The Turn of the Screw by Henry James | 1898 | Dreamscape Media | Ebook $ 0.99
A timeless gothic novella, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw follows the transformation of Miles and Flora from well-behaved children to deceitful liars. When a governess comes to their country estate to look after the children, she and Flora are separately visited by ghosts. However, Flora denies the experience and Miles claims to never have been visited by one, even when evidence supports an evil plot between the children and the ghosts.
I’ve been on a spooky stories kick lately, so I figured now was as good a time as any to tackle another title with bonafide gothic + horror vibes from my list for Classics Club.
The Turn of the Screw is a fairly short novella set in late Victorian England. I’ve struggled a little bit with 19th century literature in the past, but this one didn’t give me much trouble. The plot moves fairly quickly, and although you can tell by the language that it was written well over a century ago it didn’t require a whole lot of extra concentration to interpret for my modern videogame-rotted neurons.
I had to laugh at myself a little; while reading, I couldn’t escape the haunting feeling that this story was incredibly familiar, but I knew I’d never read it before. I started to doubt my memory and the story took on an extra spooky flavor as it continued to induce that strange sense of déjà vu. I finally figured it out, though — no, I’d never read it, but I had seen it! The Haunting of Bly Manor from Netflix is actually based on The Turn of the Screw, info which I’d somehow managed to completely miss when watching it a couple of years ago.
I typically like to learn a little more about a book and its author after reading a work for Classics Club, before writing my own review. It surprised me a little to learn that there is some debate as to whether this is meant to be a true ghost story or whether the ghosts are actually a delusion of the narrator. I had assumed that it was the latter case, that the governess who is supposed to have written the story had gone insane and was blaming demonic spirits for her own dark misdeeds — no spoilers, but not everyone makes it out of the story alive.
I think my interpretation of events was colored by the novella I read shortly before this one, The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat, which is undoubtedly narrated by a madman. I can see, though, why many readers view this as a straightforward ghost story; it’s basically introduced that way, with the conceit that this is a tale being told to a party of friends late one night in some kind of spooky vibes one-upmanship game.
This is a good choice for anyone who’s looking for something a little darker to read as we approach Halloween — and it’s short, too, so it’s not too much of a commitment if you’re really just looking for a little fun-sized candy for your brain.
Links:
- Biography of Henry James from the Poetry Foundation
- “Henry James and the American Idea” article by Susan Goodman at the National Endowment for the Humanities
- “The Endless Horror of Ghost Story The Turn of the Screw” article by Neil Armstrong at the BBC
- “10 Frightening Facts about Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw” article by Ellen Gutosky at Mental_Floss
- Public domain book available at Project Gutenberg
Publication information: James, Henry. The turn of the screw. Holland, MI: Dreamscape Media, 2018. Ebook.
Source: Public library, via Hoopla.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
Leave a Reply