Turn of the Screw

Rating:
Summary: a conjectural analysis
Review: One can accept either of the two established opinions -- that the children did see the ghosts and the governess was telling the truth; or that the children saw nothing, but were frightened by the hallucinating governess -- or one can realize that James intended the reader to be nagged by doubt concerning this -- and a few other -- questions. The question of doubt goes beyond the governess's account. Whether or not one believes her, Quint and Miss Jessel are real, evil figures. But how evil can they have been if they left the children so seemingly innocent? If one believes the governess, so evil that the children's innocence is merely a sham. But there is too much doubt planted and not enough known about the nature of the evil for this to be at all convincing. If one disbelieves the governess, then are the children uncorrupted? In that case, what would explain Mrs. Grose's abhorrence? The abundance of unanswerable questions hints at a void at the center of the story. So do, of course, the multiple frames and narrative ellipses. But is that void simply a void, or is it itself a ghost? How many readers have been haunted by this story, unable to shake it, disturbed and unsatisfied? How many, in other words, have felt like the governess felt? Worse, how many have felt the empty evil at the heart of this ghostly void, the feeling that James may be playing a terrible trick, may have something even worse up his sleeve than whatever dark suggestions the reader's own imagination may have conjured up? The story is not unfathomable, however. Like so many of James's other stories, especially those written during the previous few years, it is about a writer -- in this case the governess -- who fails. The children she takes care of are no less imaginary than the ghosts she describes. It is she who muddies the waters, not James. There are evil ghosts out there, but they live in pens and pencils, not old houses.

Rating:
Summary: Awesomely Influential
Review: While laquered with James' typically ornate prose, this story casts a long shadow. In many ways it seems to have been on Straub's mind as he wrote the masterful, "Ghost Story." And even in King's work, the issues James points at so delicately are returned to again and again. This story sets a high standard, and it delivers throughout. Try reading by candlelight during a thundershower! A friend and I read it out loud to one another on a literal dark and stormy night, and the experience was incredible!

Rating:
Summary: Shockingly interesting
Review: When you first start reading this book you might think it might be a waste of time. But when the suspense grabs you, this book will become your best freind.

Rating:
Summary: It is great!!
Review: The story starts conventionally enough with friends sharing ghost stories 'round the fire on Christmas Eve. One of the guests tells about a governess at a country house plagued by supernatural visitors. But in the hands of Henry James, the master of nuance, this little tale of terror is an exquisite gem of sexual and psychological ambiguity....Are the children being deceptive, or is the governess being paranoid? By leaving the questions unanswered, The Turn of Screw generates spine-tingling anxiety in its mesmerized readers.

Rating:
Summary: A journey into the abyss of sexual desire
Review: Before reading this book,I had never really imagined the extent of darkness that lies in the human soul. I was fascinated by the maddening subtlety and mystery of this tale , as well as it's sheer terror; all elements that are actually a part of sexuality. It's a dangerous tale and the truly fearful thing about it is that it is obviously an overflow of the author's own inhibitions on paper. This is not a technical piece of work. James obviously harboured some very dark desires of his own.

Rating:
Summary: Dry Ghost Story
Review: I found this text to be rather bad. Although the plot may have some highlights, James'literary technique is dry to say the least. It seems as if he attempts to copy Hawthorne's style and if that's what he is doing, he's doing a bad job of it.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely haunting
Review: One hundred years ago the scariest work of horror fiction was written; The Turn of the Screw. Now a century old, this masterpiece is still as creepy and horrific to modern readers as it was to those long ago. Is it a ghost story? A window into the disturbed mind of a nurotic and repressed young woman? A not-so veiled allegory of the abuses, namely sexual, of children? James' rambling, polite, hysterical and prim prose seethes with undertones of violence and aberrant sexuality. After reading this book, you will spend the next week looking over your shoulder; now I understand what "spine-tingling" and "blood-curdling" mean. This book gave me the shivers, literally.

Rating:
Summary: DON'T READ IT BEFORE YOU GO TO BED!!
Review: JAMES' CLEVERLY CREATED NOVEL SET IN AN OLD COUNTRY HOUSE ALLOWS THE UNIMAGINABLE TO HAPPEN. HIS SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION AND LACK OF CONCLUSION TO THE NOVEL VICTORIOUSLY FULFILLS JAMES' AIMS, TO ASK QUESTIONS. THE "VISIONS" OF THE GOVERNESS AND THE "INNOCENCE" OF THE CHILDREN ARE PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE BY A STRANGE, MYSTERIOUS DISCOURSE. FULL OF INTRIGUE AND QUESTIONS, THIS IS A NOVEL DEFINITELY NOT TO BE READ ON YOUR OWN IN BED. DON'T BE PUT OFF BY JAMES' LONG WINDED SENTENCES, THEY ALL PLAY A PART IN THE PUZZLING HAPPENINGS TO THE GOVERNESS...DID SHE DO IT?

Rating:
Summary: The art of suspense.
Review: Forget all you have heard about suspense: until you read the creepy and breathless story of little Miles, his sister Flora and their governess living in an old country house where also lived the silent presences of dead Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, be sure you know nothing about that. You will find evil and innocence together in a way never imagined before. And you will find out how hard it is sometimes to tell what is real and what comes from imagination.

Rating:
Summary: Deliciously vague
Review: The Turn of the Screw has been hailed as one of THE classic gothic/ghost stories. I read it recently and agree that it's brilliant - but not in the way some might expect. Henry James is not an easy writer to read nowadays when every author seems to aim to "hook" the reader from the first page. DON'T read this long short story NOR any other James story or novel if you expect some fast-paced, action-packed thriller. What you will get instead is a very sharply descriptive style that uses language to convey the complex psychology and moods of the characters and events. This kind of works well for a story about a governess and three other main people in pre-20th-century England, in an isolated estate.

The story is simple - a man has two nephews who have become orphans. He lives in the city and isn't really interested so he hires a new goveness (the narrator) after the old one dies. The gonverness is convinced that the estate is haunted and that the ghosts are undergoing creepy conspiratorial communications with the two children.

I found the story did freak me out, for the same reason as why it has been analysed so much in terms of psychology or sexuality. While James may not have meant all that people put into the story, it is an amazing study of the perception of propriety and morality and its relationship to our sense perception. Thus, the whole catch of the tale is that it's perfectly ambiguous - everything can be interpreted from at least two very different angles (read to find out which ones!) - but the interpretation also differs depending on which society's conventions we read the story from.

This makes for an fairly complex and unique book - one that told me as a reader more about myself than it did about any silly ghosts - which I think is the mark of good fiction.