Slade House Blog 1: A Boy, A House, and a Dead Cat

Our reading group’s first book is the novel Slade House by David Mitchell. The first chapter of Slade House is focused on a young boy named Nathan and his mother heading to meet a Lady Grayer at her house, Slade House, which is off of Slade Alley. After a bit of trouble finding the location, they finally arrive through the black iron door into Slade House’s garden where they are introduced to Lady Grayer and her son Jonah. Lady Grayer, who goes by Norah, takes Nathan’s mother inside to meet with a well-known musician. Nathan stays in the house’s garden to play with Jonah.

All the members of our reading group had read Slade House over the summer and when re-reading this first chapter we were reading while keeping our potential projections of text in mind.  While discussing this text, we all realized that we in some way had projected our own ideas onto the text. One possible source was preconceived notions of what genre Slade House belongs to. Hearing a book is “horror” or “suspense” raises expectations of what that book will be like and we look for those characteristics when we read. Another source of projections came from our own previous readings. It was difficult to read mimetically and to submit to the text when we knew what was coming.

We were also trying to discern the controlling idea and counter idea, terms for opposing themes defined by Robert McKee in “Structure and Meaning.” Certain things stuck out to as the narrator, Nathan, tells the story. Nathan’s mind tends to wander, which is reflected in his stream of consciousness narration. His mother is scolding him, but he focuses on her lipstick color or the story of how she got her hairpin. Nathan’s mother instructs him to improve his skills in “Blend In more” (5) and “Acting Normal” (6). Nathan is in a constant struggle between how he wishes to act and how those around him expect him to act, as exemplified by his fascination with a dead cat in Slade Alley. When Nathan points out the dead cat and tries to express how much it upset him, he is shut down by his mother. She wants him to think as she does and forget about it, and he does for a moment. In this small exchange, the ways of others (the way of ignoring dead cats) prevails and Nathan submits to that way of thinking.

Events escalate the longer Nathan stays in Slade House.  While playing with Jonah, Nathan is suddenly consumed with a vision of the garden fading into nothing and a mastiff (his biggest fear) chasing him into Slade House.  He tries to tell Norah, but she assumes he means they were pretending. Things get stranger as he looks for his mother and discovers a peculiar painting of himself. He is confused is quick to blame his mother for this terrible “joke.” Everything that happens are big red flags that you think would make anyone get the heck out of that house, but Nathan doesn’t. A perfect example is while he is playing with Jonah, Nathan sees a woman with a beehive hairdo mouthing words. He thinks she might be saying “‘No, no, no’ or ‘Go, go, go’” (21). Nathan tries to focus on the woman and figure it out, but he snaps back to playing the game when Jonah calls out “‘Ready, Nathan?’” (21). Again, Nathan wants to focus on the peculiar, but instead of a dead cat, it’s a woman with a beehive hairdo. He then submits to another person calling his attention back to the socially acceptable behavior, but instead of his mother telling him to ignore the dead cat, it’s Jonah calling his attention to the game. Nathan repeatedly fails to stick with his gut instincts and instead tries to think and behave like he is expected to.

The result is that he becomes trapped in Slade House’s attic by Norah and Jonah, who promptly eat his soul. When you forsake your own autonomy by letting others dictate how you should act and think, you will be consumed. Nathan’s tragic end is proof of that controlling value winning out in the end. Nathan was literally consumed, but when we submit to them and their ideas aren’t we also consumed by the masses? Is there anything left of us if we allow others to decide our thoughts? While for Nathan, there was nothing left, the first chapter does leave us with some hope. For every moment when the “they” won in Nathan’s mind, there was also a moment where the counter idea, Nathan’s trust in himself, put up a fight. He stopped to watch the woman with the beehive hair and he tried to tell Norah of the mastiff and when he found a portrait of the beehive woman along with his own, he heard her call out “Run now, as fast as you can,  the way you came in” (26). While submission won, resistance existed. Now whether someone will ever trust in themselves enough to conquer Slade House or not will become evident as we progress through the novel, but for the rest of us, we can only stop and notice a dead cat when we see one, despite what everyone else says.