From the Bookshelf of The Roundtable…

The Turn of the Screw

Henry James

Start date: October 1, 2020

Finish date: October 31, 2020

Discussion: 2020 Novella Tournament

Discussion leader: Christopher

Why we're reading this: October 2020 Novella Tournament
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2020 Novella Tournament

The Fifth Child (Dec. 2020 Novella Tournament)
By Christopher · 32 posts · 22 views

last updated Sep 09, 2021 10:17AM

Passing (Nov. 2020 Novella Tournament)
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last updated Mar 03, 2021 08:06AM

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What Members Thought

Oct 24, 2020 Petra rated it really liked it

This book never lets the reader rest. There are always questions. What's real? What's not? What's next? It's a truly delightful ride of a story.

This gothic horror story is perfect for October reading. It's dark, uncertain, there are no easy answers. Is this governess telling the truth? Her truth? Who's truth?

There's darkness in this story but the reader will have to figure out for themselves where that darkness lies and how much of that darkness exists.

The title, too, portrays the gothicness ...more

20 likes · Like · see review

Oct 28, 2014 Christopher rated it liked it

Shelves: classics, audiobooks, fiction, 19th-century, american, nameless-characters, epistolary, horror, novellas

Reread Oct. 2020 (3 stars):
Thoughts mostly the same this time around, but liked it a bit less. Still bothered by the purposeless frame story. More bothered by the way James can't write a sentence without interrupting himself 3 or 4 times.

Original Review Oct. 2014 (4 stars):
A fun ghost story, the prototype of modern horror in which it's unclear whether the horror resides in the real world or only in the hero's imagination. It has one major failing, however, in failing to follow through with its f ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Dec 20, 2015 Wendy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, blooms-western-canon, classics, read-more-than-once, gothic, 2020

The first time I read this book five years ago, it made so little an impression on me that my second reading felt like I was encountering the book for the first time. I'll chalk it up to two things: first, that attempt #1 was in audiobook format, which is probably the worst way to encounter the convoluted stylings of Henry James, and second, that I'm now the parent of a four-year-old, and thus I picked up on a darkness in the circumstances that hit me extremely hard at the end of the my second r The first time I read this book five years ago, it made so little an impression on me that my second reading felt like I was encountering the book for the first time. I'll chalk it up to two things: first, that attempt #1 was in audiobook format, which is probably the worst way to encounter the convoluted stylings of Henry James, and second, that I'm now the parent of a four-year-old, and thus I picked up on a darkness in the circumstances that hit me extremely hard at the end of the my second read.

While I love a ghost story, the disturbing feeling I got from this book had less to do with the appearance of apparitions than the dissonance present in the entire setup, which all came together for me, first in the form of cynicism and nagging questions--why are the characters not speaking to each other more plainly? Is it because they are, in true Victorian form, dancing around a truth too unspeakable to put on the page?--and culminating in my aha! moment at the (still ambiguous) ending. Also, my aforementioned four-year-old burst in loudly in his PJs just as I had reached a pivotal dramatic moment in the story, causing me to nearly fling my kindle across the dark, pre-dawn room.

I don't think I can say much more about my personal interpretation of the story without the spoiler tag, so please proceed with caution.

(view spoiler)[Ghosts are scary, sure, but this read managed to tap into deeper, uglier (and perhaps more immediate) fears--that of (likely sexual) abuse against children. I'm convinced this is the "truth" that all the characters are taking care not to speak of, to the point where the governess narrator picks up the lingering effects which everyone else is at pains to pretend never happened, as if that might best protect the young victims who are likewise pretending all is well, yet showing signs all is not. I had the sense that the children both really want to trust the new governess, but also don't trust her or any of the adults any more. That's my reading, anyway.

At first I was expecting a more simplistic story with clear good/evil parameters, for example that Mrs. Grose was perhaps some conniving Mrs. Danvers incarnation, or the servant in the Saki story "The Open Window" who primes a lone guest for terror by telling morbid stories. But I noticed how the governess was constantly interrupting Mrs. Grose and putting words in her mouth, and always jumping to the most morbid conclusions on her own. She didn't strike me as a reliable narrator, and I suspect she may have "unspeakable" particulars in her own past (a miscarriage or post-partum depression?) that causes her odd over-attachment to her "exquisite" charges. It even crossed my mind that the charges she projects onto Miss Jessup and Mr Quint are actually reflections of her own...issues.

Speaking of "the ghosts"...well, I have thoughts about the mortal states of Jessup and Quint. The housekeeper's insistence of their being dead reminded me of the bit in Oh Brother Where Art Thou in which the mother tells her kids "That's not your father. Your father got run over by a train" even though dad is standing right there. I wondered if insisting on their being dead was just another way to save the children's feelings. Or perhaps only Quint is dead (from his fall down a hill...or was he murdered? Perhaps by the master himself?) and Jessup, always glimpsed in mourning (for Quint?), is still alive. But, you know, we act like she's not there anymore because she [insert "got run over by a train" variant here].

Regardless, whether they are alive or not is less important than the fact that their presence, despite the great Victorian hush to spare the children's feelings, is very much alive an unvanquished. I feel like the ambiguity at the ending works well, and (rather like Tana French's In the Woods), if the explanations *were* spelled out for me I would probably be disappointed, and less emotionally affected, than the heaviness I felt at the less literal ending. (hide spoiler)] ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Oct 10, 2020 Irene rated it it was amazing

Great psychological thriller. 3.5 stars

2 likes · Like · see review

Oct 02, 2020 Lori rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: britain, zy-text, z-read-2020, fiction, literature, roundtable, little-literary-novel, pre-1900, unnumbered-pages

Horror is not my thing. (I've only read one Steven King.) I could see the effect James was going for, but I didn't feel it. Also there's too much that could have been settled just by asking. ...more

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