The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

The story starts with friends sharing ghost stories 'round the fire on Christmas Eve. One of the guests tells about a governess at a country house plagued by supernatural visitors. Only the young governess can see the ghosts; only she suspects that the previous governess and her lover are controlling the two orphaned children for some evil purpose. The household staff don't know what she's talking about, the children are evasive when questioned, and the master of the house is absent. Why does the young girl claim not to see a perfectly visible woman standing on the far side of the lake? Are the children being deceptive, or is the governess being paranoid?

I hated this book. Novella, story, whatever. I am relying on my (not always reliable) memory because if I never read another word of Turn of the Screw, it will be too soon. I have to work hard just to erase the memory that I do have of this book. It was, in a word, agony to get through. I cannot say this enough: I hated this book. Hate, hated, will hate. The story is not simple: a tale within a tale. The book, like Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, begins with a group of people telling stories, in this case, ghost stories. Like Shakespeare, once we are thrust into the main meat of the book, we never return to the original storyteller and listeners. Had I been at that gathering, I would have a few choice words for the storyteller, not least of which would be a scathing indictment of the company they keep and their opinion in the "scariness" of their chosen tale.

The main character (I dare not call her "heroine") is the governess, sent to watch over two young children in the countryside, whose uncle and guardian can't muster up the energy to care for them himself, or to actually find a responsible caretaker for them. Instead, he settles on our erstwhile narrator, who begins as she means to go on: maudlinly, irrationally, and with the certainty granted to both lunatics and self-declared martyrs. All of which she is. A worse governess I cannot imagine. Were it only the governess whose character I despised, I might think that Henry James is actually a genius, able to write good stories without the benefit of the reader liking the main character. Not so. I hate the governess, the children, the housekeeper, the ghosts, the uncle, everyone. I hate the drary monotony of the story, and the absurdity of the plot and actions. It's like the stupid plotline, where the only way to get to the climax is to have every person behave as though they had a head injury, or a script. There is no reason (or at least we're privy to none) as to why anyone would act the ways they do. The sheer irresponsibilty of the governess begs the question of why she wasn't locked up after these events. The mere knowledge that this person was able to obtain work, and work as a governess after this strained and broke the limits of my patience and imagination. The whole situation was so crazy that I didn't even care whether or not the ghosts existed - the mere continuance of the governess in her role, and the fact that no one removed her to a padded call was such an annoyance that the whole ridiculous demonic children side story was only insult added to injury. The governess, upon deciding that the children are under the influence of their former servants, alternates between coddling them and shrieking at them like a priest in the grips of an exorcism. Then (and I don't care if this is a spoiler) she kills one of them. Or at least, that is what I like to imagine, since that would atone in some small part for my having read all the way through to the end.

I repeat: how, how, could she have gotten another job as governess after this? Who would have hired her?! It boggles the mind. The one bright spot is that at least my copy has this awesome 70s cover on it, which, while still producing feelings of appalled fascination, also provides unintentional hilarity to lighten the mood.