false <![CDATA[The Turn of the Screw (Penguin Popular Classics)]]> 12948 149 The story starts conventionally enough 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. But in the hands of Henry James, the master of nuance, this little tale of terror is an exquisite gem of sexual and psychological ambiguity. Only the young governess can see the ghosts; only she suspects that the previous governess and her lover are controlling the two orphaned children (a girl and a boy) 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 (the children's uncle) 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? By leaving the questions unanswered, The Turn of Screw generates spine-tingling anxiety in its mesmerized readers. 990886 book 1898 The Turn of the Screw (Penguin Popular Classics) total:6381|5:1198|4:2030|3:2068|2:808|1:277| 6381 22207 8784 565 3 6 false true Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jan 23 14:15:41 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 23 14:15:47 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 6 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 24 22:16:37 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 24 22:18:17 -0700 2007
The end is rather inconclusive and leaves the reader to decide for themselves.

I thought it was very compelling and ...more...]]> 3 5 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 18 05:58:59 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 24 12:46:23 -0700 2008 -m
]]> 2 4 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon May 14 20:47:37 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 07 07:21:02 -0700 2007 It's also o...more...]]> 4 5 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 02 17:42:38 -0700 2007 Wed Nov 07 18:55:40 -0800 2007
No, really. It's interesting though. On the surface, this story is perfect to curl up by the fire with on a cold winter's night. Which is ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Oct 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 12:40:35 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 12:41:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sat Jan 17 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 05:46:33 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 17 05:26:14 -0800 2009
***

- for a ghost story, it's too introspective.
- if it's not a ghost story (though i was thrilled by the gothic atmosphere)and the governess is / becomes mad, why bother?
- i suspect H.J. wanted to play with the reader's mind...more...]]> 3 3 false false Tue Feb 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 03:37:20 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 04 09:19:30 -0800 2009 1 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1982 Mon Mar 16 21:01:06 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 16 21:02:29 -0700 2009 3 1 true false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 13 13:46:01 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 13 13:55:10 -0800 2007
The first half is really good, then I feel it just doesn't pay off at the end. The tension, or the pu...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Thu Mar 19 17:24:52 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 17:36:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false true Mon Mar 16 04:25:38 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 16 04:26:08 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false true Tue Nov 17 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 17 15:53:47 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 17 20:19:45 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Fri Oct 30 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 30 11:08:07 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 30 11:34:43 -0700 2009

When I put the question to Miles, he played on a minute before answering and then could only say: “Why, my dear, how do I know?”—breaking morever into a happy laugh which, immediately after, as if it were a vocal accompaniment, he prolonged into incoherent, extravagant song.
— p. 85

So m...more...]]> 3 0 false true Thu Oct 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 22 10:33:52 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 22 10:33:52 -0700 2009 1 This is my first experience reading "literary horror" -- if you would call it horror since I don't know the genre at all. To me, it seemed in some ways unfinished. The frame story was dropped (it introduced but didn't close the inner story). The same is true of the original "first per...

more...]]> 0 0 false true Tue Aug 25 18:36:07 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 18:39:47 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Fri May 22 18:47:53 -0700 2009 Fri May 22 18:56:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 1 false false Thu Aug 21 22:33:21 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 22:38:47 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 22 false false Wed Jun 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 30 20:25:55 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 03 21:01:17 -0700 2009
At ...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Sep 06 18:36:59 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 22 10:06:12 -0700 2008 The book has a lot of narrat...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=12948