All I got from this book is the answer to the following questions:1. Which author used so many commas, colons, semi and full, hyphens and exclamation marks, that his over-long sentences became impossible to comprehend?2. Which fictional character would you most like to push down a long flight of stairs?All I need now is for someone to ask.....

Henry James is quite innovative and bold with unlikeable or unreliable narrators in these two storiesThe foreword to this edition of The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers was really flowery (and the academical one was rather spoilery), which made me very scared of how I would like Henry James his writing style, but both ended up being very solid tales.Interestingly enough I liked the Aspern Papers (close to four stars for me) more than the more famous Turn of the Screw (three stars).Aspern...

“A Turn of the Screw” is fabulous. I wish all his works, especially his later ones, were as ecstatically readable.

Please note, four stars does not mean I approve of dialogue like this:*"So she went to -""To?"She hung fire. "To the gentleman's residence.""The gentleman's residence?""Yes, you know, in case of -""Oh, yes, well..."She hung fire. "He wasn't exactly a gentleman.""Wasn't a gentleman?""No, and it caused problems later -""Later? If only it had been sooner.""Sooner?"They hung fire."Everything depended on when she went -""When she went? Why? Because of -""Yes." He hung fire. "Or -""Or?""Well - you cou...

These two gothic tales by Henry James are eerily isolating and yet intriguing at the same time; The Turn of the Screw especially reminded me vaguely of a Shirley Jackson story, as James keeps explanations subtle and focuses on the creepy atmosphere and peculiar characters. The writing of these stories is often dry, and the dialogue between characters can be somewhat clumsy. Still, the madness of the unreliable narrator in The Turn of the Screw is truly an experience, begging the question in thes...

I've had at least as much fun reading commentary about the novella The Turn of the Screw as I did the work itself. This is classic Goth horror- with ghosts and governesses, creaky mansions and eerily ethereal tots. Is our heroine, who falls in love at the drop of a kerchief, the victim of a household haunting conspiracy or is she merely batty? What was the sinister exploit that got Miles expelled from boarding school? What connivances is Flora calculating behind her angelic blues? To whose insan...

I've really only finished "Turn of the Screw," which I quite liked. I'll get to "The Aspern Papers" and then come back to post about this book as a whole.

My edition is a Wordsworth, containing two-for-one novellas: The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers. With a colossal effort and what amounted to skimming, not actual reading, I reached the last page of The Turn of the Screw, which could be one of the dullest, driest, most needlessly verbose and inactive books I've ever read. (What's worse than a book where you have to read the same paragraph ten times, but you're still saying WTF?). However, I am not going to read The Aspern Papers. I might...

Well, you certainly have to concentrate on the prose in this one; be prepared to pay attention.A classic story with a classic question. Did all this really happen as the governess tells it? Were the children really possessed by the malevolent spirits of their dead servants? Was the governess really a half-crazy repressed old maid victim of Victorian society who in turn victimized her young charges? I prefer the former, but either one is horrifying in its own way.Although a certain type of woman,...

The Turn of The ScrewI never thought it would be possible to tell a ghost story in such a dry manner but here we are, Henry James, you’ve done it.The Jane-Eyre duplicate governess, dreaming about the master of the house while taking care of his nephew and niece becomes entangled in a poltergeist web. Or does she? Do they really exist or is she mad? Well we can safely say that she is mad as she goes nuts over a letter but calmly meets the phantom of the dead governess? She is hysterical, her reac...

For the second time, I have had the misfortune of choosing to reading Henry James alongside another difficult author. The first time it was Proust; this time, Joyce. So, instead of getting the desired relief from literary headache, I get an extension of it. But, of course, the fault is mine, not Henry’s. When reading Henry James’s work, I am reminded of a remark Stephen King made about Stanley Kubrick: that “he thinks too much and feels too little.” One gets the impression that, as Henry wrote,...

The Turn of the Screw is a haunting and creepy novella published in 1898 about a female caretaker of two orphaned children in the country home of the children's uncle. The caretaker believes that the house and grounds are haunted. Other people employed at the residence are not sharing the same experiences as the nanny and so it could be that there really is something evil hovering around the country estate or the entire scenario is playing out only in the mind of the nanny. It is up to the reade...

The Turn of the Screw [1898] – ★★★★<> “Wasn’t it just a story-book over which I had fallen a-doze and a-dream?” [James, Ed. 2004: 33]. This is a horror novella penned by James in 1898 at the invitation of Robert J. Collier for his magazine. First published as a series, it tells of a hired governess who comes to Bly, a country estate in Essex, to supervise two children, Miles and Flora. The children are orphans under the responsibility of their uncle who, in turn, does not have much time to spend...

James is always about thwarted desire and/or sexual repression,like the man's own life. In "Screw" the sublimated sexuality of the governess turns her into a mental case; she destroys 2 children with her fantasies of corruption. Are the kiddies innocent? I dont think so, but they are sweet. The (deceiving) framework is a ghost story. This fools Dum Reader.In "Aspern" a naive-repressed editor tries to coaxa crusty dowager and her cock-hungry niece to part with some historic papers, but the ladies...

Holy #spinsterlit, Henry James! The Turn of the Screw is definitely not the frightening story I expected it to be, though it was disquieting and troubling in many aspects. Victorian morality, childhood innocence, claustrophobia, hysteria, and displaced feelings all converge in this deliberately cryptic, ambiguous tale. James' ornate, labyrinthine sentences will either drive you nuts or make you ignore your phone and read with rapt attention, and I had the latter experience. Having read Washingto...

The Turn of the Screw was quite good, but difficult to read due to the gothic language. The subtle mystery and non-so-subtle supernatural elements were gripping, but the ending left me, at least, still wondering about a few unresolved things.I had no idea what to expect from The Aspern Papers, but I found it easier to follow than The Turn of the Screw and even enjoyed its lovely Venetian setting and the narrator's attempt to outwit the old lady who possessed the papers in question. I'm not sure