The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898)
A classic horror novella that’s been adapted many times, most recently as Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Laura’s Rating: 2/5 Stars
Plot: A young woman is hired as a governess for two children at a remote estate known as Bly Manor. As sinister spirits start appearing to the governess, she must determine if the children are in danger or if the threatening ghosts are simply her imagination.
Analysis: There is a foreboding atmosphere in The Turn of the Screw that was well crafted, but the old style of writing and sentence structure were distracting, making it difficult to follow along at times. I also wanted more background and description of the personalities of the governess and the children. Some of the story feels more like an outline of a story that hasn’t been fully fleshed out.
The Turn of the Screw is somewhat open-ended, with the reader never really knowing the truth of what happened at Bly Manor. That is certainly intentional on the author’s part, but the ending was incredibly abrupt and felt incomplete to me. If you’re looking for a gothic horror, I’d go Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde instead.
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