The Turn of the Screw (Book Review)

 I decided to give another classic ghost story a go, while "in the mood" (sort of...)

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1843-1916) is one of those classic book titles familiar to me ever since I studied English at the university back in my youth. I could not recall if I had ever actually read it, though. Now I think I can safely say that I probably did not read it before.

"a turn of the screw" (idiom):
an action that makes a bad situation worse,
especially one that forces someone to do something
(Cambridge Dictionary)

 

The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James (1898)

Audio book narrated by Emma Thompson (+ Richard Armitage)
4 hrs 40 min

I also downloaded a text edition (costing "next to nothing") to my Kindle library. It wasn't auto-synced with the Audible version, but I still read them both simultaneously, keeping my eyes on the text on my Kindle while listening to Emma Thompson reading it on my tablet. Her reading was excellent; but I still found it difficult in this case to follow the story by just listening...

It's a strange story, and even having finished it, I'm not sure what to make of it. It did keep me in suspense in a way that made me want to continue reading to find out "the truth" - but at the same time it felt rather tedious because of so much just "hinted" at along the way, rather than the narrator's suspicions being clearly explained.

The narrator is a governess who gets hired by a man to look after his young niece and nephew who have been left in his care after the death of their parents. He takes no personal interest in the children - he himself lives in London, but he also has a country house, where the girl (Flora) is now living, in the care of the housekeeper, Mrs Grose. The governess is employed primarily for little Flora, as her brother (Miles) is away at a boarding school.

However, for unknown reasons, Miles is expelled from the school and comes to live in the country house as well. Miles himself never speaks of what he had done to get himself expelled, and the governess hesitates to enquire. To begin with, both children seem extremely charming and well behaved, both towards each other and towards the governess and other staff. They like the governess and she likes them, and they all get on very well. 

Then the governess begins to sometimes see spooky figures of a man and woman whom she does not recognize. It also seems they're not seen by other members of the household - but possibly by the children... She learns from the housekeeer Mrs. Grose that the previous governess, Miss Jessel, and another employee, Peter Quint - now both dead - had had a close relationship both with each other, and had also spent a lot of time with the children. The governess becomes convinced that the apparitions she keeps seeing are their ghosts, and that the two children are also somehow in communication with them.

The situation keeps escalating and the governess is no longer convinced of the children's "innocence", as she discovers that sometimes they seem to be covering for each other getting up to mischief (as in leaving the house when they should be in bed at night). She suspects that the former governess is after the little girl, and the former manservant the boy. She questions the children in connection with various incidents but the answers she gets are ambiguous. However, she also manages to get Mrs G on her side about the presence of the ghosts and that the children are in danger from them (even though it's unclear whether Mrs G actually ever sees the apparitions herself). 

Without going into details of how it all ends, I would say that even the ending is still ambiguous, depending on how the reader decides to interpret things!

Personally I hesitate to call it a "must-read" - but as it is a classic, perhaps worth the time anyway! 

And I did like Emma Thompson's reading of it.

The Turn of the Screw was first published in the magazine Collier's Weekly,
serialised in 12 installments (27 January – 16 April 1898).

Illustrations copied from Wikipedia