Supernatural Fiction Readers discussion

I read this story on Kindle this week. I'd love to see what others who have read it thought about it.

My thoughts on this story: I never really got drawn into it. I didn't think it was scary or even eerie. I liked the psychological aspects: the governess didn't know what to think of the situation. Were the children evil? Was she losing her mind? How could she save them? I had trouble with James' writing style.

Does anyone have any comments on this story?

I HAD to read it for an English class in school. I found it utterly boring, a waste of a tree & my time.

It was really hard to read. I don't think I'll read any of his non-gothic/ghost story books.

James' writing style can honestly be trying: he not only has the basic ornate 19th-century diction (which isn't usually a problem for me --probably because, as a kid growing up and exploring the world of reading, I sort of cut my teeth on it :-)-- but can be for a lot of modern readers), but he also tends to have a VERY slow narrative pace, characterized by a lot of what we might call "interiority;" there's more going on in the character's minds than outside, and they "intuit" things a great deal. This is most marked in his general fiction, "mainstream" short stories (not as much his novels --those had to at least have more of a plot, or they wouldn't sell); but it's also something you notice in his ghost stories (less so in a few than in others --this isn't one of the "less" ones, unfortunately, but it is much better than some others.) Ironically, his style for short fiction came to be adopted by the modern critical elite as THE definitive, required template for contemporary "literary" short stories, which explains why I don't like or read many of them.

That said, I did basically like the story. For what it's worth, I reviewed it here on Goodreads, and you can read my review if you want to (I'll try to post a link to it). We also got into some discussion of it in connection with the first common read we did as a group, of Straub's Ghost Story; because one of the characters there, Sears James, early in the book tells a story of personal experience which, in its plot arc, is very much like this novella. So, you might be interested in some of the posts on that thread as well.

The basic interpretive debate over The Turn of the Screw is between those who take it at face value as a straightforward tale of supernatural haunting, and those who hold the view ("discovered" in the 20th century) that the governess is really demented and imagines it all, and (view spoiler)[somehow causes Miles' death herself (hide spoiler)]. Personally, I'm in the straightforward ghost story camp; but the latter view is the accepted party line for "respectable" modern critics. (Of course, to be "respectable" --I'm not :-)-- you aren't allowed to like straightforward ghost stories.)

For those interested, that link to my review is:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... .

There actually aren't many comments about this work on the Ghost Story thread, unfortunately --only one that's substantive. Sorry; I'd remembered getting into a livlier discussion of The Turn of the Screw around that time, but I remember now that it was in one of my other groups!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, gentlemen.

Personally, I was disappointed because I had high expectations. I didn't expect to be spoon-fed, because many of the great classic supernatural fiction stories do not spoon-feed. But, I couldn't surpass the barrier between myself and the characters.

I interpret this story as a straight-forward haunting. There is no real sign that the governess is losing her mind, only that she questions what she is seeing. In fact, she seems very sane throughout the story, and I did get a heavy sense of her fear of things being beyond her control, and the heavy burden of protecting the children, especially when said children might be of a malevolent nature.

As you mentioned in your review, I thought about sexual abuse when it was described how each child spent too much time alone with the respective person, for Flora, the old governess, for Miles, the uncle's valet. Especially since it seemed to have a negative effect on them.

I think that there is a tendency to try to change everything supernatural into allegories in modern literary criticism. I don't agree with this approach, because some things are what they seem to be. However, I have no problem with each reader drawing individual meaning from a story.

Although this story didn't seem to touch me very deeply, I did feel that sense of carrying a burden too heavy to deal with that the governess struggled with.

I'm a little worried when you say that this is one of James' better ghost stories, Werner.

Danielle, I also don't have a problem with other readers adopting an approach to the story that works for them; one of the ladies, in another group, that I discussed the book with liked the insanity theory because that interpretation helped her enjoy the story better, but she didn't have any problem with my taking it my way, either. My review sounds pretty caustic toward that theory, but my target there isn't actually ordinary readers like she and I: it's the clerisy of professional critics who bring a load of PC ideological baggage to the story, IMO, and then proclaim their interpretation as THE perfect insight into James' real intent, that every other reader on earth must either accept or be stupid.
(Fine; I'm "stupid," and proud of it. :-))

Yes, I actually think this is probably James' best ghost story; so if you had major problems with his style here, you probably won't like the others much better. The pacing here actually is pretty good, I think --adapted to the effect he wanted in the story, a slow build-up from unease to outright horror. (As to which of his ghost stories are the worst, I don't have a clear recall of most titles; I checked out a comprehensive collection of them from a public library around 20 years ago, but I don't have it listed on my read shelf because several of them I didn't finish. That in itself tells you something. :-)) "A Romance of Certain Old Clothes," "The Ghostly Rental," and "Sir Edmund Orme" are the ones I did finish (the first two are early works, and said to be influenced by Hawthorne and Poe, respectively). The first one is relatively short, not wordy, and doesn't markedly display the usual flaws of James' style. That can't be said of the other two, but the style there is within the range of tolerance (mine, anyway), and the plot does go somewhere worth going. But I honestly think that The Turn of the Screw has more psychological depth than any of these three.

The vagaries and troublesome aspects of James' style seem to be well-covered by everyone above, so I won't repeat much on that. I'm in a strange position with TURN OF THE SCREW - it's a genre classic and I liked it, but I didn't read it....huh? Believe it or not, I listened to a reading of it in a book on tape form. If you could think of some way to make James' prose harder to track than to actually read it, audio narration would be it. I was constantly rewinding as the sentences wandered all over the place and I'd lose track. Having said that, I did enjoy it - perhaps having to focus so hard on it helped magnify the "interiorty" of it, but I actually felt the last few sentences of the book as an almost physical blow, having invested so much in the kids and their situation.

The version filmed as THE INNOCENTS (1961) is quite well-regarded and does an extremely good job keeping the ambiguity of the situation. Regarding that, I should say I have no particular feeling either way and I thought that that was James' intention - that there is NO definite way to know (if he suceeded at writing it as subtly as he wanted).

Regarding his other stories, while I liked a few of them ("The Real Right Thing" and "The Friends of The Friends") the one I think everyone should at least give a shot is "The Jolly Corner". Warning, it is written in prime Henry James meandering literary style, but it's a very fascinating story in which a man returns to the home he grew up in and faces...something, possibly the ghost of the person he never became because he moved out of the country. It's a very dense story but has interesting touches of psychology, ghost-story and doppelganger myths. I found it very intriguing.

Werner, I didn't take it as you trying to put your interpretation on others. I totally agree with you on your thoughts about literati and their snobbiness towards genre fiction. I despise snobbery in all forms, and especially book snobbery. I appreciate your thoughts on the other James stories. I will tackle them, even if it takes me a whole year to get through the volume I own.

Shawn, I imagine that was quite interesting listening to this on audio. I had to read certain lines out loud to get a feel for what was being said. It actually seemed to help. So, maybe I should try the audio version. I don't mind a story with some ambiguity. I had issue with James' abrupt shift in tone, though.

I very much want to watch The Innocents. I'd love to see a film version of this story.

Thanks for the thoughts on some of the James stories you preferred. "The Jolly Corner" sounds like one I would enjoy. I love folklore elements in horror.

I have only seen two different film adaptations of this story and I liked both. I definitely want to get around to reading the actual story some day though...

Danielle "The Book Huntress" wrote: "Thanks for the thoughts on some of the James stories you preferred. "The Jolly Corner" sounds like one I would enjoy. I love folklore elements in horror"

Just to be clear and to allay expectations, I wouldn't really call it folkloric - the doppelganger aspects are just that the "ghost" (or projection or guilt complex or whatever it is) is a variant version of the main character - but it's really, mostly just in the style of "Turn of the Screw".

Okay. Thanks for clarifying that, Shawn.

I thought the movie "The Innocents" was actually better and more interesting than the actual story. The story itself took me way longer to get through than most Gothic style narratives, I found it too lengthy and quite dull really. The ending frustrated me with its ambiguity, but I realize that was probably intentional. Since reading it I have been known to recommend reading James as a cure for insomnia.

I'd have to agree with you, Martha.

I am a huge fan of the Turn of the Screw. Yes, James does have his dry style of writing which requires the reader to pay attention and focus....not a light and easy read, but still well worth it.

The Innocents is a wonderful film; the footage is gorgeous in black and white and the atmosphere of Bly creates a certain amount of dread in the viewer. I have seen other film adaptations, but the one starring Julian Sands with a cameo by Marianne Faithfull was certainly an interesting one to watch.

The only film adaptation I've seen is the Masterpiece Theatre version, starring Jodhi May as the governess (I'm not familiar with any of her other roles, but she's perfectly cast here) and Colin Firth as the absentee master of Bly --he appears only in one very early scene. It has a nicely brooding atmosphere; and the different art form eliminates the problem of James' prose style.

There was also a Dan Curtis production - serviceable if uninspired...

I have watched the film, never read the book, so can only comment on the visual - not sure I 'got' it? Didn't know what direction the story was attempting to go, ghosts? Insanity? Both? Jodhi May was also in 'Last of the Mohicans' as the younger sister - frightened and pale in that too!

Back in 2015, in message 18 above, I commented very favorably on the Masterpiece Theatre adaptation starring Jodhi May and Colin Firth. Of course, I had watched it a long time before my second read of the novella, which was at the time this thread was started; and that viewing, in turn, was quite a long time after my first reading of the original, back in my college days. So my original assessment of how closely the film followed the story wasn't based on a very recent comparison with the text!

Since then, though, I've re-watched this adaptation with a reading much fresher in my mind; and I have to say my grading of the film's faithfulness suffered on that account. (I've edited my comment above to reflect that.) In the story as James wrote it, the governess and the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, are always in agreement and have no friction. The scriptwriters invent a conflict between them out of whole cloth, which detracts from the story without adding constructive to it. :-(