"The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James

As soon as I saw both the teaser and the official trailer for Netflix's The Haunting of Bly Manor, I was — in a word — beyond stoked. I'd been waiting for the announcement for this show to premiere ever since I finished watching The Haunting of Hill House for the first time nearly two years before, and now the wait is over! It's finally premiered today, so I thought that I would get ahead of the show by reading the original text beforehand, unlike what happened when I first watched Hill House. What's the original story about? Why has it captured the Bly Manor creative team's attention, and how are they going to adapt this influential tale? What did I think about it? Let's find out!

What's the book about?

The Turn of the Screw is a ghostly Gothic tale by Henry James. A masterpiece in ambivalence and the uncanny, The Turn of the Screw tells the story of a young woman who is hired as governess to two seemingly innocent children in an isolated country house. As the tale progresses she begins to see the ghost of her dead predecessor. Or does she? The story is so ambivalent and eerie, such a psychological thriller, that few can agree on exactly what takes place. James masters "the strange and sinister embroidered on the very type of the normal and easy" in this chilling Victorian classic.

(Summary from Goodreads)

When did I read this?

September 9 - 22

Positives:

+ The spooky scenes (at times) were gripping.

+ You don't really know if the ghosts are real or if the governess is slowly losing her mind.

+ The scene towards the end of the story where she "sees" a ghost and causes the governess to question whether or not she's losing her mind.

+ It was short.

Negatives:

- The Victorian sentence structure. I know that it's a written account of what this governess went through, so it's not going to be the most concise piece of literature, but holy cow, did it have some gigantic paragraphs that seemed to ramble on and on without any hint of stopping.

- How much the governess (or James, depending on how invested you are) talks about how angelic the children she's looking after look like. I get the whole Victorian trope of "beauty = good," but after a while, it's like "okay, we get it. The kids are cute. Let's move on."

Reality Check:

Isolation, implied mental illness...?

Is it a truly litassociative experience?

For me, it was as opposite to a litassociative experience as you can get. I found myself multiple times wanting to go and get my phone so I didn't have to read any of the chunky walls of text one minute more. I honestly couldn't tell if there was any notable language structure or quotations because I kept found myself skimming the text until I either started a new chunky paragraph or found myself gratefully reading a dialogue chain. I'm pretty sure that the only information that I gained from reading The Turn of the Screw was through the dialogue and then the several analysis videos on YouTube after I finished reading it. The sad thing about this is that I did want to get engaged with the story so I could see how The Haunting of Bly Manor would mold the story and shape the characters to complex human beings trying to survive the string of events, but all I got out of it was word dumps so thick that the potentially interesting stuff got thrown out with everything else I skimmed over and the basic analyses and summaries after the fact.

The one redeeming thing I would say kept me from just filing this under DNF was the psychological aspect of the book, which brings out different reactions from readers depending on whether they believe that the ghosts were real or if the governess was just losing her mind being cooped up in a gigantic mansion with only a couple people to talk to besides the children. I'm interested to see how this could be expanded or played off from, but as it was, I found it disappointingly underwhelming.

However, despite my inability to get invested, I can see the appeal on why so many people might like this story: the atmosphere (if you manage to litassociate successfully) is pretty spooky and provides a great set-up for a paranoia-laced ghost story. If you're a fan of Henry James and haven't read this one yet, then you might like it. If you're a fan of atmospheric horror and know how to sift through the chunky blocks of text successfully, then this might be a good read for you to experience. If you're like me, however, who knows nothing outside of the trailers and footage of the other adaptation attempts and still want to know about what specifically happens...

I don't know... Listen to the audiobook instead?

Let's just hope that The Haunting of Bly Manor adds more humanity to this lackluster ghost story.

The Turn of the Screw can be found at your local library and/or your nearest bookstore.

Final rating: