A review by onewooga
The Turn of the Screw: And Other Stories by Henry James

4.0

I have to say, you need patience to read Henry James. The man is a master of the clause and the prepositional phrase. If you are an English teacher forced to torture your students with diagramming sentences, James is your man. That being said, the stories are really quite subtle and sneakily brilliant. I kept thinking, OK, where is this going, Henry, and then we'd get there and I'd think: WOW. My favorites in this collection do not actually include "The Turn of the Screw," which was my original reason for reading it. That story is fun, but I find "The Beast in the Jungle" and "The Jolly Corner" to be my favorites--and in some ways they complement each other, with similar themes although different outcomes--and I also liked "The Tree of Knowledge." The prose here is much different than what you get with a more modern writer, but I can't help thinking none of us is capable, any more, of writing this way.