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A review by daja57
The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories by Henry James
5.0
A literary tour de force. A classic ghost novella. A never-named governess goes to an old house to take charge of a little girl, Flora, and her older brother Miles, who has been expelled from school though no-one is quite sure why. The governess then starts seeing apparitions which she decides are the ghosts of valet Peter Quint and his paramour, the last governess Miss Jessel, who were considered by housekeeper Mrs Grose to have had too much influence on the children. But are the ghosts real or is the hysterical governess hallucinating? Are the children naughty or in league with devils? Why was Miles expelled (the governess tells us that the school say was was "an injury to others"; what does this mean?)? And have the children been damaged by their experiences of the ghosts when they were still alive?
The book is brilliantly written. Narrated by the governess, a classic early example of an unreliable narrator, the book is full of ambiguities that are never resolved. How, for example, did Quint and Jessel die? Miss Jessel dies while on a holiday (reading between the lines she is pregnant by Quint and dies having his baby but this is never stated). As for her lover: “Peter Quint was found ... stone dead on the road from the village: a catastrophe explained - superficially at least - by a visible wound to his head” and it is assumed he has, in liquor, slipped on the icy road but the words "superficially at least" allow the possibility that there is a more sinister interpretation
The governess is a hysterical character (although she is described as "a most charming person ... my sister’s governess ... the most agreeable person I’ve ever known in her position ... awfully clever and nice” in a frame narrative by someone who appears to have had a crush on her when he was a boy) who has immense mood swings. She is convinced that 'the master' has fallen in love with her at first sight, as she clearly has with him. One moment she believes that the children are paragons of innocent perfection and the next that they are in league with the devil. When she explains her self it is in long, convoluted and complex sentences in which words are used in unusual contexts (I wasn't quite sure is this was just Henry James whose prose style is sometimes fiendishly complicated). She repeatedly jumps to conclusions: “He was looking for little Miles ... But how do you know? ... I know, I know, I know!” (Ch 5). In dialogue she repeatedly interrupts her interlocutor and finishes their sentences for them (for example when the housekeeper, meaning Miles, says “Surely you don’t accuse him -” but before she can say what Miles shouldn't be accused of the governess says “Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me?”), thus putting words into their mouth and so validating her own opinions, whilst leaving the reader uncertain as to what they wanted to say. (All dialogue is naturalistic, so that people rarely ever make definitive statements.)
But the ambiguity is the key to this book. It is crafted with incredible care such that the reader can never be certain of the truth. The text is full of hints and clues and suggestions, but nothing is ever certain. Nothing is resolved, even at the final, climactic ending. Brilliant!
The book is brilliantly written. Narrated by the governess, a classic early example of an unreliable narrator, the book is full of ambiguities that are never resolved. How, for example, did Quint and Jessel die? Miss Jessel dies while on a holiday (reading between the lines she is pregnant by Quint and dies having his baby but this is never stated). As for her lover: “Peter Quint was found ... stone dead on the road from the village: a catastrophe explained - superficially at least - by a visible wound to his head” and it is assumed he has, in liquor, slipped on the icy road but the words "superficially at least" allow the possibility that there is a more sinister interpretation
The governess is a hysterical character (although she is described as "a most charming person ... my sister’s governess ... the most agreeable person I’ve ever known in her position ... awfully clever and nice” in a frame narrative by someone who appears to have had a crush on her when he was a boy) who has immense mood swings. She is convinced that 'the master' has fallen in love with her at first sight, as she clearly has with him. One moment she believes that the children are paragons of innocent perfection and the next that they are in league with the devil. When she explains her self it is in long, convoluted and complex sentences in which words are used in unusual contexts (I wasn't quite sure is this was just Henry James whose prose style is sometimes fiendishly complicated). She repeatedly jumps to conclusions: “He was looking for little Miles ... But how do you know? ... I know, I know, I know!” (Ch 5). In dialogue she repeatedly interrupts her interlocutor and finishes their sentences for them (for example when the housekeeper, meaning Miles, says “Surely you don’t accuse him -” but before she can say what Miles shouldn't be accused of the governess says “Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me?”), thus putting words into their mouth and so validating her own opinions, whilst leaving the reader uncertain as to what they wanted to say. (All dialogue is naturalistic, so that people rarely ever make definitive statements.)
But the ambiguity is the key to this book. It is crafted with incredible care such that the reader can never be certain of the truth. The text is full of hints and clues and suggestions, but nothing is ever certain. Nothing is resolved, even at the final, climactic ending. Brilliant!