Kate's review
The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers (Penguin Classics)
by Henry James
Kate's review
The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers (Penguin Classics) by Henry James
Kate's review
rating:
bookshelves:
fiction,
gift,
own,
pre-1900,
read-partially,
usa_canada
[This review concerns only The Turn of the Screw; I haven't read The Aspern Papers yet.]
Ok, in order to wrap my mind around this book somewhat, I had to read almost as much material about it as was in it. But now, benefitted by Wikipedia's abbreviated summary of critical responses, by an pertinent excerpt from The Rhetoric of Fiction, and by an extensive 1971 queer-lit-crit interpretation I found online, I can say confidently that The Turn of the Screw is ingenious. It's remarkable how much discussion the little novella has generated - though less remarkable in light of its many ambiguities. I am no literary theorist, which gives me the freedom to marvel that so many interpretations stand up well to the text; James really left it open-ended (though I suppose if that was not by design, it technically points to some authorial failure. But I'd rather avoid such a dreary viewpoint).
Regardless of critical debate, there is no arguing that the work cont...more
Ok, in order to wrap my mind around this book somewhat, I had to read almost as much material about it as was in it. But now, benefitted by Wikipedia's abbreviated summary of critical responses, by an pertinent excerpt from The Rhetoric of Fiction, and by an extensive 1971 queer-lit-crit interpretation I found online, I can say confidently that The Turn of the Screw is ingenious. It's remarkable how much discussion the little novella has generated - though less remarkable in light of its many ambiguities. I am no literary theorist, which gives me the freedom to marvel that so many interpretations stand up well to the text; James really left it open-ended (though I suppose if that was not by design, it technically points to some authorial failure. But I'd rather avoid such a dreary viewpoint).
Regardless of critical debate, there is no arguing that the work cont...more
