The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels

by Henry James, William Thorp (Foreword)

The Aspern Papers
The Altar of the Dead
An International Episode
The Beast in the Jungle

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Horror, Literature, Gothic, Novella

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1903

About the author

Henry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."

Reviews

[Andrei Tamaş · Rating 4 out of 5]

O lectură pe care nu poţi decât să o simţi şi să-i laşi câteva clipe să se sedimenteze în acel segment imaginativ al naturii umane pe care nu îl poţi releva decât faţă de ţine însuţi.
Faptul că firul microromanului e redat în ramă şi faptul că acesta e plin de memorie afectivă-retroactivă şi analiza introspectivă nu cred că reprezintă mare lucru în raport cu esenţa scrierii în sine.
Întâmplările se desfăşoară sub tutela nefirescului, într-un climat semi-obscur, plin de ostilitate și stinghereală, aşa cum am mai întâlnit la Gustav Meyrink, doar că, spre deosebire de acesta, la Henry James acţiunea are loc nu în mediul urban, unde intensitatea nefirescului este potenţată de tumult, ci în mediul rural, unde liniştea se concretizează într-o nălucă.
Şi nu e vorba nici de divagaţiile acelea psihice date de singurătatea din mediul rural (adică nu se poate spune că protagonista a luat-o pe ulei, deşi privită pragmatic, nu m-aş putea da în lături să prezum, dar nu sunt criticul acerb s-o facă). Nu asta însă este ideea. E ceva mult mai complex: e un profund studiu al naturii umane, redat în oglinda ştearsă a ambiguităţii. E, mai precis, un duel psihologic al cărui rezultat neaşteptat -în speţă, normalitatea şi pacea interioară- vine cu preţul sacrificării unui suflet văduvit de copil.

Andrei Tamaș
6 martie 2017

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNFed after 2.5 stories.

Sometimes prose just doesn't age well. Maybe in his day the yarns of Henry James were compelling and worthwhile, but from the two and a half I read in this collection I just don't see the attraction. The majority of characters struck me as vapid, layabout upper-class twits that went about doing nothing particularly important. I just didn't care about any of them and James did little to try to make me care about them. They did nothing interesting and very little interesting happened to them. Even the flagship story of the collection, The Turn of the Screw, which had so much potential, failed, not just because the writing was slow, the story was boring, the characters unremarkable, and there were SO. MANY. COMMAS. (just like that preceding sentence, only written over and over, and over again).

All in all a slog of a read, but a reminder of how much literary conventions and taste change over the decades.

[bup · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book's musical name would be Screw!

Here are a few sentences from the book:

So I saw him as I see the letters I form on this page; then, exactly, after a minute, as if to add to the spectacle, he slowly changed his place - passed, looking at me hard all the while, to the opposite corner of the platform.

They have a big sale on commas, there, Henry?

I felt a sick swim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle, so that the wildness of my veritable leap only served as a great betrayal.

That's nice. What the hell are you trying to say?

At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a baffled dog's on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air and light, he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly over the place and missing wholly, though it now, to my sense, filled the room like the taste of poison, the wide, overwhelming presence.

You know what helps convey a real sense of action? It ain't turgid, obtuse syntax filled with three word meaningless phrases set off by commas that act as the prose equivalent of um....

I think Shakespeare said it best when he described it as both brief and tedious. Shakespeare was ostensibly describing the mechanicals' play in A Midsummer Night's Dream, but it's a more apt description of Screw.

One final thing that's REALLY bugging me, but is a MAJOR SPOILER, so LOOK AWAY if, for some reason, you think you may be forced to read this novella at some point in the future (it'll probably involve a gun to your head).

*********************************************************************









Here's the last sentence of the story: We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped.

I just shake my head in wonder. If you want a jarring ending, and one that at the same time more accurately conveys what you meant to say, change the pronoun to the now correct "I": I was alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped.

See how that works? See how much more it communicates that he died?

In short, what I'm trying to say is, Henry James sucks. He sucks so much that even books near this book are forced to suck.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to write a paper on this in college, which I titled as my thesis statement, "The Governess Hallucinates a lot or Something." Obviously, I got an A and the professor wrote in red pen, next to the grade, "Nice title." Another great memory of that class was going to it at noon one day after driving from the school 4 hours to Chicago to see Pavement, then 4 hours back. I was pretty slap happy after being up all night, and the prof asked if anyone remembered what the name of Henry James' school of thought was (pragmatism or puritanism or something). This Asian kid said, "Drunk driving?" I guess he misunderstood the question, but I burst out laughing and couldn't stop for like ten minutes and had to have my head buried in my arms on the desk the rest of the period. That was fucking awesome. That prof was weird though. This other time, near the end of class, he said to us, looking at the clock, "Now I'm going to give you what the Boston Strangler gave to his victims' necks... a break. You can leave early." Again, I started laughing and no one else did. That was the most awkward response I think I've ever seen a joke get.

[Igor Neox · Rating 4 out of 5]

•An International Episode (1878) ★★★★★
•Daisy Miller (1878) ★★★★★
•The Aspern Papers (1888) ★★★★★
•The Altar of the Dead (1895) ★★★★☆
•The Turn of the Screw (1898) ★★★★☆
•The Beast in the Jungle (1903) ★★★☆☆

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I have learned, is that people in his books can't communicate worth a damn. If people would just say what they mean and talk about how they were feeling, instead of implying and fucking around things and figuring things were just understood, everyone would be a whole lot happier.

[Frederick Heimbach]

Unrated, because I only read TTOTS, not the other stories.

I once read Gene Wolfe's The Sorcerer's House for a book club. It's about a haunted house, told mostly from one POV, with a smattering of chapters from other POVs which seem to confirm the supernatural claims of the main character (who has a shady past, as I recall). At some point in the discussion, someone pointed out, if you parse the words of the "corroborating" accountes very carefully, they don't in fact corroborate anything; they are either too vague or irrelevant in supporting the main narrative.

Once he said that, none of us could unhear his implication. Something clicked in our understanding, and from there on it was clear we were looking at an unreliable narrator. The meaning of the story was transformed.

I am given to understand The Turn of the Screw can be read as an unreliable narrator--that the governess is the "villain", or more specifically, is going insane and is the source of the terror in the household, not the ghosts, which are products of her imagination. If that was James' intent, he failed. This is an unreliable narrator story ineptly executed. How to explain the governess understanding of the ghostly pair's identities, if the visions are not of supernatural origin? There are too many coincidences to be believed.

Unlike the Gene Wolfe story, nothing clicks here.

Perhaps, if I were to have paid very closely to the details, I would have found the evidence supposedly there. But that brings me to the author's exasperating prose style. If one is constructing a puzzle plot of some kind, absolute clarity is required. But in TTOTS, the prose is a muddled mess. So many sentences are interrupted with parenthetical statements--it makes me want to scream.

As someone who writes fiction, I could tell you about all the effort I go into to cleanse my prose of such pollution. I regard it as my responsibility to save the reader from the effort of re-reading clotted passages. James' prose stikes me as just the opposite: an exercise in irresponsibility.

Here's a shining example of just one little turd of a passage James drops into this story:

This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and through nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw myself into it in trouble.

Again, James' is supposedly experimenting with what would come to be called stream of consciousness. Likely, he's trying to hint at the narrator's deteriorating mental state. But if so, how do you explain the gradual abandonment of these halting, self-contradicting sentences? The prose clears up somewhat as the story goes. Why? Edgar Alan Poe proved long ago you can depict a mad narrator without unreadable narration; quite the contrary, it can be spellbinding. James' prose style is inexcusable.

I'm trying to be open-minded here; to allow for James' experiments, and to acknowledge the great many people who admire this story. Certainly, the middle section, where the children are (supposedly) revealed to be corrupted and conspiratorial, are as fine a display of mounting horror as any (only to be spoiled by the muddled ending). I waited a few days to write this review, hoping my opinion would undergo a revelation, or at least a moderation. But I can't deny my honest belief: this story is crap. An unreadable, exasperating, botch. Irresponsible garbage.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of novellas often was more frustrating than rewarding – especially the title story, which fails to pay off the promise of its gothic setting. James often seems to get lost in the circumlocution of his own thoughts, rambling for pages on end while the dialogue of his characters often feels abrupt and truncated.

This is especially true of Turn of the Screw itself, which reads at times as if lines were missing from the page and pages were missing from the story, so maddeningly vague is both the narration and the dialogue. In the end, James can't get out of his own head enough to tell the story he seems to want to tell.

The style works better in novellas like An International Incident and Altar of the Dead, which are first and foremost about relationships and their own circumlocutions. But, in a problem afflicting all of James' stories, they end so abruptly, they leave the reader wondering exactly what happened and how. Daisy Miller's ending is so rushed and forced as to leave me actively disliking the story. The best of the collection is The Aspern Papers and its exploration of fandom, obsession, and deception.

Overall, I didn't mind so much James' writing style, wordy as it is, but I minded a great deal how much it imposed itself on the stories he told, and how they weakened those stories despite the enjoyable elements nearly all of them contained.

[Lady Tea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual Rating : 3.3 / 5

I was waiting for a sort of climax. There were details and then details, and speculation and speculation, and yet not much happened. I was expecting more from a story "beyond anything for dreadfulness", but I guess that maybe it just doesn't hold up well for a 21st century audience. I applaud James's style of writing, but not so much the plot itself.

[Marlowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

An International Episode
Quite an interesting story about national stereotypes, complete with an interesting twist. I rather liked Bessie Alden - who is independent, interesting, and quite a bit smarter than the condescending male characters. I was quite impressed with the way so many stereotypes were tackled.

Daisy Miller: A Study
Daisy is the original Manic Pixie Dream Girl!

I quite enjoyed the story for the same reasons that I liked An International Episode - over and over again, Daisy Miller is defined by others based on her nationality, social status, and gender, and over and over again she shows herself to be far more complex than the simplistic ways in which she is viewed. It helped, of course, that the first part of the story is set in the area where I grew up and that the characters visit my very favourite castle.

The twist ending was unfortunate. It fit too neatly into the idea that women cannot survive social disgrace, even if we are meant to sympathize with them (as we've seen in Gaskell's Ruth or Dickens's Oliver Twist).

The Aspern Papers
A scathing look at the rights/morality of biographers. The main character is a huge fan of the deceased poet Aspern, and he infiltrates the home of an ageing former-lover of Aspern's in order to find the titular papers - presumably letters that the woman may have kept from the poet. The story focuses on the invasion of privacy, and what rights public figures may have to their privacy - particularly after death.

The story is interesting and the descriptions of Venice are quite wonderful, but it felt personal and very bitter. All in all, a disturbing story.

The Altar of the Dead
I guess the theme of this story was forgiveness? I don't know. It felt like an attempt at a Gothic tale, what with the creepiness of the guy who is so obsessed with death that he only seems to like people once they are deceased. But the story was odd, in a bad way. I felt bored reading it, as it lacked the intrigue and variation of the earlier stories. By the end, I just felt unsatisfied.

Turn of the Screw
Unfortunately, I accidentally watched a movie adaptation of this story fairly recently, and I think that my perception was much worsened by knowing when and how the next scare would be occurring. Despite this, I found the atmosphere creepy and the story compelling, even if the ending did feel rather rushed.

The story's introduction was a nice touch, particularly where the teller, upon hearing a creepy story about a kid, introduces his own story by saying "you think that was creepy? Well, my story has two kids!!" (paraphrase, obviously.)

Beast in the Jungle
As with Altar of the Dead, I could never really grasp what I was reading. The story just went on and on with no real payoff.

[blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last time through I had read "Portrait of a Lady" for my "J" book, and I thought I'd give this famous story by James a shot now, not realizing up front that it's a novella and the book contains six novelas to pad out the length.

Guy can write.

A popular opinion of the time was that the novella was the perfect length for a work of fiction. Short enough to read in one setting (though I mostly didn't) but long enough to ground you in the characters and world, and so pack a dramatic punch.

I wouldn't argue, given my love of Conrad and some longer SF stories, but here I wasn't entirely sold. The title story, The Turn of the Screw is quite good and, I'd say, long enough. But I felt like "An International Incident" was an excerpt, almost, from a Portrait of a Lady style novel. Just as you're getting to really know the character, the story ends.

Now, "leave 'em wanting more" is not a bad motto. But I wasn't sure, at the end of that one, whether the writer had punted on the nature of the main character's, em, character, or I had just missed the motivation behind the sudden change in direction. James is kind of fascinating because he's a person in the story—the narrator—who relates the tale from a third person perspective that might be called "third person apologetic". It's not omniscience, to be sure, but it's not exactly limited, either. More of a "it would be inappropriate to elaborate further".

Interesting stuff. As far as horror stories go, "The Aspern Papers" struck me as far more horrific than "Screw", even though it has no actual supernatural elements in it. You could easily get the sense that H.P. Lovecraft was inspired by it: It could've easily turned fantastic at several points. Even the title sounds like later horror story titles.

"The Beast in the Jungle" is also a kind of existential horror. The implication is that some sort of supernatural horror is afoot, but the truth is far worse.

Enjoyed it all. "Turn of the Screw" perhaps not as much as the others, ironically.

[Sally Kilpatrick]

This has to be the current record holder for "book I've had on my shelf the longest before actually reading it."

I bought this back in the summer of 1991 along with alllllll of the other books I would need to read for Ms. Keller's Honors American lit class. Why? Because we'd read a shortened version of "the Turn of the Screw" in a Scholastic Scope in Gifted Class back in elementary school, and the story intrigued me.

As it turned out, much as with Great Expectations and Lord of the Flies, I'm pretty sure Scholastic Scope gave me the better version. But I digress.

I know I'm off my English major game because I groaned each time I picked this up. So much exposition. So little dialogue. Such stuffy sensibilities. Pretty sure the story could be told in half the pages, and it's not as much fun as Dickens. Well, with that sentence maybe I haven't lost all of my English major sensibilities. I know a lot of folks don't like Chuck Dickens, but he amuses me.

As for the story itself, I love the idea of a governess who sees dead people. That's always a good time. Unfortunately, Henry James is so vague and the governess so puritanical that the story doesn't necessarily translate to modern audiences as well as it would have to people of James's day. Fearing for the innocence of your charges because you're afraid that the ghosts of the tutor and the governess he knocked up are out and about? So quaint by today's standards. At least, I think that's what James was going after? Maybe the governess really was worried about the ghosts actually attacking the kids? As I said, vague.

Then there's the ending. I gotta admit James ends on a banger, but why did Miles keel over? Did he see the ghost? Is it because the governess knew his secrets? Now I gotta read the freakin' Cliffnotes. Or Sparknotes. Whatever.

I'm not mad; I'm just disappointed.

[Rajat Subhra Karmakar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure how to say, but let me just say as I feel, this book kinda floored me. I mean completing this book was mammoth task tbh. First thing first Henry James is indeed a master of portraying the human nature and their relationship through words. He dove deeper into the psyche of the characters and loved to stay there and ofcourse made us (the readers) stay there too. And definitely he showcased the 19th century society through his words. But why this book was challenging for me then? Because of the over complicated narrative style of Henry James. The prose he used is really brilliant but it can swallow the readers very easily and they can get lost in between. Very often I had to turn pages and retrack the storyline. It will test your patience for sure. And tbh this one not for casual reading.
Best short novels of this book? Ofcourse The turn of the screw, and then I will mention The Aspen Papers and Daisey Miller: a case study.
That's all. Cheers.

[Mariko Bean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A common thread seems to be what it looks like when you overthink/overanalyze what another person says or does (especially as it relates to you). I suppose it could be read as paranoia, but I feel like the writer rather respects the interior life of the characters and there's something to be said about the problem of other minds.

Man writes complex sentences, I really had to concentrate to read it. Also, I had sense of missing out on subtleties due to language/culture shifts since when it was written. Is he intimating that someone is a child molester… I wish I knew.

[v · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my reading so far, "The Aspern Papers" -- rich, delicate, haunting -- is James' best work. And "The Turn of the Screw" is superb, too, of course; the deliberately obverse prose-writing, which leaves no stone turned or clause unbroken, is enough on its own to put readers on edge. Really, all of James leaves me on edge, because reading him is having the sense that something is coming you can't put into words or justify.
This collection has a smattering of other stories: "An International Episode" is pretty nice and begins with 19th century New York in summer; both "The Altar of the Dead" and "The Beast in the Jungle" are winding, sorrowful, introspective stories of secrets shared between two people for life (a bit like the masterful Joseph Conrad story "The Secret Sharer"); "Daisy Miller" I still find overpraised.

[Brette · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Robin Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The three stars is an overall rating for all of the novellas presented in this publication - some of them I loved and some of them I really had to fight to get through.

[Ryan Morrow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Turn of the Screw:
Meh. Overdramatic for a lackluster payoff.

[Morgan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I pride myself on always finishing the book. Even if I have to make a few attempts, I will get there eventually. This is only the second book in my memory that I just couldn't finish. I had to create a new goodreads shelf just for this book. And it's not even a full novel! I was only trying to read "The Turn of the Screw", and it's barely 100 pages. But man, I just could not do it. Sorry Henry James, you and I are just too different. I will say, I tried to read during a rough month, and perhaps if I'd attempted it at a different time, I may have slogged through. But I think I'm better off for just having not finished.

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Turn of the Screw, I found to be, pretty much, the perfect ghost story and an excellent read. I highly recommend it. It's the other "short novels" in this book that account for my low rating.

I picked this up when October was coming, and I was looking for something to read appropriate to the season. I knew nothing of James other than Screw was a celebrated ghost story. To my disappointment, the first three novels weren't at all what I was looking for, and being rather tedious reads, Halloween had come and gone by the time I was done with them. So I put the book down and picked it up a year later. Along with Screw the last three novels included The Altar of The Dead and The Beast in the Jungle. Did I dare hope those were the titles of spooky stories? I dared, but they were not. Basically, The Aspern Papers was kind of fun, and I recommend if you have this book in your possession read Screw first, and if you love it, give Aspern a try and SKIP EVERYTHING ELSE. Daisy Miller and An International Incident are fluffy and pointless stories about fluffy and pointless people, and The Beast in the Jungle is utterly unreadable. I forced myself to finish it, the damn thing was less then fifty pages long and it was excruciating as seeing how long i can hold my hand over a flame. (Yanking my hand away is the equivalent of putting the book down in favor of a volume of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing lol)

I theorize that my enjoyment of Screw and displeasure with everything else might hinge on the fact that the main characters are lower working class, while all the other books are about rich people. Now it's painfully clear that James portrayal of the rich was a judgmental criticism, but that doesn't make spending my time with these characters at all sufferable. And as another reviewer pointed out, James uses far too many words to say far too little, to the point that determining the meaning of a sentence is like deciphering a code. (Beast was the worst one for this.)

I can say with finality that I am absolutely done with Henry James.

[Cassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been a harrowing journey for me. Full disclosure: I didn't finish the last 30 pages. I've been reading this book for weeks, and it started out so wonderfully and then trudged to a slow and agonizing end. I bought this book of short stories, because I love Daisy Miller, and I needed to own it. Upon second reading, I still love Daisy Miller. A pattern develops upon reading it in conjunction with the other stories. A man, who is far too introspective and certain in the truth of his worldview, finds a female companion who baffles him because of his limited perspective and inability to practice empathy. The moral of each either being that women are a mystery, or that men's limited understanding of women and inability to see them as equally as human as they are prevents them from realizing important life-saving truths. This pattern is clear in each story aside from The Turn of the Screw. So, I found these women to be fascinating, and I can't decide whether I loved or hated digging out the reality of them by analyzing that which mystified the narrators. Weirdly enough, the eponymous story of this collection is where it all fell apart for me. While James's many clauses and long sentences add beautiful description and detail to the earlier stories, they turned The Turn of the Screw into a slow wordy agony. The mystery and suspense of this ghost story were lost in the redundancy of the language. While the story is a fascinating example of ambiguity, the delivery is slow and allows the plot to be easily predicted. The last story, The Beast in the Jungle, seems to suffer from the same problem.

[Trish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that was more of a struggle than I expected. Something of an odd collection, which doesn't really appear to have a single theme. More a bunch of novellas stuck together. I have a feeling that I just don't "get" Henry James.

I wasn't really sure what the point An International Episode was, while Daisy Miller didn't really show anyone in a good light - although I presume "Roman fever" is some kind of allegory of the danger of letting yourself become too infected with the atmosphere of that city.

Altar of the Dead - slightly more what I expected from James, with a somewhat creepy story of obsession and a kind of love, albeit in a very strange form...although it almost had, if not a happy ending, at least a contented one.

The Beast in the Jungle - a rather depressing story of a relationship based on a mistaken remembrance. He believes the secret the lady says he told her was to do with his destiny and potential greatness; while the secret she seems to remember is to do with his sexuality, and her willingness to help him hide it as she loves him. And in the end, she dies, and its only then that he realises that she was what he was waiting for all along.

The Aspern Papers - I thoroughly disliked the narrator who had the morals of a paparazzi, and I'm glad the Misses Bordereau stood up to him and made sure he didn't get what he wanted.

The Turn of the Screw. This is the main story I bought this collection to read, and was the only one I wasn't disappointed by. Instead, it was the creepy ghost story I expected it to be. However, it wasn't enough to improve my overall rating of the collection.

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Turn of the Screw is a fascinating but rather verbose story that captures the reader with its uncanny and eerie tone. Though James' style is not entirely to my liking, he nevertheless spins a good story with a creepy and fascinating end that can be interpreted in a myriad of ways.

The Beast in the Jungle was the other novella I read and I have to say that I have some seriously mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, nothing happens. But on the other, it's a meditative and contemplative story about the way people live their lives, and James' depiction of Marcher and his solipsism will resonate deeply with many people, whether they be college students who yearn for adult life and the promise of some distinguishing greatness, or adults looking back on their lives and wondering what they missed and what they could have changed to feel as if they had accomplished something greater. As my professor said, "The Beast in the Jungle" is immensely boring to read but endlessly fascinating to think and talk about. Again, a rather inconclusive conclusion, which I'm starting to think is just James' style.

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories were interesting and had some exciting twists. I found the writing to be a bit difficult to follow, maybe because it's such an old book.

[Casey Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read, but worth it in the end. All of the novelettes are good, but the final entry, "The Beast In The Jungle," is a masterpiece.

[Jacques Coulardeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first element to clear up is the date of publication. Henry James could not at that time when he wrote this strongly anti-gay, as we would say today, novella using ghosts to create tension ignore Oscar Wilde’s Ghost of Canterville in which Oscar Wilde in 1887 makes fun of Americans who believe in ghosts so much that they can shoot peas with peashooters at them, up to the final peace agreement the Americans negotiate with that ghost. Henry James takes quite a serious approach towards the two ghosts of his story, meaning it is not any device to frighten the readers, but a dramatic element in the story without which it does not work.

He could not either ignore the situation in England, where he situates the action, at the time since Oscar Wilde was sentenced to a two year prison term for his gay sexuality with young men if not teenagers. Note at the time the age was not at stake, only the orientation. The sentence was implemented from 1895 to 1897. Then Oscar Wilde moved to Paris where he died in 1900. Since Henry James situates his story in England he had to take into account the real paranoia about any gay orientation, though if Oscar Wilde had not “seduced” (and that seduction was long lasting for the “ victim”) the son of a Lord, himself to become a Lord, he might very well have gone through without even a trial or a fine. That conception of society divided into upper tiers that have to remain cut off from any intimate relation with all other middle or lower social tiers is absolutely dominant at the time in England. And we must keep in mind the subject was so pregnant that it will be the core of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928, censored in England up to 1960), and it was a core element in the recent TV series Downton Abbey, whose action is situated in the 1910s and 1920s. Henry James’ novella can only be understood in his time within that social and sexual context.

But in the 21st century a critic has to be more creative, though some are sticking to the old approach.

This old approach only takes into account two basic interpretations with a mongrelized third one. The first one is that the two ghosts, Quint and Miss Jessel, are real and we have a real ghost story that obviously has not read Oscar Wilde, but today that kind of story does not work, except for teenagers (and young ones at that) on television. The second interpretation is that the governess (who does not have a name, and that cannot be gratuitous) suffers from hallucinations and is misled by her own possessive and protective, we could say extreme maternal, desires. The third interpretation is a little bit of each of the first two because Henry James tries to be non-committed on the dual choice. But one thing is sure for all such critics: the two ghosts tried to sexually possess, and might even have succeeded, at least in the case of the boy and Quint, the two children who are at the time of these events seven for the girl and nine for the boy. The story told by the new governess takes place when they are respectively eight and ten. I personally have not found one element that is clear about Flora or Miles having intercourse of any type with Miss Jessel and Quint

I would like to insist here on what is a shortcoming of the novella itself, the fact that Henry James does not really examine and scrutinize the psychological situation of the two kids, and then I will try to explore a modern interpretation of the anonymous governess.

The shortcoming is why and how the two kids end up in an isolated country mansion of an upper class London man who is a bachelor and the uncle of the kids. This story that is underused is essential to evaluate the children.

They lost their parents in India two years ago when the new governess arrives. They were uprooted from India then and entrusted to their upper class uncle in London who is a bachelor and uses the services of a valet who apparently wears some clothes of his master, which is frowned upon by the new governess when she is told but perfectly tolerated by the master. This proves nothing as for sexual orientation, but it does show something about the social orientation of this uncle, though his not wanting the two kids in his London home seems to show he does not want to be bothered by them and/or he wants to protect them from his own life style which is not specified in orientation, sexual or social likewise. So after losing their parents and being uprooted from India the are uprooted from their uncle’s London home and sent to live with quite a few servants in a countryside mansion of their uncle’s, a mansion that is composite: old sections from a several century old structure that looks medieval (crenellated towers) and a more modern structure in-between, meaning from the 19th century, or maybe the end of the 18th century.

This second uprooting sets the kids under the responsibility of two people, with servants around, including a housekeeper: a governess, Miss Jessel, and the uncle’s valet, Quint. Miss Jessel is responsible for the education of the kids and particularly of the young girl, whereas Quint is responsible for the upbringing of the young boy. The novella insinuates that the two kids developed very intimate (in time, which is the only parameter that is specified) relations, Miss Jessel with the girl Flora, and Quint with the boy Miles, often referred to as Mr. Miles. The intimate relations can easily be explained by the trauma of the loss of the parents and the double trauma of the double uprooting. There is absolutely no element that implies this intimacy is sexual, hence pedophile.

But for a reason that is called a scandal, with once again no specification, Miss Jessel has to go home, that is to say she is fired. There is some innuendo about the scandal but we cannot say if Miss Jessel, a governess who has to be young and pure, hence unmarried and virginal, did something unacceptable with Quint or anyone else. The novella seems to imply she did not do anything with the kids and at the end Miles clearly says he did not do anything bad with her. So we have to come to the idea she had a relation with Quint. And she dies soon after leaving for a cause we are not told. Soon after, Quint dies accidentally though without any detail. The two kids find themselves in another traumatic situation and Flora is temporarily taken care of by Mrs. Grose, the Housekeeper, who must be married but at the same time no husband is attributed to her, and Miles is sent to a boarding school. This situation is of course another trauma for the two kids who are separated and the boy sent to a boarding school which is not the best place for a traumatized child. No surprise when we learn at the end that he told things (which are not specified) to some of his “friends” there and these friends told these things to others including the teaching personnel, which explains the fact Miles is sent back home for the summer but with a letter telling his guardian he will not be taken again in the Fall.

What is missing here is the PTSS or PTSD that has to have developed in the two kids. Their Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome or Disorder must have been extremely high due to the successive traumas and uprootings they experienced at a very young age: between 6 and 8 for Flora and 8 and 10 for Miles. In fact it is this PTSS/D that could explain the final episodes of Flora refusing to see the governess again after a final ghost event with Miss Jessel, and then the death of Miles after another and final ghost event with Quint. The two kids are literally haunted by these ghosts that are only seen by the governess and that she imposes onto them in what must be considered as psychological if not even psychiatric torture: bringing up the last two people with whom they had some intimate equilibrium, hence maybe peace in their traumatic situations. And this governess is more than simply agitating the ghosts: she tries to force the kids, Flora first and Quint second, to admit they had a “bad” relation with the two ghosts when they were alive, which amounts to depriving the children of the recollection they may have kept of the two people who have been taken away by death after obscure circumstances, which had to reactivate the death of their own parents. The governess does not understand that and yet Henry James does not exploit it, so that the final position of Flora rejecting the governess and the final death of Miles remain unexplained. Miles does not die of fear, but he dies because that is the only way the governess leaves him to keep in contact with the last man he has had some intimate and balanced, maybe happy, relation with.

But the novella must be interpreted by critics with modern resources.

Henry James is telling the story in which a male character is bringing up the notebook of the nameless governess in which she tells what happened to her when in charge of Flora and Miles in the countryside mansion in Bly. In other words Henry James provides us with a personal diary by a character he invents and constructs but he constructs her only with her own words which have to be analyzed psychologically, socially and even from a non-clinical psychiatric point of view. This anonymous governess speaking in the first person is suffering of an extremely serious psychiatric disorder that has to be identified from what she says herself. Everything being fiction told by Henry James.

Her extremely strict and violent opposition to any sexual relation between Flora and Miss Jessel or between Miles and Quint, motivated both sexually and socially, reveals on her side a sexual and social heritage that is not dealt with except with a couple of allusion to her own brothers and sisters that lead nowhere.

The fact that she is a lot more motivated in her hostility by Miles and Quint than by Flora and Miss Jessel, shows she develops a sort of jealousy that would be purely pedagogical if equal on the two kids, but that is a lot more intricate and intimate since it is essentially directed towards the boy. She takes a stronger anti-gay position with Miles than with Flora. I say anti-gay and not anti-pedophile because she insists on the social dimension of the crime: Quint is behaving towards Miles not as a subservient servant but as something like an equal who can even wear his own master’s clothes, Miles’ uncle’s clothes. But what reveals the very obscure motivations of the governess is first the strong protective attitude: as such she is maternal. But second it is excessively physical and cuddling, hugging, embracing and kissing, including when Miles is in bed and she is sitting on his bed are impulsive, vast in time and repetitive. We are beyond anything that is normal for an adult woman and a ten year old boy who clearly asks her to leave him alone. She is obviously in love with the child and her desire is intimate though in her consciousness not sexual, but she does not see that all the hugging, embracing, cuddling, kissing, etc., is sexual and cannot be anything but sexual for a ten year old boy who must be starting to feel some desires and has spend one term in a boarding school with other boys and who longs for going back to be with boys because he wants to be a man. He uses this argument to build some distance with the governess who does not seem to understand. In other words her attitude is sexually motivated, even if unconsciously for the governess, is sexually received and interpreted and this time not unconsciously at all for Miles though it is for the governess, and is experienced as a frustration at least, in fact a castration, and this is conscious for Miles though unconscious for the governess.

But why does she condemn that intimacy with Quint and not with herself? The rejection of such gay relationship is clearly a way for her to hide and keep under control her own impulses. The rejection is typical of her time. It is also a way to cathartically sublimate and desexualize her own impulses. But this catharsis should also bring her to the point where she should step back and let Miles be, and obviously it does not work like that, which means her impulses are deeply rooted in her unconscious and her impulses are both pedophile and incestuous since she assumes the protective maternal stance of a quasi-mother, of a mother substitute in a situation of total absence of the real mother.

If then we associate the PTSS/D of the children to this falsely cathartic incestuous and pedophile impulse of the governess along with her extreme and excessive rejection of any gay or social mixing for the children we have to come to the conclusion that this attitude is completely castrating for Miles to the point he can only think of one escape to rejoin the last man with whom he had a relation, Quint. Since Quint is dead, though he does not see his ghost, he has to die to be with him again. Then the very end is clear when Miles “admits” his relation with Quint. Under duress more than simple pressure Miles admits he is seeing a vision of someone. The governess imagine it is a “she,” thinking of Miss Jessel. Miles answer curtly: “It’s he?”

At this moment the governess becomes a torturer that only works (and that was her main characteristic all along) on what she conjures up from what she considers as signs though they are never confirmed by real words from anyone. Here is that imperial attitude:

“I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to challenge him. “Whom do you mean by ‘he’?”

And Miles’ answer is not an answer to her but to himself, to the vision he has in his mind of the only possibility he has to escape that dragon of a governess:

“Peter Quint—you devil!”

And of course she does not understand he is talking to Quint in his mind, not the ghost she sees at this moment, but the real memory of the intimacy he had with Squint, an intimacy that implies no sexual relation, but only a friendly and socially uneven but accepted relation. She at once sees meaning where there is nothing:

“His face gave again, round the room, its convulsed supplication. “Where?” [says Miles of course]

And her conclusion is fatal, lethal. It is the last thread she cuts. She finally lets him go to Quint, but not the ghost, though she does not know.

“They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his tribute to my devotion.”

And yet this harpy of a woman has to push even further:

“What does he matter now, my own?—what will he ever matter? I have you,” I launched at the beast, “but he has lost you for ever!” Then, for the demonstration of my work, “There, there!” I said to Miles.”

For her the ghost is real and can be positioned in real space, the competition is won and she strikes the last two blows to Miles.

In other words her deranged sexual and emotional impulses lead her to a crime, a murder, she commits with only words and she triumphs just before discovering her murder because she thinks she has Miles to herself forever.

So, to conclude, this ghost story has little to do with ghosts being real or hallucinations. It is a deep story about a fully repressed and perverted woman who is so haunted by her own sexual impulses which she tries to control by her absolute rejection of anything sexual that she invents ghosts and fantasized relations between the children she is supposed to take care of and the ghosts she imagines. This enters in conflict with the PTSS/D of the children, though insufficiently developed by Henry James, so that Flora rejects her totally and Miles dies to escape the mental castrating prison in which she tries to lock him up.

We can hardly reproach Henry James with not knowing what we know today but we definitely have to reproach critics with not going beyond the manipulation Henry James works on us. Think for example of the name of the valet, Quint, meaning “five.” Thus Quint is the pentacle, the devil in simple symbols and then the last words addressed to Quint by Miles are “you devil!” This name then becomes friendly from Miles who is going to stop his heart to rejoin Quint. But what a manipulation in which the nameless governess falls head first! Apparently many critics have fallen into it too. I am of course here only speaking of what has been written on Henry James’ novella that was adapted to the cinema, television, ballet and the opera, not to speak of theater.

What surprises me most is why critic as so reluctant at identifying incestuous and pedophile impulses in women. And we do know they exist.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

[David Meditationseed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Turn of the Screw


An incredible narrative that makes every chapter shiver and fills us with more doubts than answers.

A book that points out more suggestions than affirmations, providing the reader have their own reflections, criticisms, and conclusions.

The chapters are short, the narration is full of ambiguous dialogues that are beyond verbal language: they also exist in descriptions about emotions, features and expressions of the characters that sometimes explain more than even their speech.

A scream, a cry, an escape, a hysterical laugh - all are elements of language that Henry James uses in an exceptional way.

The ambiguity is so present in this script that we start to be in doubt about what and who is indeed real or not. 

The suggestions also surround up to the age and sexual gender of the characters. And there is still a subliminal questioning: a relationship between morality, sex, perversion, anger, hatred, chastity and religiosity.
 
Some dialogues are entirely suggestive in this sense and it is as if the author actually places the reader as agent of the novel. Henry James does this in an absurdly creative and engaging way. In some excerpts, for example, it is common to read dialogues like "you already know"; or "do you really already know everything?" or "are you sure about this?"

And it is marvelous to see how these questions receive different responses not only from readers, but from cinematographic adaptations, as for example "The Innocents", which has the script signed by none other than Truman Capote and where there is an interesting Freudian conjecture in his interpretations. "The Others" with Nicole Kidman is another great and scary film based on this book.

This is a wonderful example of how literature opens the relations between the fictional characters, the author and the reader, bringing ambiguity to the experience of reading, imagination and reality. 

And also a doubt: woww maybe I saw something in that hallway. Is the result of my imagination or some kind of ghost? : )

_______

“The Beast in the Jungle”

A deep and subtle book, but one that requires attention and patience because of James's style, the narrative form of the time when it was written, and resembling a novel. And then a tip, in my opinion, is to find a good translation.

As in other works by Henry James, for example in "The Turn of the Screw" there are many subliminal psychological nuances, ambiguities and secrets of the characters that are not immediately revealed to us, readers, but hovering throughout history, leading us to participate and interpret their revelations - even if some of them are not unveiled until the end ... and then we are wondering what actually happened.

The plot is based on the relationship between two friends: a man and a woman. They had met and talked for a long time, during a social event and they held different memories and feelings from that day. Years later, they meet again in another chance, they surprise themselves on that day and they begin to develop a deep friendship from there.

This is the background for James to put on the table how relationships can help us see who we are, what we cover, what we feel and open to the other and to life. To see how certain aspects of ourselves, hidden under the masks we use in social relations, are seen only by those who truly love us.

How far do we live looking at our own navel and fail to notice the other person in front of us wanting to tell us something?

The symbology of this plot follows a path that points out that all of this can reach the extreme of one's own death in life - that of losing our existence not by mistake, but by ceasing to try and do. By standing still and not realizing the possibilities that are often exposed in front of us.

"Our fate is never thwarted, and the day she told him that his was sealed, he saw him only to stupidly ignore the salvation he offered."

And finally not letting ourselves feel, reflect and allow ourselves to be what we are.

"What ended up happening is that he started to wear a mask painted with the social smile, whose cracks emanated a look of an expression that had nothing to do with his features"

[David Dionys · Rating 2 out of 5]

As is often the case, great expectations are the mother of great disappointments. I had been looking forward to read James for quite a while. Presented as a key transitional figure of the late Victorian era, I thought reading bliss awaited me. Alas.

Despite the rich prose, which in later works tends to turn rather dense, the story matter seems very limited. Rather, Henry James might be crowned the king of ambiguity and indecision. He is of course known for The turn of the screw, but other novels in this book seem like endless reprises from one another.

The earliest short novel in the book, An international episode, might even be the most intriguing. It juxtaposes the visit of two English noblemen to the states, where they are received with great hospitality and joy, and the men pass a splendid time in an environment that seems bound to compromise them. When the ladies they have met stop by in London in a visit to Europe, the reception is rather cool; the class divide in England does not make them eligible for the better soirees; towards the end of the story, the sincerity and purity in considerations and actions of both the American ladies and their acquaintance the English lord come as a surprise and present a stark contrast with the world around them. While the story is silly and abounds with stereotypes, it shows James has a good insight in society and delicate emotions and draws inspiration from the time in which he lives; the US gaining ground while the English crown oversees the empire.

Daisy Miller, still has the charm of presenting us with a young woman who could not care less about social conventions and thus decides to go about unchaperoned; again she is the most noble of creatures and condemned by her surroundings.

In the later stories, James often uses the same vehicle: a woman becomes involved with a gentleman who has ulterior motives, remains loyal to support him in his actions and develops deep feelings for the man in question. The man however perceives the woman's feelings almost as a nuisance; while her attachment may help him in his generally selfish quest, he feels he stays on the right side of decency and if the woman has feelings, it cannot be helped. Towards the end he then realizes that his quest is futile and that he missed out on an opportunity to love and be loved. I would say that this is the story line for The Aspern papers (which made me laugh with the wild insult "Oh publishing scoundrel!"), The altar of the dead (apparently praised as a gem in James's work) and The beast in the jungle.

His contribution may be significant; the highlighting of the female condition of his time where a lady should be rescued through marriage by someone of importance to gain a foothold in society appears as a noble undertaking, but had this theme not been explored with much greater eloquence by George Eliot and Louisa May Alcott?

One might well argue that the love story is indeed barely a vehicle, and James reaches out to the bigger questions in life, love, mortality and death. That is probably true, but even then his stories seem thrice too long to make their point. I was reading Stephen King's Bazaar of bad dreams while reading James's short novels, and stories like "Herman Wouk is still alive" or "Mister Yummy" treat the same themes with for me greater effect in a shorter format; and yet, literary critics are unlikely to recognize Stephen King i n his lifetime as a great writer outside the genre of horror. Just to say, I think James might have faced serious problems finding a publisher in the modern day.

Of course it is not honest to compare the relevance of a writer by referring to the present, but even in comparison with this contemporaries the outcome is meager, especially when set off against the literary giants of his lifetime like George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Flaubert etc, whose works he was all familiar with.

[Justin Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waaaaaayyyyy back in 2003 I read The Turn of the Screw in Ms. Jon Lee Hall's AP Literature class. And, I remember loving the twisty, dark, psychological twists and turns of that novella. Now, two decades (?! how?!) later I thought I would give a wider selection of Henry James a try as well as revisit Turn. This rating of 4 stars encompasses all 5 short tales compiled here.
Overall, I enjoyed these stories! James is surprisingly sassy...more than I thought! I'm not sure if that's a result of me putting 2024 meanings and innuendos on certain words and phrases, but I don't think so. Relationships, society, and flirting are the basis for most of these tales. Also, even the non "horror" stories tend to still have an underlying menace to them, which I appreciated. Additionally, for the most part, James doesn't write too much in that "old/classic" style that can become so dense and disengaging to read in a modern light at times. In fact, the stories I enjoyed least where those that tended toward that stilted, lengthy, wordy, rambling format of yesteryear.
Here are some brief thoughts on the 5 stories that contributed to my overall strong 4-star for this collection:
An International Episode: A fun, inconsequential story. An interesting comparison and contrast to American and British approaches to society, especially among the "leisure" class. Full of spunk and flirtatiousness. A bit of an abrupt ending that didn't sit well with me.
Daisy Miller: Clear to see why this is considered one of James' best and most popular. Again, a fun and flirty society piece. Interesting to read in 2024 with the attitudes toward young women and the company they keep and what it means to be "proper." Daisy's mother is painted as an uninvolved, foolish woman; yet, today I think her character would be seen as more progressive and practical. An ending that is surprisingly tragic yet fitting and supports the theme of choice and consequence well. Might contend with Turn as my favorite in the collection.
The Aspern Papers: A good story. Again, an investigation into relationship and motivation among class and society. Works toward an ironic finish that was pretty expected but was still effective. A bit longer than it needed to be, repetitive at times. Was a bit blocky and dense at times.
The Altar of the Dead: I admit, I didn't really "get" this one. It was definitely written more "classically" than the others. A bit more symbolic and esoteric. Online people seem to love it and count it among his best. I found it to be too heavy in religious symbolism without the clearest reason to why.
The Turn of the Screw: What we came for! As good as I remembered! It's interesting to read up on how the ambiguities and unreliability of the narrator/governess was not really a consideration at its publication; rather, those are more modern "reads" on the story. Because, really, the story only works with that strong ambiguity. Again, reading this in 2024 and reading into certain words and phrases can really take you in different directions in this story. I think this just underscores how timeless the tale is.
The Beast in the Jungle: Similarly to Altar, this was low for me. Again, it was so blocky with multi-page long paragraphs and those old-time sentences that go on forever. It's a very short story but still seems too long to get to its point.
All in all, I am a fan of James it would appear! If you haven't checked out his work beyond that required AP reading of Turn, give at least Daisy Miller a try!

[Doug Wykstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Henry James always feels like he's trying, as delicately as possible and with a minimum of hurt feelings, not to tell you the actual details of the story, or, if he's telling you the details, to recount them with such simplicity, surrounded by such an abundance of pauses and assurances, that it becomes difficult to glean their actual importance. All while you're trying to get into the inside of the characters, and understand what makes them tick, James is at your side smoking in a disapproving way and finding a way of saying, "My good man, it's a bit rude to inquire too closely into the private details of those who don't wish to have them published, you know," without ever quite saying this.

I'd read a few of these stories before (and even taught the title story), but this was the first time I went through the collection one after the other, and it was an instruction in patience how the elliptical nature of his storytelling at first became amusing, when I could see what he was doing ("An International Episode"), then worrying, when I couldn't tell if I was missing something he was doing ("Daisy Miller: A Study"), to amused, when I realized that his characters generally knew as little as I did ("The Beast in the Jungle"). James's homosexuality provides a skeleton key to some of what lurks under the surface of all his polite repression (all those passive men with devoted, but not too devoted, friendships with single middle-aged women), but it doesn't unlock all the doors--there remain depths to plumb, some secret that he seems determined to wonder why you think he might be hiding it from you.

Generations of insecure English students have hated James, I'm sure, for writing this way: in an English class, there's nothing more terrifying than not being sure exactly what an author is saying, and Henry James has no interest in letting you know that. But I think that's one of the reasons he's such a valuable author. He forces you to accept uncertainty, ambiguity, and perhaps even begins to give you permission to draw your own conclusions, a necessary and too-frequently-overlooked part of developing one's critical thinking skills.