Rereading and thoroughly enjoying, though it is unsettling! ( )

The Turn of the Screw is a classic horror novel that will intrigue you and leave you utterly confused.

I had to read this for an English class, which let me tell ya is quite the delight. I liked hearing what the Professor had to say about this book because WOW. This book leaves the ending up to you (to a degree). It's not one of those books that has a clear cut ending. Honestly, I'm left more confused than I would like to be. I hate cliffhanger endings, so this book had me sitting all grumpy and annoyed.

So, we have these guys telling a story from a Governess a long time ago. The one guy might have loved her so already we may have an unreliable narrator on our hands. This guy starts telling the story that was written in a manuscript that has basically been hidden away for a long time. The woman, an untrained governess, goes to a mysterious house with two kids and some housekeepers there. She's to teach these kids well for the unseen Master and make them learn lots of stuff. That's all fine and dandy, right? Wrong.

Something is weird about this place. There may be ghosts, the kids are kinda weird and the main character is suspicious (insert Among Us quote here). What's the actual evil in this book? The creepy ghosts that may be actual ghosts or may just be this woman's imagination? Is there something supernatural in this place? Is the unnamed woman governess just actually crazy? Maybe the kids are evil and doing it to spite her! Who. Knows. Also, is Miles (the young boy) trying to sleep with his teacher? That's not weird or anything... He's like, 10.

So, to go on, this governess wants to protect the kids but seems to be acting crazier and crazier. And, eventually everything turns sour and her protective ways aren't all that protecting.

What happened? You get to choose! It's like a choose your own ending novel because the book is very subjective.

The most interesting part is: If you've read Jane Eyre, this book is an intertext. It actually references Jane Eyre a lot and uses a lot of the themes and devices it uses. An untrained Governess trying to teach a child (or children) while trying to please a master. Gothic inter texts are super cool and picking these two apart has been super fun. It's not something you'd pick up right away, which makes it way more interesting.

Overall, this spooky gothic tale is really interesting! The ending is very subjective depending on the other books you've read in the genre and how much of the references you pick up.

Four out of five stars. ( )

Een intrigerend boek, maar niet een die ik snel aan iedereen zou aanraden. Traag tempo, een heldin die echt rare gedachtesprongen maakt en volgens mij geestelijk gestoord is en twee geesten die blijkbaar zeer sinister zijn, maar die eigenlijk niets anders doen dan soms verschijnen en dan boosaardig kijken. Het einde is dan wel weer zeer interessant en roept heel wat vragen op. Maar als je niet van abrupte eindes houdt is dit geen boek voor jou. Toch ben ik blij dat ik het gelezen heb. Ik heb me het hele boek door afgevraagd wat er echt waar was en wat niet en het einde versterkte dat nog. En ik hou van boeken die me laten nadenken.
( )

Puoi trovare questa recensione anche sul mio blog, La siepe di more

Il giro di vite racconta una storia di fantasmi e devo dire che la prima volta che uno di loro ha fatto la sua apparizione a una finestra me la sono fatta sotto: sembrava proprio il tipo di romanzo che mi avrebbe riempito di inquietudine e fatto venire la pelle d’oca.

Invece con il proseguimento della lettura al posto del turbamento ho sentito crescere lo sconcerto: questa giovane istitutrice, alla cui cura sono affidatu Flora e Miles, inizia a dire che ci sono due fantasmi che vogliono corrompere e far fare cose terribili alla bambina e al bambino e a imbastire tutta una storia sulla precedente istitutrice e al maggiordomo, che infesterebbero la casa dopo essere mortu in circostanze misteriose.

Solo che queste presenze vengono viste solo dall’istitutrice e non ci sono prove della loro esistenza, e nemmeno della storia torbida che dovrebbe giustificarne la presenza nella casa. So che l’incertezza riguardo alla ricostruzione degli eventi fa parte del fascino di questo romanzo, ma il mio cervello scettico è partito in quarta con la convinzione che la lucidità mentale dell’istitutrice stesse vacillando.

A questo si aggiunge il fatto che il suo rapporto con Miles ha iniziato a sembrarmi più spaventoso di qualunque apparizione soprannaturale e c’è chi ipotizza che l’istitutrice sia una narratrice inaffidabile, i fantasmi una proiezione psicotica e una storia sui danni della repressione sessuale dell’epoca vittoriana.

Immagino sia il tipo di romanzo al quale si dà un’interpretazione diversa in base alle proprie convinzioni e caratteristiche: essendo io molto terra, terra, non riesco a vederci granché di soprannaturale, ma, se lo avete letto, sono curiosa di sapere cosa ve n’è parso a voi. ( )

Five years ago, I couldn't get through twenty pages of this. I'm giving James another chance. Not sure why.

Well, it was readable this time, once I got used to James's style. I did rather enjoy his almost-Miltonic sentences, though he inconsistently used them. He liked the word "literally" a bit much for my taste. As to the story, it ultimately fell short of being comprehensible: almost no answers given in the sort of book that relies on its interest in large part on the mysteries being explained and resolved to one degree or another. Really, James seems to have written a novella and pasted on a short-story's ending. ( )