The Turn Of The Screw

An expertly crafted novella where James makes you put in a good deal of work to figure out what exactly is going on, but is highly rewarding. It is the story's ambiguity – most the the scenes can be interpreted in more than one way – that makes it so powerful. Read it slowly and take the time to let your imagination run wild.

Too Boring. Sentences were too convoluted. I didn't care for anyone and did not find it scary. 

“I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the appalling alarm of his perhaps being innocent. It was for the instant confounding and bottomless, for if he were innocent, what then on earth was I?”

A young governess accepts a position in a beautiful estate in the English countryside, in Essex. The cosmopolitan uncle entrusts his niece and nephew into her hands and asks not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Bly is enormous, the acres endless, the house full of corridors and closed doors. Our unnamed narrator couldn't be happier. Flora and Miles couldn't be lovelier. And then, darkness arrives. A man standing on a tower, a woman in black standing by the lake. A strange song and a face at the window.

“I could only get on at all by taking “nature” into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but demanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw of ordinary human virtue.”

Having recently watched (for the tenth time...) the marvelous 1961 film The Innocents, I thought that it was time to read one of Henry James' most controversial works once again. I always choose this as a part of my summer readings. Its sultry atmosphere soon becomes eerie, its underlying sensuality grows within an environment of secrets and charged sexual tension. Suffocating and enticing, cryptic and provoking. Challenging. Hungry. The questions are many. Is everything real? Is the young woman ‘'imagining things''? Has she created a world of her own, projecting her frustrations upon the ‘'innocents''? Or has she found herself in a whirlwind of lust and obsession orchestrated by two malevolent spirits who use the children as vessels and instruments? Each reader needs to draw his/her own conclusions. James is not a writer who provides every solution at the end of his works. Even daily, mundane issues and snapshots of ordinary life acquire a different ‘'colour'' in each novel. The Turn of the Screw is in a league of its own.

“The summer had turned, the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly and had blown out half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performance–all strewn with crumpled playbills.”

Whatever your expectations may be, James created one of the best - if not THE best- Gothic novels of all time. Unique descriptions, commanding atmosphere, a background full of contrasts and dark imagery. The idyllic estate that changes when night falls. Two charming, gifted children that seem rather fascinated with Death, a housemaid that seems to protect every secret of the house. The Turn of the Screw defined the Gothic genre and paved the way for the trope of the Haunted House that is still extremely popular. More than ever, in fact. Whispers, apparitions, murmurs, nightly windows, shadows, a troubled young woman who wants to help and understand. Add desire and a potential incestuous relationship lurking in the future and you have a timeless story.

I read this novella when I was 17. It frustrated me because I was impatient, wanting to have every answer delivered on a silver plate. We discussed the hell out of it in university and I fell in love. I understood that the majority of the finest books written create more questions when their final page is turned. It was this work that gave birth to my fascination with dubious closures. Now, no matter how many times I have read it, its magnetism stays strong.

And I am one of those who side with the heroine. I firmly believe that it was all true. There are many dark forces around us and beyond us. Who's to say for certain?

“I take up my own pen again - the pen of all my old unforgettable efforts and sacred struggles. To myself - today - I need say no more. Large and full and high the future still opens. It is now indeed that I may do the work of my life. And I will.”

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21% I'm not interested in this at all.

I dont think I'll ever fully understand the story, but I don't think it's meant to be. It's more like a literary expirament into unreliabe narrators than it is a book.

Summary: A governess begins caring for two children at a house in the country. At first, she is charmed by the children, but she soon notices that somethings is not quite right about them, and she realizes that something supernatural and frightening is happening at the house.

It's a difficult book to read today. The story is short; very short but takes a long time to grasp because of the writing style. It was about halfway through the book that I got used to the writing style and the reading became fun more than a chore.

As for the story, the horror is driven from the descriptive language that delivers lots of information in single sentences. Without the description of the events, this would be a story you would go through in about an hour. Of course, then, the story would not be quite as horrific.

3.75

Eu não entendi foi coisíssima nenhuma desse livro então tô indo ler resenhas, beijo tchau

This was a wonderful ambiguous story of being either about ghosts or an insane woman. However, the suspense it kept building up never lead to a real horrific moment. I kept waiting and waiting and one never showed up. I wonder if that is to keep the story tame enough to tell children? Additionally, the language was in a beautiful old victorian style that while wonderful felt intentionally obtuse most of the time. It was as if the author had a thesaurus out and looked for the most complicated version of every word in the sentence. Which ultimately came off as very pretentious imo.

The Turn of the Shrew by Henry James is a highly atmospheric gothic horror story, though at times it's difficult, maddening, and wordy. James published this tale in 1898 and I think it's critical to keep in mind that the language reflects the era, as well as the cultural norms present in the book. Listening to this book proved more challenging than Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House (my previous listen) both in terms of understanding the prose and in terms of empathizing with the protagonist. A governess comes to Bly to care for two young children. She begins seeing strange figures in the house. Are they ghosts of departed household staff, or is she nuts? A worthy question, albeit perhaps one that could have been explored in a short story rather than a novella. Apart from the complexity of the beautiful prose, I was challenged by the way the governess idolized the children. To a 21st century reader the way in which she viewed the children seems at best naive and at worst creepy. Perhaps this was James' intention? At any rate I found it somewhat difficult to fully empathize with her at various points throughout the book. Many moments were unsettling and atmospheric, even if I didn't totally understand the protagonist, or the way the book ended for that matter. I also highly recommend the audio version read by Emma Thompson with music added. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[a:Henry James 159 Henry James https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1468309415p2/159.jpg] consegue criar uma linha tênue de ~suspensão~ entre as duas possibilidades de percepção da história que é surpreendentemente constante. A ponto de eu me sentir ao mesmo tempo com medo das crianças e duvidando da narradora.O autor constrói o suspense muito bem, nos dando a exata quantidade de informações pra nos deixar “hãn??”. Além disso, o uso da linguagem na narração, com as quebras e inversões de sintaxe, convida uma leitura mais atenta e me forçou, muitas vezes, a terminar as frases antes de entendê-las por completo; acho que isso deu um ritmo interessante - e surpreendentemente fluido - ao livro, mas às vezes acabava fazendo exatamente o contrário, quando muito exagerado, e eu precisava reler uma frase algumas vezes, travando um pouco a leitura.Adorei o recorte da história e principalmente o ponto onde o livro termina, inesperado, mas suficiente, convidando a uma longa sessão de reflexão pós-livro heheh... Só senti falta de um desfecho pra frame story, que ficou meio perdida no início.

Definitely gripping, but left me feeling lost.

2/5 stars

I picked up this book because I had just finished watching the excellent The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix and thought it would be interested to compare that story to it's source material. I found the audiobook, narrated by Emma Thompson, and let's be honest - she got me through.

The Turn of the Screw turns out to be one of my least favorite of the Victorian era tropes, which is “are all these creepy things really happening, or is the lady just GOING CRAZY because she's a lady...” It also does that thing where the entire climax of the novel happens on the last 5 pages, and then BOOP we're done. What?? What just happened??

Turns out we've gotten better at telling stories over the last 150 years, so good for us. (Also, if my kids ever have to read this for school I will definitely be giving them the Emma Thompson version.)

Honestly, I'm so confused by this book that I barely even know how to write a review about it. I remember being properly creeped out by an abridged version of this book that I read when I was much, much younger, so I was looking forward to reading the unabridged version this time now that I'm older and much more attuned to 19th C writing than I used to be.But, boy, has Henry James stumped me.This is my third book with an unnamed narrator in a row and I still have a few more coming up. But anyway, an unnamed narrator answers an advertisement to apply for the position as a governess to two young children at Bly Manor. She starts to see two apparitions on the grounds around the place, and then what follows is so... hard to understand that I literally had to Wikipedia the book after finishing it to get an idea of what on earth just happened. It isn't that the plot got convoluted, it's just that James's writing style is so dense and murky - and this is coming from someone who loves, loves, loves 19th C writing!!Are the children evil? Are they not evil? Are they possessed? I have no idea.Who are the ghosts? Was Peter Quint paedophilic? What were their relationships with the children before their deaths? How did they die? Why are they still haunting the manor? I have no idea.And then, the ending. THE ENDING. It was so abrupt and even at that point, I had no idea whether Miles was in cahoots with the ghost of Peter Quint to try and kill the governess - or something?! Why did Miles die??? What did the ghosts have on the children???? Why did she send away Flora for and why didn't she allow children see each other before that? I HAVE NO IDEA. Honestly, it's so hard to write this review because I only had a very thin idea of what was going on as the plot progressed through this book. Suffice it to say that I respect it as a horror classic that it supposedly is, and I'm envious of people that enjoyed and appreciated it a lot more than I did because I really wanted to, but I'm probably not going to revisit this one and I didn't get much of the horror fix I had been hoping for.If you want more haunted houses, I'd recommend Edgar Allan Poe's [b:The Fall of the House of Usher 175516 The Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387708966l/175516.SY75.jpg 15570703] and I'm also currently reading Shirley Jackson's [b:The Haunting of Hill House 89717 The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327871336l/89717.SY75.jpg 3627], both of which would probably be much easier to understand and would have more horror elements than this one did.

I listened to this on audio, read by Bianca Amato. Her voice was amazing.
I agree that it is wordy, but I didn't know the story and I found myself really worried about the governess and the children. Mrs. Grose was my favorite character, reminding me of Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. I would have loved a “Cor! or a “blimey!” She was just the sweetest thing.
The only thing that didn't work for me was the very first chapter. Why have this big set up about reading the story aloud and mailing off for the manuscript if we were never going to return to that room and the listeners? Unless that was to throw the reader off....if the manuscript just ended abruptly, then we would know the governess was dead. Unless she was a ghost writing the manuscript we would never get her POV on her own death.

I actually quite liked this, it was mysterious and interesting. Miles, the little brat, I really liked, and I actually would have loved to see more of him. It's unfortunate it ends as it does, but it was a good little horror/ghost story.

A creepy interesting story. Well written but presented by a very unreliable narrator.

Mmm, I'm not sure how I feel about this one.

It was a bit of a labor to read, but I feel like that added to the psychologic tone for the most part, though occasionally it did take me out of the story. It helped to read along with the audiobook because it was narrated by Emma Thompson, so, I mean... c'mon. Emma Thompson.

I also thought it was weird that it started with a framing narrative that was entirely dropped after the beginning. It felt very unnecessary. Mostly, I just felt that it was all just a bit too slight. The hauntings were too mild to hang the story on, and the rest of the characters except the narrating governess were too underdeveloped for me. My interest was definitely caught, but I wanted to know more so it wasn't ultimately that satisfying. It was very “Oh, okay.”

Maybe it'll grow on me; I might update my rating and review once I've let it sit with me for a bit.

What did I just read?! That was so......odd. I think this is one book that I will actually watch the movie so I can better understand what the heck just happened.

Having read it as one of those titles you “ought” to read in the horror genre, it was at most disappointing. The syntax and grammar are over complicated, even for the era it was written in, and after the halfway point of very little happening I found myself skimming the long descriptive passages to jump forward for some dialogue that might progress the story.

The story doesn't really ‘go' anywhere and doesn't much explore any of the ‘horror' elements. It feels unfinished and, while short, still not worth the time to have read it.

Still one of my favourite books, and a very good ne, even though my peers in the lit department tend to disagree haha

A wonderfully creepy and well-written ghost story. I love the ambiguity of this book; there are so many different ways to read it and think about it that it's impossible to know for sure what the truth is. I love how it was essentially impossible to tell if the governess was innocent or completely guilty. Is she insane? Or is she right? I love the reading that the governess was insane because it's so fascinating to see her point of view of this descent into madness. I really loved how tense and creepy the atmosphere of this book was, it just was a little boring at times. It was fascinating though to see how the governess was actually pretty creepy throughout even though she was the narrator and made things seem normal and that she was sane.

I don't even know what I just read, but I finished it and had ghosts. Victorian ghosts.

I don't think I'm cut out for the classics.