The Turn of the Screw
Henry James
4/5 stars
An inexperienced governess takes charge of two young pupils, a girl, and her brother who has been expelled from his school. The siblings are both preternaturally beautiful and good, never giving her any trouble, until she realizes that they are fraternizing with ghosts.
Published in 1898, the supernatural element would have been truly shocking; in 2017, it wasn't nearly as hair-raising. James' convoluted style is also a distraction.
Despite that, it's a story that keeps the reader guessing the whole time. It is told from the first-person point-of-view of the unnamed governess, and after a while, one must question the validity of what she says. As she becomes more and more hysterical about the ghosts, the reader becomes more and more dubious. Can she be trusted? Has she gone crazy or are the children really possessed? There are the unanswered questions, too, of what happened after the incidents related--we know she ended up in another post, so does that mean she was telling the truth? What exactly did James intend for the reader to assume from hearing the preface, and why was there no postface? I like a book that leaves me with questions, and the Turn of the Screw certainly does just that.
On a side note: this was a reread for me, after 20+ years, and I listened to it on audio book with Emma Thompson narrating. Unfortunately, she overacted it a bit, giving into the hysteria with abandon, and made it harder for me to connect to the thrill of the story than I did with the first reading. I would like to read it a third time, and see if, without Thompson shrilling in my ear, I would find it creepier and more nerve-wracking like I did on the first read.
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