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The Turn of the Screw & In the Cage
This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition brings together one of literature's most famous ghost stories and one of Henry James's most unusual novellas. In The Turn of the Screw, a governess is haunted by ghosts from her young charges past; Virginia Woolf said of this masterpiece of psychological ambiguity and suggestion, We are afraid of something unnamed, of something, perhaps, in ourselves...Henry James...can still make us afraid of the dark.
In his rarely anthologized novella In the Cage, James brings his incomparable powers of observation to the story of a clever, rebellious heroine of Britain's lower middle class. Hortense Calisher, in her Introduction, calls it a delicious story, the more so because it confounds what we expect from James.
In his rarely anthologized novella In the Cage, James brings his incomparable powers of observation to the story of a clever, rebellious heroine of Britain's lower middle class. Hortense Calisher, in her Introduction, calls it a delicious story, the more so because it confounds what we expect from James.
231 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1898
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344 people want to read
About the author
Henry James
4,555 books3,940 followersHenry 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."
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."
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April 13, 2013
Another book I read as a supplement to my Deleuze and Guattari A Thousand Plateaus reading group. In A Thousand Plateaus, D&G use "In the Cage" and Fitzgerald's "The Crack Up" as examples of how novellas differ from novels and how writing can effect the reader and the world (and a example to their philosophy).
But before I get to that, I need to say that I hated "In the Cage" for a good many pages. I haven't read James in awhile and I forgot how his words and sentences are themselves vast cages that trap the reader in endless convention and pauses and circumlocutions; all to seemingly palpably enforce the constrictions his characters feel. I re-read Proust not so long ago, and their sentence structure seems similar, but it's not. Proust has to document everything. The slightest glance, inflection, turn of head, phrasing, or word choice changes everything, and he needs to show you how that turn of head and inflection shows that someone is lying in this specific circumstance. So in Proust the entrapment of his long run-on sentences are very much about the much-ness of the world. Of how the world is full of over-encoded everything and how it's near impossible to "read" the world correctly and how it's impossible to know how your actions change the world as you go along. James, on the other hand, is all entrapment. The words are thousands of paper cuts entrapping you in chains with no chance of escape.
So "In the Cage" deals with a poor woman. (It might be the only time James ever writes from the perspective of someone poor.) She works at a telegraph station and sees the secrets that pass from one rich prick to another. She is intrigued first by "a very handsome" oh so handsome Lady who is sending off a bunch of notes to liaisons under different names. Later, she fixates on "a very handsome" oh so handsome Lord who is in a dalliance with the Lady.
We never know much. And not much happens in the story. Everything happens off stage; including the changes happening within our heroine herself.
But anyway... D&G's reading of "In the Cage" is very strange but it has an smell of truth. The main character, D&G claim, is making an abrupt break with the entrapment she is born into. On the one hand, she never rises above her rank, but on the other hand, she shatters the hold that those constrictions had on her internal being. Sort of... I need to re-read it all, since now I'm not sure if I got their point.
But I gotta go. More some other time.
But before I get to that, I need to say that I hated "In the Cage" for a good many pages. I haven't read James in awhile and I forgot how his words and sentences are themselves vast cages that trap the reader in endless convention and pauses and circumlocutions; all to seemingly palpably enforce the constrictions his characters feel. I re-read Proust not so long ago, and their sentence structure seems similar, but it's not. Proust has to document everything. The slightest glance, inflection, turn of head, phrasing, or word choice changes everything, and he needs to show you how that turn of head and inflection shows that someone is lying in this specific circumstance. So in Proust the entrapment of his long run-on sentences are very much about the much-ness of the world. Of how the world is full of over-encoded everything and how it's near impossible to "read" the world correctly and how it's impossible to know how your actions change the world as you go along. James, on the other hand, is all entrapment. The words are thousands of paper cuts entrapping you in chains with no chance of escape.
So "In the Cage" deals with a poor woman. (It might be the only time James ever writes from the perspective of someone poor.) She works at a telegraph station and sees the secrets that pass from one rich prick to another. She is intrigued first by "a very handsome" oh so handsome Lady who is sending off a bunch of notes to liaisons under different names. Later, she fixates on "a very handsome" oh so handsome Lord who is in a dalliance with the Lady.
We never know much. And not much happens in the story. Everything happens off stage; including the changes happening within our heroine herself.
But anyway... D&G's reading of "In the Cage" is very strange but it has an smell of truth. The main character, D&G claim, is making an abrupt break with the entrapment she is born into. On the one hand, she never rises above her rank, but on the other hand, she shatters the hold that those constrictions had on her internal being. Sort of... I need to re-read it all, since now I'm not sure if I got their point.
But I gotta go. More some other time.
Read
September 17, 2024Is Henry James the most unfashionable canonical writer? I suspect that he might be. I picked this up because I was feeling so stifled by "Contemporary" literature and wanted to get in another headspace, to strengthen my mind by reading something that comes from another era and which I knew, therefore, would have an unfamiliar syntactical structure. Honest to God, I knew nothing about his style. My immediate thought with The Turn of the Screw was simultaneously, how do high school students read this? And: assigning this to high school students is guaranteed to alienate 99% of them from reading. I followed these two novellas like I follow a conversation in French---I get the shape of the outline; now and then, the pieces line up and I can follow with clarity (I read portions aloud after learning that James was a popular serialist and imagining Dad reading this to the 19th century kids around the fireplace at night, which helped a lot), before it all recedes back into a general kind of haze. My assessment from that hazy impression of the plot is that the governess is definitely the culprit and that our Young Woman in In the Cage is a very, very nice girl.
Screw made me think a lot about Wuthering Heights, the other canonical Gothic novel from the same period that I've read recently-ish. That book also has very unfamiliar (uncanny, we might even say) sentence structure that made it difficult for my feeble mind to follow. The authors' baroque use of language tells me that they are using it as an intentional element to build the unsettling / creepy atmosphere they're going for (not sure if this conclusion holds since, with James, it seems to be his constant style across genre).
The preface to Screw is so, so good. It has this crazy, dynamic energy. There's so much movement, and it all perfectly reveals these characters that aren't even part of the narrative! The dialogue, similarly, is absolutely masterful, feeling authentic even with the dated slang and, with great economy and precision, outlining these characters that felt so familiar and recognizable. Even without all the gimmicks invented in the 20th century, Henry James is still working hard to excite, engage, hook his readers. It's so bizarre to me that he pulls out all the tricks, greatly concerned with entertaining readers---and yet his style is so opaque (according to Wikipedia, he was known for his opacity to his contemporaries, too)!
This is the main thing that I learned from reading these two novellas: what people mean when they complain about the state of Contemporary literature and bemoan the solipsism of autofiction and adjacent trends, and long for a "return to plot." These novellas (especially Screw) are painstakingly structured and paced, with every two, three, four chapters constituting a little arc that ends on a cliffhanger. There's a lot of cause and effect. They're contemporaneous, as in not-historical (the recurrent use of "hold fire," slang that comes from dueling; a plot that revolves around the obsolete technology of the telegram). They're psychological: the character in In the Cage seemed really cool and hot and relatable. There's a lot of "showing" through description of gesture and setting, through the implications left hanging in dialogue; and yet there's also a lot of "telling." They're commercial, and yet authorial and uncompromising in their slightly ridiculous style.
The big takeaway was the structure, the pacing, and the cause-and-effect. I can't necessarily plan out dialogue as good as his, but I do feel like I could benefit from doing a lot more outlining and having more events in my stories. I am also really taken with the novella form.
Screw made me think a lot about Wuthering Heights, the other canonical Gothic novel from the same period that I've read recently-ish. That book also has very unfamiliar (uncanny, we might even say) sentence structure that made it difficult for my feeble mind to follow. The authors' baroque use of language tells me that they are using it as an intentional element to build the unsettling / creepy atmosphere they're going for (not sure if this conclusion holds since, with James, it seems to be his constant style across genre).
The preface to Screw is so, so good. It has this crazy, dynamic energy. There's so much movement, and it all perfectly reveals these characters that aren't even part of the narrative! The dialogue, similarly, is absolutely masterful, feeling authentic even with the dated slang and, with great economy and precision, outlining these characters that felt so familiar and recognizable. Even without all the gimmicks invented in the 20th century, Henry James is still working hard to excite, engage, hook his readers. It's so bizarre to me that he pulls out all the tricks, greatly concerned with entertaining readers---and yet his style is so opaque (according to Wikipedia, he was known for his opacity to his contemporaries, too)!
This is the main thing that I learned from reading these two novellas: what people mean when they complain about the state of Contemporary literature and bemoan the solipsism of autofiction and adjacent trends, and long for a "return to plot." These novellas (especially Screw) are painstakingly structured and paced, with every two, three, four chapters constituting a little arc that ends on a cliffhanger. There's a lot of cause and effect. They're contemporaneous, as in not-historical (the recurrent use of "hold fire," slang that comes from dueling; a plot that revolves around the obsolete technology of the telegram). They're psychological: the character in In the Cage seemed really cool and hot and relatable. There's a lot of "showing" through description of gesture and setting, through the implications left hanging in dialogue; and yet there's also a lot of "telling." They're commercial, and yet authorial and uncompromising in their slightly ridiculous style.
The big takeaway was the structure, the pacing, and the cause-and-effect. I can't necessarily plan out dialogue as good as his, but I do feel like I could benefit from doing a lot more outlining and having more events in my stories. I am also really taken with the novella form.
September 23, 2024
[Read for school]
[Also I only read the first of two stories in this book idgaf.]
It’s weird. It barely says anything definitively, and this I appreciate now but it was like pulling teeth to read. I wish I could say I was scared or gripped, but I was only confused. There’s a lot to dig into, but more in a psychoanalytical way than a literary way in my view, unfortunately.
[Also I only read the first of two stories in this book idgaf.]
It’s weird. It barely says anything definitively, and this I appreciate now but it was like pulling teeth to read. I wish I could say I was scared or gripped, but I was only confused. There’s a lot to dig into, but more in a psychoanalytical way than a literary way in my view, unfortunately.
October 21, 2020
The Turn of the Screw- 2/5 stars
November 1, 2021
Only read The Turn of the Screw
Read
February 6, 2024only read turn of the screw for school
Want to read
December 30, 20232023-12-30 read this review which makes me want to really read the book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
June 23, 2011
One of the best ghost stories I have ever read. Part of it is that sense of unfathomable dread that James conjures so well, but here, unlike in, say, H.P Lovecraft, the dread seems all so human. The fact that James himself was later so dismissive of the book made me even more curious. Its like the book revealed more than he wanted it to. It centers around a precocious child inducted into supernatural and "corrupting" mysteries before his time, and gives more than a hint of what might have happened to this bright son of a Swedenborgian. The book just aches with alternating sense of attraction and repulsion to "dishonor." Its James at his most revealing.
Its also the first James book I was able to finish, perhaps because it did seem so personal, and perhaps simply because it has at its heart a great story instead of his usual interminable maunderings. (This is all "Turn of the Screw," I didn't go for "In the Cage" because it seemed to be just filler.)
Its also the first James book I was able to finish, perhaps because it did seem so personal, and perhaps simply because it has at its heart a great story instead of his usual interminable maunderings. (This is all "Turn of the Screw," I didn't go for "In the Cage" because it seemed to be just filler.)
March 12, 2013
My first exposure to Henry James was this tight little psycho-drama of a ghost story. Turn of the Screw is one of those amazing novellas that twist the reader back and forth. The reader spins between the extremes of believing the narrator, and her fear of actual ghosts, is legitimate AND believing she is simply mad. James' story turns on this dilemma. One slight rotation to the right and all bets are off.
For a ghost story, I was far more creeped out by the two 'angelic' children, the vacant setting, and the remote English country house. Anyway, while not blown away by the story, I still found it compelling, creepy and rich in its ambiguity.
For a ghost story, I was far more creeped out by the two 'angelic' children, the vacant setting, and the remote English country house. Anyway, while not blown away by the story, I still found it compelling, creepy and rich in its ambiguity.
December 31, 2014
Both novellas are written in an older style and take a little time getting used to.
I was interested in reading The Turn of the Screw because I saw The Innocents. Interestingly enough, I feel the book gives the impression that the governess is a nutjob while the movie gives the impression the children are the dark element.
The other novella, In the Cage, is almost a 180 from the tone set by the other novella. It is almost entirely composed of the thoughts of the main character. Having very little character interaction, it is not quite a page turner.
I was interested in reading The Turn of the Screw because I saw The Innocents. Interestingly enough, I feel the book gives the impression that the governess is a nutjob while the movie gives the impression the children are the dark element.
The other novella, In the Cage, is almost a 180 from the tone set by the other novella. It is almost entirely composed of the thoughts of the main character. Having very little character interaction, it is not quite a page turner.
December 7, 2018
This is my first Henry James and it was a bit of a challenge to get through the florid language and frequent use of pronouns (at times had difficulty knowing who was being referred to). The Turn is the Screw seems almost cliche as a ghost/horror story but it’s the prototype that created that cliche! In the Cage is an odd but quite cinematic story of a telegraph shop worker following the drama of her customers’ missives.
January 31, 2016
The Turn of the Screw: Pretty classic feel for the end of the 1800s, a little mystery, a little romance.
In the Cage: This felt much more modern, almost a Joyce feeling in his more literal works. You really get into this character's head, and what's there is not altogether appealing.
In the Cage: This felt much more modern, almost a Joyce feeling in his more literal works. You really get into this character's head, and what's there is not altogether appealing.
December 13, 2021
I chose to read Turn of the Screw as my second spooky Halloween read of 2021 and because my library only carries this edition that contains both Turn of the Screw and In the Cage I ended up reading both novellas.
Turn of the Screw Review:
The set-up is intriguing, a wealthy man is having a hard time finding a new governess for his orphaned niece and nephew. Our narrator takes on the charge and moves to Bly, the family estate in the country, to attend to the two children under the caveat that she must not bother their uncle under any circumstances. Upon her arrival to Bly the circumstances seem too good to be true; the children are utterly charming and handsome but as time passes the governess starts to envision something sinister. So much of the plot and it’s intrigue are based on perception, there are many moments when our narrator experiences a sudden realization pulled out of thin air and nothing can shake her conviction. The atmosphere of the novel is successfully tense and panicked but the actual happenings are unclear. If you don’t like ambivalence this is not the book for you. Some readers believe the supernatural occurrences were entirely imagined by the governess while others believe something sinister was in fact happening between the spirits and the children. Turn of the Screw is a short read with a spooky atmosphere that doesn't present anything altogether too scary or too coherent but keeps the reader engaged throughout.
In the Cage review:
I had zero expectations coming into this story as I was only reading it because it’s included in this edition with Turn of the Screw; I even thought it might be a horror story at first but In the Cage ended up being a frivolous and pleasant surprise. The story centers around a young working class woman who works behind “the cage” at a telegraph office. Our unnamed protagonist thinks very highly of herself despite leading a rather simple life, living with her mother and engaged to a good natured grocer named Mr. Mudge. Obsessed with high society, she takes special interest in a couple of aristocratic clients and through her decoding of their cryptic telegraphs involves herself in their affairs. The plot doesn’t amount to much of anything and the writing is a little over-indulgent so I can understand how others did not enjoy this novella. However, where In The Cage really delivers is in this absolute gem of a character; she is cunning, foolish and most enjoyably snarky.
Turn of the Screw Review:
The set-up is intriguing, a wealthy man is having a hard time finding a new governess for his orphaned niece and nephew. Our narrator takes on the charge and moves to Bly, the family estate in the country, to attend to the two children under the caveat that she must not bother their uncle under any circumstances. Upon her arrival to Bly the circumstances seem too good to be true; the children are utterly charming and handsome but as time passes the governess starts to envision something sinister. So much of the plot and it’s intrigue are based on perception, there are many moments when our narrator experiences a sudden realization pulled out of thin air and nothing can shake her conviction. The atmosphere of the novel is successfully tense and panicked but the actual happenings are unclear. If you don’t like ambivalence this is not the book for you. Some readers believe the supernatural occurrences were entirely imagined by the governess while others believe something sinister was in fact happening between the spirits and the children. Turn of the Screw is a short read with a spooky atmosphere that doesn't present anything altogether too scary or too coherent but keeps the reader engaged throughout.
In the Cage review:
I had zero expectations coming into this story as I was only reading it because it’s included in this edition with Turn of the Screw; I even thought it might be a horror story at first but In the Cage ended up being a frivolous and pleasant surprise. The story centers around a young working class woman who works behind “the cage” at a telegraph office. Our unnamed protagonist thinks very highly of herself despite leading a rather simple life, living with her mother and engaged to a good natured grocer named Mr. Mudge. Obsessed with high society, she takes special interest in a couple of aristocratic clients and through her decoding of their cryptic telegraphs involves herself in their affairs. The plot doesn’t amount to much of anything and the writing is a little over-indulgent so I can understand how others did not enjoy this novella. However, where In The Cage really delivers is in this absolute gem of a character; she is cunning, foolish and most enjoyably snarky.
neglected_deprived_and_languishing
October 27, 2014The Turn of the Screw
Date I read this book: September 12th, 2014
★
On Christmas Eve ghost stories are being told around the fire and Douglas says his will chill them to their very bones, but he will only tell it in the words of his friend, who at the time was a young governess. Douglas sends away for her journal, which she gave to him for safe keeping after her death, and when it arrives he begins the story. The young governess is hired by the attractive uncle of two children, Miles and Flora. He has them ensconced in the country at his estate in Essex and has no desire to be bothered in any aspect of their upbringing. Upon her arrival at Bly the governess is taken in by the angelic beauty of Flora, just as she will be by Miles when he is expelled from his boarding school and returned to Bly, an occurrence she cannot understand, due to his apparent perfection.
But soon their idyllic life is shattered by the appearance of two people. This man and woman seem to come and go as they will. After discussing them with the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, she learns the female spectre is none other then her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and the male is Peter Quint, Miss Jessel's lover and another former employee. Only both of them are dead. The young governess is convinced they want the children and will do anything to achieve their nefarious goals from beyond the grave. But even if this is what is really happening can she stop them?
Much like the young heroine in The Turn of the Screw I had my head turned by a hansom man and visions of romance. Many many years ago my friends Matt and Becky and I were walking to the video store, you remember those, you could rent physical movies on these large clunky tapes that could get easily damaged and had to be rewound before returning. We were in the trashier section of our college campus and we found $40 on the ground. Knowing it was probably a drunken frat boy who had lost said money we pocketed it and used it to rent some movies.
After looking for ages we decided on two movies, the new Hamlet staring Ethan Hawke and The Turn of the Screw, because, well, Colin Firth. There was one thing all three of us could agree on, and that was Colin Firth is hot. Also the movie not sounding too much like a period piece, Matt agreed, and again, Colin Firth is hot. We lasted only about twenty minutes into Hamlet before we gave up, yes, it was that bad. But we did watch all of The Turn of the Screw... after this both my friends said I should pay them for having to watch the two movies because I had suggested them in the first place. We compromised by making me return them to the video store.
I was left with two thoughts after watching the movie, one, false advertising, you put Colin Firth's name as a star he should be in more then five minutes, and two, evil wins!?! No matter what your interpretation of events, it's evil, in some form, that is victorious. And as evil took root, I waited for Colin to reappear, and he never did. I fell for the same bait and switch as that young governess. Of course she was unwilling to ask him for aid in a time of need to show her reliability and fortitude, whereas I was all like, Colin, come back! Since then the BBC has made another version, this time with several stars from Downton Abbey, which again left me unsatisfied. For so many years I have been under this impression that The Turn of the Screw was this amazing classic that was being done an injustice by bad adaptation after bad adaptation. I now know that that isn't the case. The Turn of the Screw is just a badly written story with enough wiggle room to allow for many interpretations of the text.
In the final analysis the question isn't was the governess insane or were there supernatural forces at work, the question is, is this even readable? The answer is no. The writing in this book verges on the indecipherable. James took a lot of flack for his overwriting stories, and, I can see why. He has a tendency to not only write too much but write sentences that seem to turn back in on themselves so he talks himself out of his original idea. These long sentences with too many commas have a tendency to be the length of paragraphs, and in a few rare instances, pages long, always ending up in an entirely different place then where they started and becoming increasingly incoherent in the process.
If James can't be bothered to maintain a train of thought in a sentence it's no wonder the book is all over the place and ripe for adaptations that can take as many liberties as they want, because, let's face it, even James didn't know where his story was going. If it wasn't for the fact I knew the plot, well, I wouldn't have been able to figure it out by just reading it. I spent more time fighting to grasp onto the text and try to get some sense out of this book then any other book I've ever read. In the end I gave up to the inevitable and just let the text wash over me as my eyes glazed over and I prayed for the end.
But the inability of James to write coherently is nothing to his structural issues and his unsympathetic characters. Firstly, there is no suspense in this story. I'm not sure if this derives from his inability to set the stage or just the fact that I didn't care if all the characters died horrifically, but there was no jeopardy that made me want to keep reading. A ghost story should at the very least have some suspense, some ability to have the hair on your next rise up and question the sudden chill in the room. Now to the aspect that annoyed me most. James uses the "framing" device of having a group of friends sitting around the fire telling each other ghost stories on Christmas Eve. I have no problem with this, what I do have a problem with is that this "framing" device was left unfinished and in the end was more of a prologue.
To frame a story you need it at the beginning and the end, not just the beginning! I get that he might have wanted to end with the "shock value" of what happened to the insufferable Miles, but, well, the governess's story went on, she somehow got another job and came to meet Douglas and impart this story to him. How the hell did she get another job? Just, gaw! She was THE WORST GOVERNESS EVER and someone else employed her after this? Something shouldn't be labelled a classic because of the time you can spend discussing the text and delving into the deeper meanings, sometimes you're just thrusting your own ideas and meanings onto a text that doesn't deserve to be cherished, but deserves to be forgotten in the mists of time... or the mists that hide the spurious phantasms around Bly.
Date I read this book: September 12th, 2014
★
On Christmas Eve ghost stories are being told around the fire and Douglas says his will chill them to their very bones, but he will only tell it in the words of his friend, who at the time was a young governess. Douglas sends away for her journal, which she gave to him for safe keeping after her death, and when it arrives he begins the story. The young governess is hired by the attractive uncle of two children, Miles and Flora. He has them ensconced in the country at his estate in Essex and has no desire to be bothered in any aspect of their upbringing. Upon her arrival at Bly the governess is taken in by the angelic beauty of Flora, just as she will be by Miles when he is expelled from his boarding school and returned to Bly, an occurrence she cannot understand, due to his apparent perfection.
But soon their idyllic life is shattered by the appearance of two people. This man and woman seem to come and go as they will. After discussing them with the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, she learns the female spectre is none other then her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and the male is Peter Quint, Miss Jessel's lover and another former employee. Only both of them are dead. The young governess is convinced they want the children and will do anything to achieve their nefarious goals from beyond the grave. But even if this is what is really happening can she stop them?
Much like the young heroine in The Turn of the Screw I had my head turned by a hansom man and visions of romance. Many many years ago my friends Matt and Becky and I were walking to the video store, you remember those, you could rent physical movies on these large clunky tapes that could get easily damaged and had to be rewound before returning. We were in the trashier section of our college campus and we found $40 on the ground. Knowing it was probably a drunken frat boy who had lost said money we pocketed it and used it to rent some movies.
After looking for ages we decided on two movies, the new Hamlet staring Ethan Hawke and The Turn of the Screw, because, well, Colin Firth. There was one thing all three of us could agree on, and that was Colin Firth is hot. Also the movie not sounding too much like a period piece, Matt agreed, and again, Colin Firth is hot. We lasted only about twenty minutes into Hamlet before we gave up, yes, it was that bad. But we did watch all of The Turn of the Screw... after this both my friends said I should pay them for having to watch the two movies because I had suggested them in the first place. We compromised by making me return them to the video store.
I was left with two thoughts after watching the movie, one, false advertising, you put Colin Firth's name as a star he should be in more then five minutes, and two, evil wins!?! No matter what your interpretation of events, it's evil, in some form, that is victorious. And as evil took root, I waited for Colin to reappear, and he never did. I fell for the same bait and switch as that young governess. Of course she was unwilling to ask him for aid in a time of need to show her reliability and fortitude, whereas I was all like, Colin, come back! Since then the BBC has made another version, this time with several stars from Downton Abbey, which again left me unsatisfied. For so many years I have been under this impression that The Turn of the Screw was this amazing classic that was being done an injustice by bad adaptation after bad adaptation. I now know that that isn't the case. The Turn of the Screw is just a badly written story with enough wiggle room to allow for many interpretations of the text.
In the final analysis the question isn't was the governess insane or were there supernatural forces at work, the question is, is this even readable? The answer is no. The writing in this book verges on the indecipherable. James took a lot of flack for his overwriting stories, and, I can see why. He has a tendency to not only write too much but write sentences that seem to turn back in on themselves so he talks himself out of his original idea. These long sentences with too many commas have a tendency to be the length of paragraphs, and in a few rare instances, pages long, always ending up in an entirely different place then where they started and becoming increasingly incoherent in the process.
If James can't be bothered to maintain a train of thought in a sentence it's no wonder the book is all over the place and ripe for adaptations that can take as many liberties as they want, because, let's face it, even James didn't know where his story was going. If it wasn't for the fact I knew the plot, well, I wouldn't have been able to figure it out by just reading it. I spent more time fighting to grasp onto the text and try to get some sense out of this book then any other book I've ever read. In the end I gave up to the inevitable and just let the text wash over me as my eyes glazed over and I prayed for the end.
But the inability of James to write coherently is nothing to his structural issues and his unsympathetic characters. Firstly, there is no suspense in this story. I'm not sure if this derives from his inability to set the stage or just the fact that I didn't care if all the characters died horrifically, but there was no jeopardy that made me want to keep reading. A ghost story should at the very least have some suspense, some ability to have the hair on your next rise up and question the sudden chill in the room. Now to the aspect that annoyed me most. James uses the "framing" device of having a group of friends sitting around the fire telling each other ghost stories on Christmas Eve. I have no problem with this, what I do have a problem with is that this "framing" device was left unfinished and in the end was more of a prologue.
To frame a story you need it at the beginning and the end, not just the beginning! I get that he might have wanted to end with the "shock value" of what happened to the insufferable Miles, but, well, the governess's story went on, she somehow got another job and came to meet Douglas and impart this story to him. How the hell did she get another job? Just, gaw! She was THE WORST GOVERNESS EVER and someone else employed her after this? Something shouldn't be labelled a classic because of the time you can spend discussing the text and delving into the deeper meanings, sometimes you're just thrusting your own ideas and meanings onto a text that doesn't deserve to be cherished, but deserves to be forgotten in the mists of time... or the mists that hide the spurious phantasms around Bly.
December 7, 2018
Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" is one of the most artful ghost stories ever written. But is it a "ghost story" or a psychological thriller? This is, of course, the controversy that has hovered over the work almost since the time it was written. The brilliance of the novella exists precisely in this ambiguity—are the ghosts really there or are they the imagined projections of a sexually repressed governess? What interested me most this time through a story I have read before is the relationship between the governess and the maid Mrs. Grose. The latter is finally convinced the ghosts exist, not because she sees them, she doesn't, but because the governess has higher status and thus is to believed. Which brings us to the second story, "In the Cage," in which a young woman who receives and counts the words of telegraphs, becomes infatuated with a man, who regularly gives her telegraphs that she imagines indicate things which eventually prove not to be true. It is a brilliant story of class difference and, like in the "Turn of the Screw," of the power of even the most plausible imagination to create worlds that simply do not exist.
October 22, 2020
In fairness, I only read The Turn of the Screw (saving In the Cage for later), but oooh, I love this weird, creepy story. I've read it several times and returned to it this fall, in keeping with my "spooky reads" project. It always amazes me to see what different things pop out from a beloved read, depending on what else is going on during the reading. This month, what popped out at me was this: "What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and directly asked of me, and that I could, after all, do it proved even a greater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself in short a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly appear." Feeling overly proud for achieving a modicum of success, not knowing that a real pummeling is coming more quickly than you could possibly guess? Sister, *I feel that.*
And of course I have to add: if you haven't seen Benjamin Britten's opera adaptation, find yourself a DVD version immediately.
And of course I have to add: if you haven't seen Benjamin Britten's opera adaptation, find yourself a DVD version immediately.
November 2, 2022
I reread The Turn of the Screw and loved it all over again. It's James' masterpiece.
In the Cage was more difficult to read and comprehend, mainly due to the writing style of Henry James which entraps you with its long and elaborated sentences and "meaningless" details. When I reached chapter IV, I had to stop reading because I was not finding any sense in the text, that is, I was completely lost. So I reread chapters I - III again taking notes, underlining and writing a short summary at the end of a chapter. In the end, I grew to like it, especially the final chapter. To think what might have happened in the park...
Still I have decided to give it to three stars since it has taken me quite a while to finish it and has required from me a great mental effort for which I'm partly grateful.
In the Cage was more difficult to read and comprehend, mainly due to the writing style of Henry James which entraps you with its long and elaborated sentences and "meaningless" details. When I reached chapter IV, I had to stop reading because I was not finding any sense in the text, that is, I was completely lost. So I reread chapters I - III again taking notes, underlining and writing a short summary at the end of a chapter. In the end, I grew to like it, especially the final chapter. To think what might have happened in the park...
Still I have decided to give it to three stars since it has taken me quite a while to finish it and has required from me a great mental effort for which I'm partly grateful.
February 26, 2020
The four stars is for the Turn of the Screw, I was not a fan of In The Cage, although both novellas were psychologically fascinating.
The Turn of the Screw is pretty blah from a straight story line stand point... the story itself isn’t too thrilling, especially compared to today’s thrillers. But the more that I reflected on it, the creepier it became. James makes the darkest, scariest part of his “ghost” story the way you respond to it, and how you interpret his vague insinuations. My imagination went crazy down so many rabbit trails the longer I sat with it.
I have no desire to read another story like it... ever... but it was brilliantly done.
The Turn of the Screw is pretty blah from a straight story line stand point... the story itself isn’t too thrilling, especially compared to today’s thrillers. But the more that I reflected on it, the creepier it became. James makes the darkest, scariest part of his “ghost” story the way you respond to it, and how you interpret his vague insinuations. My imagination went crazy down so many rabbit trails the longer I sat with it.
I have no desire to read another story like it... ever... but it was brilliantly done.
January 24, 2022
Only read in the cage
Just no... similar to The Good Soldier but far more confusing.
Not even finished but it pains me to even skim
Girl boss as my girl has a job in patriarchal society at a time where it was probs impossible (don't know when it's set) but also she is has the stereotypical job of a typist, is gossip absorbed and the thing is about her marriage so really no persona at all just
I thought it would be some cool metaphor how she is in the cage of patriarchy and stuff but no (I don't think anyway as I've not finished it) but nah i think it's more her decision of continuing into this marriage or not
Just no... similar to The Good Soldier but far more confusing.
Not even finished but it pains me to even skim
Girl boss as my girl has a job in patriarchal society at a time where it was probs impossible (don't know when it's set) but also she is has the stereotypical job of a typist, is gossip absorbed and the thing is about her marriage so really no persona at all just
I thought it would be some cool metaphor how she is in the cage of patriarchy and stuff but no (I don't think anyway as I've not finished it) but nah i think it's more her decision of continuing into this marriage or not
November 18, 2022
Let it be known that my rating goes solely to The Turn of the Screw, which I found enticing, brilliantly plotted, and making me ponder what was and what was not "just the imagination" of the main character. As for the other novella, somewhat randomly published along with it, I gave it my honest try but listening to it as an audio I kept spacing out and having no idea what it was about. Gave up about 1/3 through. Maybe one day I will revisit it, but it is not this day.
Read
November 5, 2025I wanted a book for the Halloween season so decided to pick up The Turn of the Screw. It was nice for the season, but I didn't find it all that compelling. It was good for what it was and I did find the last few pages exciting.
Read In the Cage after since it was in this collection - really shouldn't have bothered. Did not enjoy it much at all. I mean I found some of it fun and particularly liked the "cage" but just did not do much for me.
Read In the Cage after since it was in this collection - really shouldn't have bothered. Did not enjoy it much at all. I mean I found some of it fun and particularly liked the "cage" but just did not do much for me.
October 23, 2021
I read "The Turn of the Screw" for book club, but did not read "In the Cage".
I loved it! The flowery old manner of speaking, the strangeness, the not quite sure what's going on feeling, and the just plain oddness make this gothic tale worth the read. I am still not really sure what happened and my book club agreed that there are many possible interpretations.
I loved it! The flowery old manner of speaking, the strangeness, the not quite sure what's going on feeling, and the just plain oddness make this gothic tale worth the read. I am still not really sure what happened and my book club agreed that there are many possible interpretations.
October 6, 2022
In my young life I could read a James novel all day and revel in his verbosity, but -- alas -- no more. It's ironic that in my impetuous youth I had more patience and now in my more sedate life I do not.
March 21, 2023
I wanted to read this after watching the Netflix series based on the book, called Blythe Manor. The show was incredible but the book? Not so much which is why I have to give credit to the writer that adapted this into the screenplay.
I think that's all I'll say on this.
I think that's all I'll say on this.
October 24, 2025
In the cage— most difficult, yet shortest one yet… I feel that this is one that would only improve on revisits. The unreliability always throws me off, really only caught a groove towards the end. To be fair, this is a great way to grease the wheels before TOS 😈😈
June 27, 2018
Really only pertaining to Turn of the Screw as I didn't find In the Cage very engaging.
July 11, 2018
5-star rating is for Turn of the Screw.
April 10, 2020
Din't love it.
Dated.
In the Cage was a better story but was difficult to follow what with the overlapping characters and innuendoed speak.
Dated.
In the Cage was a better story but was difficult to follow what with the overlapping characters and innuendoed speak.
December 13, 2020
The way he writes really tested my patience. I cannot say that I enjoyed this book, but three stars as in context it is most probably an important book.
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