesting because of the degree and outlandishness of her coldness and selfishness. Cossette is the all-time post child for co-dependency. Mark comes closest to being decent but in the end destroys Elizabeth and Cossette's relationship to save his own. There is no one in this group I'd ever want to be friends with.
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