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bookiss's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
ylimets's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
lizawall's review against another edition
4.0
Kids are so creepy! You want to protect them, but then god knows what they know already. They are cute, at least, but so cute that you just want to hold them, and keep them safe, and close, so close to you forever. And ever. Uh oh! Who is creepy now?
Some people say this is really about Alice James, but I pretty much believe it when Henry James says he just wants to write a potboiler. Still a really good potboiler!
Some people say this is really about Alice James, but I pretty much believe it when Henry James says he just wants to write a potboiler. Still a really good potboiler!
oranours's review against another edition
Je ne comprends rien.
Juste essayé The turn of the screw
Juste essayé The turn of the screw
nicoliravioli's review against another edition
3.0
The Aspern Papers: 2/5
The Turn of the Screw: 4/5
The Beast in the Jungle: 1/5
The Jolly Corner: 4/5
The Turn of the Screw: 4/5
The Beast in the Jungle: 1/5
The Jolly Corner: 4/5
tindows's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
stephe's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
First time reading James (finally).
The Aspern Papers
Even in the 19th century, it’s a thin line between academic interest and toxic fandom.
The Turn of the Screw
Yeah, it’s creepy. Also, kind of a bummer. (Also I know this one has so much ghost story cred, but The Haunting of Hill House is still better.)
“The Beast in the Jungle”
Actually maybe my favorite in this collection. Don’t sleep on love, fam.
“The Jolly Corner”
It’s really not that jolly. But still good, still creepy, and has a happy ending. Awwww!
The Aspern Papers
Even in the 19th century, it’s a thin line between academic interest and toxic fandom.
The Turn of the Screw
Yeah, it’s creepy. Also, kind of a bummer. (Also I know this one has so much ghost story cred, but The Haunting of Hill House is still better.)
“The Beast in the Jungle”
Actually maybe my favorite in this collection. Don’t sleep on love, fam.
“The Jolly Corner”
It’s really not that jolly. But still good, still creepy, and has a happy ending. Awwww!
blackmore's review against another edition
Was going to power through at least the first story just because it's short, but honestly couldn't bear it. Sentences are far too long, with, and abundance of, unnecessary, commas. Usually I like flowery prose but this just goes on saying nothing and I'm screaming at him to get on with it. You can tell he was paid by the word that's for sure, and if he wasn't then god help him. Also endless use of the person the MC is talking to "seeing my feelings in my face". Like, at least twice a conversation. Speaking of conversation, every one takes far too long and goes in circles with 90% of it being completely pointless. There is such an abundance on unnecessary words and excessively long sentences that I find myself actually barely able to follow what they were saying. Truly awful. Didn't finish the first story and didn't bother starting the second.
richardleis's review against another edition
4.0
(I read only The Turn of the Screw in this collection of two of Henry James's novellas.)
The Turn of the Screw is a frightening story because it is not clear if the occurrences are objective reality or psychological delusion. James does not make it easy to decide, and that might be the real innovation here: either possibility is horrifying.
Some readers may be put off by James's round about way of stating things. Part of this is the language of the time, but he seems to add an extra layer of obscurity, the better to complicate interpretations of the story. No matter how obscure, there is great tension in particular scenes of manifestations of what could be ghosts or delusions; a ghost looking in at you through a window that is really there or all in your head is equally terrifying. What makes the book even more frightening is...well, that's part of the joy of the novella, discovering the many layers and various sources of dread.
I think by the end of the novel I leaned more toward a psychological explanation, but part of that is because it was hard for me to understand how adults were relating to children in the book, and therefore I could not quite sympathize with the governess protagonist. Is her adoration of the children a reflection of the time, or is it obsession? Is my 21st Century mind coming to too modern conclusions for a 19th Century work? It is nice to read that critics have for decades struggled with the same questions and come up with various and conflicting readings.
The Turn of the Screw is well worth reading. Its complications are due to the ambiguity of its meanings, not because it is too difficult to read or come to your own conclusions.
The Turn of the Screw is a frightening story because it is not clear if the occurrences are objective reality or psychological delusion. James does not make it easy to decide, and that might be the real innovation here: either possibility is horrifying.
Some readers may be put off by James's round about way of stating things. Part of this is the language of the time, but he seems to add an extra layer of obscurity, the better to complicate interpretations of the story. No matter how obscure, there is great tension in particular scenes of manifestations of what could be ghosts or delusions; a ghost looking in at you through a window that is really there or all in your head is equally terrifying. What makes the book even more frightening is...well, that's part of the joy of the novella, discovering the many layers and various sources of dread.
I think by the end of the novel I leaned more toward a psychological explanation, but part of that is because it was hard for me to understand how adults were relating to children in the book, and therefore I could not quite sympathize with the governess protagonist. Is her adoration of the children a reflection of the time, or is it obsession? Is my 21st Century mind coming to too modern conclusions for a 19th Century work? It is nice to read that critics have for decades struggled with the same questions and come up with various and conflicting readings.
The Turn of the Screw is well worth reading. Its complications are due to the ambiguity of its meanings, not because it is too difficult to read or come to your own conclusions.
heathbc's review against another edition
4.0
I read this collection in anticipation of spooky season and it affected me in ways I didn't expect. I liked all three stories except for "The Jolly Corner" (I just kept falling asleep during it).
The Aspern Papers was a blend of comedy and waiting to see the narrator's plan go up in flames. Lines like this made me laugh:
"I asked Miss Tina if her venerable relative were seriously ill, and she replied that she was only very tired-- she had lived so extraordinarily long. That was what she said herself--she wanted to die for a change." p. 42-43
Lines like this helped me know Henry was winking at the reader:
"I foresaw that I should have a summer after my own literary heart, and the sense of playing with my opportunity was much greater after all than any sense of being played with." p. 47.
Then this whole passage had me imagining the pettiness of King George evoked in the musical Hamilton:
"I had to be consistent, to keep my promise that I would smother the house in flowers. Moreover I clung to the fond fancy that by flowers I should make my way-- I should succeed by big nosegays. I would batter the old women with lilies. I would bombard their citadel with roses. Their door would have to yield to the pressure when a mound of fragrance should be heaped against it." p. 49
By the end of The Aspern Papers I just kept thinking how Henry James very much had to live the life of a closeted man in the 1800s. That was a thought that only got stronger as I progressed through the other three stories in this collection.
The Turn of the Screw starts off nearly exactly as the Netflix adaptation with people gathering around to hear a tale about Bly Manor, children, and ghosts. I'll admit, I was taken in by the governess' point-of-view at first. I'm susceptible to relating with women who are disconnected from reality (it's my favorite genre after all). Taking her tale at face value, I thought the ghosts of the two servants had simply taken hold of and possessed the two children when the governess thought she scared them away. From the moment Miles said on page 178, "Look here, my dear, you know...when in the world, please, am I going back to school?" I immediately thought there was a creepy middle-aged man inside him. From there on out the story felt like an acting class exercise on ambiguous scenes where each pair that presented a scene would be telling an entirely different story from any other pair even though the lines were exactly the same.
Here's an example from pgs. 209-210.
Person 1: Oh more or less. Not absolutely. We shouldn't like that!
Person 2: No-- I suppose we shouldn't. Of course we've the others.
Person 1: We've the others-- we've indeed the others.
Person 2: Yet even though we have them, they don't much count, do they?
Person 1: It depends on what you call "much"
Person 2: Yes, everything depends! ...Well, I think I'm glad Bly agrees with me!"
Lines that seemed to say nothing could say everything. But because there was no clear answer, I felt extremely uneasy when I finished the story. I turned the last page and was shocked to see there was nothing more.
"The Beast in the Jungle" felt like a fable and seemed to be the most personal tale in the collection.
"He was at all events destined to become aware little by little, as time went by, that she was all the while looking at his life, judging it, measuring it, in the light of the thing she knew, which grew to be at last, with the consecration of the years, never mentioned between them save as "the real truth" about him." p. 233
This quote reminds me of Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask about being closeted in a society that demands heterosexuality: "What it had come to was that he wore a mask painted with the social simper, out of the eye-holes of which there looked eyes of an expression not in the least matching the other features. This, the stupid world, even after years, had never more than half-discovered." p. 234. Both Mishima and James had women in their life that they were extremely close to and those women very likely knew their sexuality. Even if these relationships weren't romantic, there was still a deep knowing of the other and feeling connected. I'm glad to be in an era where relationships between people aren't so restricted. I think it's very human to find people we connect with, feeling accepted as our full selves.
Lastly, here is my favorite quote from the collection taken from the end of "The Beast in the Jungle": "What it all amounted to, oddly enough, was that in his finally so simplified world this garden of death gave him the few square feet of earth on which he could still most live."" p. 259. While I struggled through some of Henry's more dense sentences, this one seemed the exact right length for the message it conveys. There's a certain loneliness I felt after finishing "The Beast in the Jungle." It made me want to know love in a form that is true to who I am.
The Aspern Papers was a blend of comedy and waiting to see the narrator's plan go up in flames. Lines like this made me laugh:
"I asked Miss Tina if her venerable relative were seriously ill, and she replied that she was only very tired-- she had lived so extraordinarily long. That was what she said herself--she wanted to die for a change." p. 42-43
Lines like this helped me know Henry was winking at the reader:
"I foresaw that I should have a summer after my own literary heart, and the sense of playing with my opportunity was much greater after all than any sense of being played with." p. 47.
Then this whole passage had me imagining the pettiness of King George evoked in the musical Hamilton:
"I had to be consistent, to keep my promise that I would smother the house in flowers. Moreover I clung to the fond fancy that by flowers I should make my way-- I should succeed by big nosegays. I would batter the old women with lilies. I would bombard their citadel with roses. Their door would have to yield to the pressure when a mound of fragrance should be heaped against it." p. 49
By the end of The Aspern Papers I just kept thinking how Henry James very much had to live the life of a closeted man in the 1800s. That was a thought that only got stronger as I progressed through the other three stories in this collection.
The Turn of the Screw starts off nearly exactly as the Netflix adaptation with people gathering around to hear a tale about Bly Manor, children, and ghosts. I'll admit, I was taken in by the governess' point-of-view at first. I'm susceptible to relating with women who are disconnected from reality (it's my favorite genre after all). Taking her tale at face value, I thought the ghosts of the two servants had simply taken hold of and possessed the two children when the governess thought she scared them away. From the moment Miles said on page 178, "Look here, my dear, you know...when in the world, please, am I going back to school?" I immediately thought there was a creepy middle-aged man inside him. From there on out the story felt like an acting class exercise on ambiguous scenes where each pair that presented a scene would be telling an entirely different story from any other pair even though the lines were exactly the same.
Here's an example from pgs. 209-210.
Person 1: Oh more or less. Not absolutely. We shouldn't like that!
Person 2: No-- I suppose we shouldn't. Of course we've the others.
Person 1: We've the others-- we've indeed the others.
Person 2: Yet even though we have them, they don't much count, do they?
Person 1: It depends on what you call "much"
Person 2: Yes, everything depends! ...Well, I think I'm glad Bly agrees with me!"
Lines that seemed to say nothing could say everything. But because there was no clear answer, I felt extremely uneasy when I finished the story. I turned the last page and was shocked to see there was nothing more.
"The Beast in the Jungle" felt like a fable and seemed to be the most personal tale in the collection.
"He was at all events destined to become aware little by little, as time went by, that she was all the while looking at his life, judging it, measuring it, in the light of the thing she knew, which grew to be at last, with the consecration of the years, never mentioned between them save as "the real truth" about him." p. 233
This quote reminds me of Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask about being closeted in a society that demands heterosexuality: "What it had come to was that he wore a mask painted with the social simper, out of the eye-holes of which there looked eyes of an expression not in the least matching the other features. This, the stupid world, even after years, had never more than half-discovered." p. 234. Both Mishima and James had women in their life that they were extremely close to and those women very likely knew their sexuality. Even if these relationships weren't romantic, there was still a deep knowing of the other and feeling connected. I'm glad to be in an era where relationships between people aren't so restricted. I think it's very human to find people we connect with, feeling accepted as our full selves.
Lastly, here is my favorite quote from the collection taken from the end of "The Beast in the Jungle": "What it all amounted to, oddly enough, was that in his finally so simplified world this garden of death gave him the few square feet of earth on which he could still most live."" p. 259. While I struggled through some of Henry's more dense sentences, this one seemed the exact right length for the message it conveys. There's a certain loneliness I felt after finishing "The Beast in the Jungle." It made me want to know love in a form that is true to who I am.