The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories

Written by Henry James, this collection of four morbid and spectral stories proves to be a captivating, but at the same time challenging read. Dealing with a lot of taboo themes, the biggest being the corruption of children and innocence, which cinephiles would probably hold akin to the effect of the first Exorcist movie back in the day, it’s thrilling, chilling, and sometimes funny, but it’s definitely not a light read and sometimes it does pose a challenge in terms of a reading experience. 

Sir Edmund Orme – A young man begins to hold strong affections for a young lady, but is soon to discover that the ghost of a man that her mother had wronged haunts the lady. 

Owen Wingrave – When young Owen Wingrave, a natural born soldier from a family with a strong military history, decides to give up on the service, his tutor, best friend, and domineering Aunt and grandfather host an intervention at their ‘creepy’ family home where, legend says, one of the rooms is haunted. 

Friends of Friends – A woman determines that two of her friends should meet at they have both seen visions of people within the hour of death: she her father, he his mother. A series of timing accidents and misadventures prevent them for several years from ever meeting and when finally they do, it is under circumstances most peculiar as one of them is dead. 

The Turn of the Screw – A young, inexperienced governess takes the job of caring for young Miles and Flora, two small children abandoned by their uncle at his grand country home. Shortly after her arrival, the governess sees the figure of an unknown man lurking around the house. When she describes him to the housemaid, she discovers that the figure is Peter Quint, the master’s old valet, and he has come for little Miles. What complicates the matter is that Peter Quint is dead. 

Obviously the collection of these stories shares a common theme of ghosts, hauntings, and the deceased, but not all of them are quite so black and white as that. The Turn of the Screw, written in first person narration and playing (a little like Poe) with the theme of the unreliable narrator, is possibly one of James’ most controversial and confusing books because, at the end of the day, we don’t actually know whether the children are being designed upon by ghosts or if the governess herself is psychologically unwell. The unreliable narrator device is used to great effect here in that our heroine and narrator reads as being completely sane and rational, but then a spanner is thrown into the works when the housemaid as well as the children inform her (and the reader) that they cannot see what she is seeing. The thrills and suspense is wonderfully built up, in all the stories actually, making this book quite the page-turner once you get over the complexity of the writing. 

I found James’ style of writing to be very challenging. His sentences are very long, convoluted, and feature a multitude of commas and hyphens, which just make them all even longer (a little bit like Jane Austen, but harder to keep track of what’s happening). It took a while for me to settle into the flow of the writing, but once I did I enjoyed turning each page. 

Filled with drama, death, horror, hauntings, romance, comedy, and suspense, The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories is a compelling book and quite the gothic experience. Whilst I found it challenging, I also revelled in and enjoyed the challenge of the James reading experience.