The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers

by Henry James, Anthony Curtis (Introduction)

'The apparition had reached the landing half-way up and was therefore on the spot nearest the window, where, at the sight of me, it stopped short'

Oscar Wilde called James's chilling The Turn of the Screw 'a most wonderful, lurid poisonous little tale.' It tells of a young governess sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Unsettled by a sense of intense evil within the house, she soon becomes obsessed with the belief that malevolent forces are stalking the children in her care. Obsession of a more worldly variety lies at the heart of The Aspern Papers, the tale of a literary historian determined to get his hands on some letters written by a great poet-and prepared to use trickery and deception to achieve his aims. Both works show James's mastery of the short story and his genius for creating haunting atmosphere and unbearable tension.

Anthony Curtis's wide-ranging introduction traces the development of the two stories from initial inspiration to finished work and examines their critical reception.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Horror, Gothic, Short Stories, Literature, Mystery

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1898

About the author

Henry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."

Reviews

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henry James is quite innovative and bold with unlikeable or unreliable narrators in these two stories

The 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 Papers
I had never met so stiff a policy of seclusion; it was more than keeping quiet - it was like hunted creatures feigning death.
A paparazzo avant la lettre travels to an old woman and her niece who live in a dilapidated palazzo in Venice. The object of interest, papers of the great (fictional) American poet Aspern, are kept by the elder woman, who was his former love interest. The atmosphere of decay, solitude and listlessness is expertly rendered by James. It is a lost world, where our narrator and his prey live in, a Grand Tour world were servants are just like an other species and one can just disappear a whole season for leisure. In that sense the class obsessed and indolent setting reminded me a bit of Pride and Prejudice.
The ending of the tale is a bit comparable to the ending of the movie LaLaLand, with a choice being offered between following one's heart or one's financial interests.

What is especially striking of this tale is that our narrator is quite unsympathetic, not only does he tries to profiteer of the elder woman but he also plays with the feelings of the younger to try and get his ways. Still as a reader I was pulled into his story and you feel you are rooting for him, despite comments of him like: I couldn’t linger there to act as guardian to a piece of middle-aged female helplessness.

Turn of the Screw
Well, that, I think, is what I came for - to be carried away
Nowadays an unreliable narrator is quite normal but in this famous tale there is a constant ambiguity as we follow a young governess. She goes to a remote mansion with two kids entrusted to her care. Her predecessors mysteriously disappeared and even died, the boy in her care is kicked of school due to a terrible transgression and she herself starts to see things.
Also she starts to feel more and more unhinged: No, no - there are depths, depths! The more I think over it the more I see in it, and the more I see in it the more I fear.
And conveniently for the story she keeps turning down possibilities to get outside help or just abandon her dreadful surroundings.

Again the atmosphere in this work is very well done, although I always have a bit trouble with works that just state something is terrible or dreadful, instead of explicating what we should be finding terrible or dreadful. It is something Joseph Conrad does in Heart of Darkness a lot as well, maybe it is typical of late 19th century writing, but it just feels a bit as a cop out for me.

While reading I multiple times thought that I’d like to read an adaptation from the children’s perspective, the governess indicates a strong will to protect them, but I am really curious to see how they feel about being kept from school and under constant surveillance for their own "security".

A lot of questions and interpretations of The Turn of the Screw are possible, attesting for the quality of ambiguity James imbued this novella with.
True ghosts or true madness?
Sexual abuse?
Did Mrs Grose see or not see anything?

But in the end, even in these Halloween like October days, I never really felt scared by the story so maybe my expectations going in were a bit to high and I must say I enjoyed the Aspern Papers more.

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Turn of the Screw 3.5
The Aspern Papers 2

[William2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[Lobstergirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 could say that it prevented -"

"Oh, of course. It prevented." She hung fire.

He hung fire.

They hung. Fire. "And then of course the child -"

He gasped. "The child? What of it?"

"It was thought that -"

"Who thought it?"

"It. It thought it."

"What? It? Why, oh -" one of them gasped, no one was sure which one.


* Not actual Henry James dialogue, except for the "hung fire" bits.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

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, from a certain strata of British Victorian society, may have been heavily oppressed by the morals and social expectations of the era, this is largely a myth. The very era itself is named for a woman. The same society also produced women like Christina Rossetti, May Morris, Evelyn de Morgan, Marie Correlli, Elizabeth Gaskell, Beatrix Potter, Ada Lovelace and many others; which clearly could not have happened if conditions were as 'anti-woman' as are popularly attributed.

I have seen three different film adaptations of this book. The first is titled "The Innocents" and the acting is old school melodrama, but the look of the black & white film is perfect; very gothic. Bly House and the entire estate have that lovely, eerie appearance. The last one was titled "The Turn of the Screw", and with an interesting twist, was set in the 1960's. The story remained true to the novel, in spite of the mod costuming. The cinematography was not as atmospheric as the black & white version, much more sunlit, but still visually appealing.

I know that some readers struggle with the prose of Henry James. The story is worth adapting your reading style; it is just a novella. This book will not appeal to fans of gore and bloodshed.

[Ria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was planning on buying The Turn which was 3euros but i found this edition with two stories for the same price. didn't expect to care for the second story but i ended up enjoying both of them 👌.

[Flybyreader · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Turn of The Screw

I 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 reactions are so childishly absurd that I was dumbstruck most of the time. The only horrifying thing in the house is the children: Their too-mature manners and the way speak freaked the hell out of me. It’s like they’re possessed by a 35-year old auntie. But what do I know? I have absolutely no idea what’s going inside the house, where the “good-looking” gentleman of the house haunted by spirits is. Our weird governess is trying to prove she’s not mad by passive aggressively forcing the kids to say they see the “ghosts”, too. I do not know what kind of madness is at large here in this asylum of a house. Also, James’s exhausting narration and style was another turn of the screw for this uninteresting story. - 2 stars

The Aspern Papers

At what lengths are you willing to go for the relics of your favorite author? The narrator is after the letters of Jeffrey Aspern, a famous but deceased poet and goes to Venice in search of the poet’s lover, an old widow living with her niece. Trying to gain their trust and put his hands on the precious papers, this weasel of a man uses his social skills to achieve his goal while his conscience weighs more at times as he questions the morality and ethics behind his purpose. However, this does not prevent him from destroying the once peaceful life of the two women but he finds it all the more difficult to reach the letters he dreamed of. Henry James takes up an intriguing story with a passionate protagonist but his usual dry style overshadows the potential. - 3 stars.

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

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, he did not vicariously experience the feelings and perspectives of his characters; instead he manipulates them at a far distance in the service of his aesthetic goal. This makes reading his work a peculiarly cerebral experience. Instead of identifying with James’s protagonists, the reader gazes upon them from far-away—like watching pedestrians from a tall building.

Maddening, frustrating, and exasperating as he writing-style is, I am always impressed by the end of it. James has mastered the art of using the structure of language to mirror the structure of his plots. Instead of merely relaying information, James’s sentences show the reader what is going on in their very composition. As the protagonist tries and fails to guess at a mystery, the sentences try and fail to reach their objects—like a snake coiling around itself. Annoying as this sometimes is to read, I am so amazed by the end that I can give James nothing but kudos.

The Turn of the Screw is famous for its use of ambiguity. Is the governess crazy? Or are there really ghosts? Or do the ghosts make her crazy? Or does her craziness somehow reify the ghosts? I’ve heard it argued, and with good reason, that this ambiguity is what makes the story so endlessly intriguing—the implication being that those who try to definitely answer the story’s riddle are doing it a disservice. But what’s the point of a riddle you don’t try to answer? In fact, if you don’t try to answer it, is it even a riddle? So, in the spirit of literary puzzles, here’s my attempt.

I am for the mad governess theory. One obstacle to this is that she was able to describe people she never met with enough precision that the housekeeper immediately recognized them. However, it’s reasonable to suppose that she might have overheard or otherwise been told something about the two deceased former inhabitants. What’s more, her descriptions of the ghosts contain some odd features: she describes Quinn as wearing borrowed clothes, and knows that he isn’t a gentleman; and she describes Miss Jessel as “infamous.” Now, how could you tell any of those things merely by looking at someone? Her descriptions contain more information than could be plausibly gathered through a glance, which is why I think she was parroting something she’d been told.

Another obvious clue is that nobody else can see these ghosts. But what’s even more compelling is how creepily fond the governess is of the children. Her feelings towards them are unhealthy in the extreme. She idolizes them, and then comes to distrust and suspect them in their every action. Her ‘ghosts’ could then be a kind of manifestation of her extraordinary possessiveness. She fears so keenly that somebody or something would take her away from these children she so adores that her mind produces villains who aim to do just that. Her feelings are similar to that of a hyper-jealous lover who sees signs of infidelity lurking in every shadow and hiding in every word.

At this point, one is forced to think about how much the narrator may have omitted from her tale. For all we know, she may have mistreated—even abused—the children. This would explain why Flora comes to hate her so passionately. And it may also explain Miles’s death. I will admit, however, that Miles’s death is particularly hard to account for within the governess-is-mad theory. Did she poison him? Smother him in her arms? It seems a bit far-fetched, but certainly still possible.

The Aspern Papers was less perplexing and more readable. The prose, less gnarled; the characters, more life-like. I suspect this is because it was written earlier in James’s career, when his own distinct style was yet imperfectly developed. That being said, it was certainly masterfully done. The main character, even though he is something of a scoundrel, is endearing because of his dorkiness. And the description of the pent-up women lingering in their large Venetian house is nearly Dickensian.

So now, after finishing these two little gems, I am left wanting to read more of good ol' Henry. He may indeed “think too much and feel too little,” but that’s only a flaw when you’re not as smart as he was.

[Sheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 reader to the decide the truth. Is the nanny sane? Is this a true haunting? The unreliable narrator of the story makes it a difficult decision.
Is the ending of this tragic story supernaturally solved or is it criminal?

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 with them and resides in London. The young governess willingly assumes her responsibilities, being totally delighted to be in charge of two beautiful, lovely and well-behaved children in such a grand estate. However, Bly soon opens its horrors to the governess, and she becomes aware that there are at least two ghosts in the house that haunt the children. The Turn of the Screw is now infamous for its multiple story interpretations and all kinds of meanings that can be read into the text. Nevertheless, whether one reads the story as a straightforward ghost tale or as a more complex psychological study of one nanny losing her mind, it is still a scary and intriguing read, which leaves much to think about and discuss upon finishing.

The Turn of the Screw is different from other novels by James in that there is the implication of danger of a horrid kind. The story is told through a first person narrative, and our narrator is “the youngest of several daughters of a poor country parson” [Ed. 2004: 26]. We follow her thoughts and encounters as she becomes a governess to the two children at Bly. She is not alone in the house as housekeeper Mrs Grose accompanies her, and very soon, our heroine is convinced that the house is haunted by the ghosts of a previous governess Miss Jessel and a valet Peter Quint. More than haunted, the narrator is convinced that the two ghosts are after the children – Miles and Flora.

There are two ways to read The Turn of the Screw. It can be read as a morbid tale of creepiness whereby ghosts haunt the country estate and take strange “possession” of the children, or it can be read as a story of our heroine’s emotional or mental breakdown whereby she either imagines or hallucinates spiritual elements. The novella is clever enough to give each theory enough evidence. As soon as readers may think they deal with ghosts, there is immediately something in the narrative which somewhat contradicts that, perhaps pointing to active imagination or mistaken perception. This ambiguity is what makes the story so fascinating, with only subtle hints left behind as to the real danger.

Read Full Review 👻

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 coax
a crusty dowager and her cock-hungry niece to part with some
historic papers, but the ladies have a sexual price. In James
depths of feeling can only be whispered. He's a romantic,
but secretions make him blush. I love the game-play in James. It's just like real life.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, I didn't actually read the Aspern Papers, just The Turn of the Screw. It was recommended by a member of our book club.

Firstly, I found it hard going. It often took me two attempts at reading a sentence to understand it clearly. I can't quite put my finger on the problem, it was clearly written in English, but the sentence structure (which was probably perfectly correct) was (in some parts) almost unintelligible.

The story itself is almost as confusing. I actually had to 'Google' it afterwards to try & make sense of the plot. Alas, the dissertations about it on the internet are almost as confusing as the tale itself.

If you haven't read it, the tale starts with a house party, where the guests have been telling ghost stories. One of the guests tells of a tale he has, but he has to send away for the documents, which (a few days later) duly arrive and he begins to read; at which point we are taken into a first person narrative of events which have happened in her past, she being a governess, who had written the events that make the story, to the guy reading it, prior to her demise.

What follows is that she basically gets a job (her employer lives in London) looking after the orphaned niece & nephew of her employer, who live in the countryside, with strict instructions not to contact him for any reason.

Then ghosts turn up & for some reason the governess only talks of them to Housekeeper (who hasn't seen them) whilst becoming more and more convinced that the children are communing with the spectres in secret and that the spectres (of the previous governess & her employers former valet, with whom the previous governess had had an affair) are there to 'take the children' (not a direct quote, but the best way to express an unclear concept, I presume to whatever unpleasant afterlife the two have ended up in).

at the end of the tale, she finally confronts the girl, Flora, who has some kind of breakdown & is sent away to London, and then tries to confront the boy, Miles, whose heart stops (& we presume he dies) and then it just ends. Literally, there's a full stop, book finished, no more.

Now having googled it, apparently there are two schools of thought; the first being that there are no ghosts and the governess is mentally unbalanced (apparently James was very interested in mental illness and I read something about a case study of a lady called Alice having been used as a source for the story, but it was a brief reference, with limited other information). As a direct result of the governess not being prepared to speak to the children about it, which seems very weird to me, I find myself agreeing that the woman was clearly mental. However, she describes Quint, the valet, in detail, without having known of his existence before the apparition appears to her a second time and also, from the introduction to the tale (the unconnected house party that we never go back to for an update) she apparently goes on to work for other families in other places with no further incident. Surely, if the entire thing was her mental illness, it would have continued throughout her later life?

Personally, I kind of think that the girl, Flora, may have had something to do with it. Her character seemed partly unrealistic and partly mentally unstable. Perhaps it was her all along, and it only stopped when Flora was removed from the country house, although how that got Miles expelled from school or killed him, I don't quite know .

Anyway - overall, I didn't like it. Very little was explained satisfactorily, the ending was rather abrupt and as previously mentioned we never hear of the house party guests or the reader again. Not my cup of tea.

[Adrian Buck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henry James is a bad writer. I feel I can say that now that I have read these two novellas. I first tried this volume thirty years ago, and was quickly bounced out by the impenetrability of his prose. At that time I blamed myself, not him. On returning, I proceded slowly, occassionally reading aloud the sentences that failed to make sense the first time. This is a good technique, though not one that is based on the premise that James's prose has a speech-like quality.

The problems are (in reverse order of difficulty); lengthy mid-sentence digressions, unhappily placed adverbials, and lexcial mistakes. I decided early on in The Turn of the Screw that these might not be problems, but features of a first person narrative showing us the hysterical, perhaps psychotic nature of the young governess....The narrator of The Aspern Papers is, however, a cynical man of letters, so one might expect some decent writing. Unfortunately the 'features' persisted.

Both stories had their merits. In Turn I enjoyed the pacing, and the perhaps unintentional comedy of young Miles's diction (I think it was inspired by Stalky & Co. but didn't quite come off). In The Aspern Papers I enjoyed the depth and subtlety of the characters' motivation - you don't often get that in English fiction, look to Eastern Europe instead. I probably won't be reading any more Henry James, but I might give Lawrence Durrell another chance, I was bounced out by him too, thirty years ago.

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leí este volumen de la colección Biblioteca Jorge L. Borges entre 2006 y 2007; incluye dos novelas cortas, Los papeles de Aspern y Otra vuelta de tuerca, así como algunos relatos.

Hoy, el último día de abril de 2023, a partir de comentarios guardados y memoria, completé y corregí una breve reseña de cada una de las novelas, a las que se puede acceder a través de los hipervínculos del párrafo anterior.

Henry James fue un escritor elegante y sutil. Para quien tenga interés en parte de su vida y obra, hay una excelente biografía novelada de sus últimos años, The Master: retrato del novelista adulto, del excelente y ecléctico escritor irlandés Colm Tóibín.

[cellomerl · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 just take a couple of Asperns instead.

[Nancy Oakes]

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.

[bookiss · Rating 2 out of 5]

The amount of times I considered to abandon reading this book and throw it to my dusty unread pile of books should be criminal. My english major degree is crying in front of my tremendous boredom for both The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers. I don't know which I hated more , both were incredibly boring and difficult to get into because of how dense Henry James's writing style is. I ofc acknowledge the literary significance of these works, it's just that I couldn't get into them. An instance of the analysis of the works being more interesting than the works themselves. Maybe if I ever convince myself to reread them I will change my mind. But till then, I will be a hater. It took me months to finish the Aspern Papers because of how bored I was while trying to read it, and it is like 40-50 pages long. And while I was trying to read The Turn of the Screw I almost fall asleep at least four times, and I am not exaggerating.

[piperitapitta · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Venezia è anche un sogno, di quelli che puoi comperare»

Inizio a leggere "Il carteggio Aspern" per due motivi: da un po' di tempo ho una gran voglia di leggere qualcosa di Henry James - e questo già è strano, perché ho letto solamente "Ritratto di signora" per cui non posso definirmi né esperta né appassionata di quest'autore ma, nonostante ciò, desidero fortemente tornare a "respirare" qualcosa di suo, di ottocentesco ma nordamericano - e perché iniziando a leggere l'autobiografia di Stefan Zweig "Il mondo di ieri" ho sentito fortemente il richiamo al decadentismo veneziano, a quel clima finis austriae che, sia pur politicamente lontano dalla città della Serenissima, e ancora storicamente a venire, aveva già iniziato ad avvolgerla e a isolarla come una perla nella sua ostrica.
La storia è semplice e lineare: un giovane e appassionato critico del famoso e defunto poeta Jeffrey Aspern riesce con l'inganno a farsi concedere alcune stanze in affitto dalle signorine Bordereau, l'ormai vecchissima Juliana - musa ispiratrice del poeta in gioventù - e la nipote Miss Tina.
Lo scopo del critico, che è anche il narratore del romanzo, è quello di entrare in possesso di alcune lettere - da qui il carteggio del titolo - che Aspern scrisse alla giovanissima Juliana ai tempi del loro idillio.
Meno lineari, invece, sono i risvolti psicologici dei tre personaggi, i loro comportamenti - spesso imprevedibili - il dedalo di stanze del vecchio palazzo grigio e rosa in cui si svolge tutta la storia, misterioso e impenetrabile come le inestricabili calli della laguna.
Restano, a completare il quadro, lo sciabordio delle acque, il lento passare di una gondola nella notte, voci e mormorii nella nebbia, gli improvvisi squarci di luce e la splendida scrittura, raffinata e decadente, di Henry James.
Più che claustrofobico, come viene definito questo romanzo in molti commenti, lo definirei immobile; anche se la sua è un'immobilità solo apparente, perché all'interno di queste pagine si muove un'epoca intera: un'epoca che ormai, come Venezia, poggia sull'acqua e della quale è possibile cogliere solo il riflesso.

------------------------------------------------------

Sipario! Anzi, no.

L'avevo letto nel commento di @Procyon Lotor, che mancava un capitolo o forse più, ma me n'ero dimenticata.
Ieri, leggendo «Giro di Vite», questa storia mi è tornata in mente e sono andata a cercare una versione online per scoprire innanzitutto se era vero.
Era vero, alla versione pubblicata dalla I Grandi della Narrativa di Repubblica nella traduzione di Nadia Fusini (mica pizza e fichi) manca non un capitolo, ma almeno tre.

Ecco, mi sento più o meno come gli spettatori di quel cineforum di Bologna che qualche mese fa hanno assistito alla proiezione di Tree of life, l'ultimo capolavoro di Terrence Malick, a "rulli invertiti" senza rendersi conto di niente.

http://corrieredibologna.corriere.it/...

Ora, posso dire in mia discolpa - In attesa di conoscere nomi e cognomi di quelli che gli hanno dato quattro o cinque stelle senza accorgersi che manca il capitolo finale di @PL si è abbattuto sul mio orgoglio di lettrice come una mannaia - che «Il carteggio Aspern» funzionava benissimo anche così; la parte mancante non aggiunge alcuna rivelazione clamorosa alla storia, se non fosse, però, che la priva completamente di quell'ironia di cui parlavamo a tre nei miei feedback; ironia che io non ero riuscita a cogliere e che invece si manifesta in tutto il suo fulgore nei capitoli cesoiati da questa edizione disgraziata.

Mi chiedo, ma com'è possibile? James aveva finito l'inchiostro e ne ha pubblicata prima una versione ridotta e poi dopo averlo acquistato ne ha pubblicata un'altra, la Fusini era in vena di scherzetti, oppure quelli della Repubblica si sono completamente rinc****iti?

Nel frattempo, ironia per ironia, quella di James e quella della sorte, aggiungo la quinta stella.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.....

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is excellent and had a gothic almost romantic feel to it. I am not a fan of the genre but can still appreciate well thought out plot. May even read more ot James short stories.

[Subashini]

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 Washington Square I knew somewhat what to expect with his language, though I'm still nervous about tackling one of his bigger books.

Underlying this story is a strong sense of irony. A parody of gothic literature, somehow. One that turned into its own weird, hysterical thing.

I'm not rating this edition since I only read Screw. 4 stars for that. I'll get to Aspern Papers at some point, once I've recovered from this.

[Cor T · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite kind of beginning (prologue) with my least favorite kind of ending (abrupt). A not long novel with long, long, sentences, with many, many words. To turn the screw means to apply pressure, but what pressure was applied and by whom? The story contains a lot of classic creepy elements, but as they remained unrelated and unresolved, I kept waiting for the central source of the horror to be revealed to tie everything together. Was it to be: the attractive employer who wouldn't see or be spoken to about his wards; the strangely cheerful housekeeper, the seemingly perfect boy who was kicked out of school for an undisclosed reason, the former staff who left and died, or the ghosts who interacted with the children? Was the narrator governess responding with hysteria to questions that wouldn't be answered?

Synopsis for my own remembering - Spoiler alert for the rest of you:

The group is gathered in an old house round the fire on Christmas Eve, and talk naturally turns to ghostly visitations of children. One of them, Douglas, knows of a horror story involving two children, but it's so ghastly that it's been in a locked drawer for forty years, written by his sister's governess of long ago. The group decides to stay for a few days while the handwritten pages arrive, because who doesn't like a good old ghost story at Christmas?

Douglas prefaces his narration by setting the stage: A poor country parson's daughter responds to an advertisement (like the hapless Mr. Lockwood of Wuthering Heights) at a townhouse in London, for the position of governess. She swoons over her new employer, who is a gentleman in the prime of life, but (here's the catch) it was to his country home, Bly, an old family place in Essex, that he wished her immediately to proceed. Here's why: He was guardian to a nephew and niece, who he had put in possession of Bly as it was so healthy and secure (or maybe not). Excellent Mrs. Grose was the housekeeper but she (the unnamed), as governess, would be in supreme authority. And, just so you know, there had been a young lady previously whom they had the misfortune to lose (i.e. died). Which left no alternative but school for little Miles. And if that wasn't reason enough to refuse the job, the master's ONE CONDITION was that she should never trouble him, take care of everything and leave him alone. After this inspiring talk, Douglas reveals that the governess never sees her charming employer again, and with this nervous-making premise, her story begins.

She starts with a Jane Eyre-flavored entry into Bly and meets the perfect daughter Flora - beatific, radiant, angelic - and hears all about the little gentleman Miles from Mrs. Grose, who "was glad I was there!" (usually the housekeeper hates the governess in these stories - what's going on?). When she says, "I have not seen Bly since the day I left it," we know she survives whatever's to come, but it has the ominous tone of, "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

After much fanfare, the mysterious Miles appears accompanied by a letter from his headmaster saying he's been dismissed at school. Like his sister, Miles is divine, impossibly innocent. How can someone so good be dismissed? Is this the dark secret? Talk finally turns to the former governess, who was also young and pretty, who went home and never came back and later they heard she had died. The governess starts up her duties and things go along until she sights a strange man, staring brazenly back at her. "Was there a secret at Bly, an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement?" (Jane Eyre) What makes him creepy: "He's like nobody. He has no hat. Dressed in smart clothes not his own. "Mrs. Gross knows that guy, it's Peter Quint, the former valet, and what became of him? He died.

Words follow words in epic, gushing sentences, but do they say anything? - It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together in presence of what we had now to live with as we could -- my dreadful liability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, and my companion's knowledge, henceforth-- a knowledge half consternation and half compassion-- of that liability.

It emerges that the valet was close to Miles and took care of him, but in a "much too free" way, spoiling him. In fact, he was too free with everyone! And then was found stone dead on the road. Then the second horrible visage shows herself, a woman in black, pale and dreadful - the infamous Miss Jessel, who used to care for Flora. They were a couple, even though Quint was a base menial and she a lady.

Our narrator steps up as heroine to protect her charges, but eventually it becomes clear that Flora and Miles can not only see but are interacting with the ghosts. Like teenagers under the influence of bad friends, the children openly mock her for coming between them. She forces Miles to admit that he was kicked out of school for writing letters about other children, but the specifics, we never learn. There's a lot of unanswered questions leading up to a lot of gothic screaming and then suddenly silence. Are the ghosts bad, or was it just the usual poor little kids stuck on the moor with nothing to do but get weird?

Aspern Papers: A fan of the divine (deceased) poet Jeffrey Aspern comes to Venice to try to unearth his papers with his former muse, an elderly woman and her niece, living in a dilapidated old palace on an out of the way canal. Our narrator's idea is to court the younger Miss Bordereau, but it's not that simple. Another big buildup to a strangely abrupt ending.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 insanity is Mrs. Grose an unwitting contributor?

The language is a bit of a slog, stealing away some of the story's tension. But I love that James leads us ever on into the gloom and fog, then drops us abruptly, leaving unanswered a mystery that will spawn countless doctoral dissertations and VC Andrews' pulp fiction.

[X · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 if I liked the ending or not, but it was what the narrator deserved, I guess.

[Mariam Keshealshvili · Rating 4 out of 5]

ორივე ნაწარმოები ძალიან კარგი იყო. ასევე აღფრთოვანებული ვარ ჯეიმზის წერის სტილით, ამ წიგნში თავმოყრილია ორი სხვადასხვა ჟანრის მოთხრობა და რაღაც მომენტში წიგნის ყდას დავხედე ნუთუ ამ ორივე ნაწარმოებს ერთი ავტორი ჰყავს-მეთქი რადგან ორი რადიკალურად განსხვავებული ჟანრია და თხრობითაც საკმაოდ განსხვავებულია. თუმცაღა ორივეს დაჰკრავს ავტორის ხელწერა ფინალთან მიახლოებისას.

მიუხედავად იმისა, რომ წიგნი მოცულობით მცირეა ისევე როგორც თითოეული ნაწარმოები კითხვისას ეს ასე არ მოგეჩვენებათ - ჰენრი ჯეიმზის ნაწარმოები დაბურული ტყესავითაა და მართლაც, რომ მარწუხების გაკვალვა უწევს მკითხველს თუმცა სიუჟეტი ისეთი მიმზიდველია, რომ არ გაძლევს მოდუნების საშუალებას შესაბამისად ბოლო სანამ ბოლო გვერდამდე ჩახვალთ ისეთი გრძნობა გექნებათ თითქოს საუკუნეა წიგნი ხელიდან არ გაგიშვიათ.

ჯეიმზის ნაწარმოებს კიდევ ერთი თვისება ახასიათებს - მას სურს, რომ კითხველი არამხოლოდ სიუჟეტს ეცნობოდეს არამედ გახდეს ნაწარმოების ნაფიცი მსაჯული. დაე მკითხველმა განსაჯოს და მანვე გადაწყვიტოს რომელია სიუჟეტის სწორი ხაზი.

მოკლედ ჰენრი ჯეიმზის სხვა ლიტერატურას აუცილებლად დავუბრუნდები, როგორც კი ამის შესაძლებლობა მომეცემა.

[Maud’s library · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a bad book by any means, but with English not being my first language I find classics incredibly hard to get through. Couldn’t follow what was going on most of the time lol

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Turn of the Screw: Some poor chap was horribly abused by his governess but her cunning was such that, as an adult, he doesn't understand what he endured. And now he shares the story that she first used to prevent him from seeking help from a responsible adult as a ghost story! At parties! Awkward and really unpleasant. A bit like someone saying "There was a ghost in my wardrobe when I was a child! It would have killed me if I'd ever told anyone about Dad raping me."

The Aspern Papers: Much more enjoyable. Mad old hags, Venice and a dead writer's love letters. Narrator steels himself to do anything to get his hands on the spoils, but when the aged spinster eyes the flies of his jeans, it turns out that he would do anything for love (but he won't do that).

[Jair Martín · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Un clásico es un libro que nunca termina de decir lo que tiene que decir”, escribía Italo Calvino en la introducción de “Por qué leer los clásicos”.
Podemos decir entonces que “Otra vuelta de tuerca”, de Herny James es a todas luces un clásico.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction
Preface

--The Aspern Papers
--The Turn of the Screw

Notes

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two entertaining novellas -- in some ways, I found The Aspern Papers to be more accomplished and satisfying, even thought The Turn of the Screw is much more famous.

The Turn of the Screw is James' most well-known ghost story, and it may be the first instance of the horror trope of a possessed child. Told from the perspective of a governess who travels to an isolated house to care for two children, it captures a tense and dramatic atmosphere, while never answering any questions. We're not sure how much we can trust the governess's account, and whether she is a witness to horrifying events, or is seeing things that aren't there, or a mixture of the two. James holds us in suspense, and the suspense never really lifts, as few answers are forthcoming. I enjoyed this, but felt it was a little bit too Freudian -- so much seems to represent repressed sexuality that the ghosts got lost at times.

The Aspern Papers is set in a beautiful and decaying palazzo in Venice, belonging to two unmarried women, a niece and an aunt. The unnamed narrator gains access to the house under false pretences: he claims to be looking for a simple lodging, but he's actually trying to wrest some paper from the older aunt. These belong to Jeffery Aspern, a beloved American poet, who had an affair with the aunt many decades ago. The novella captures the unlikeable and avaricious narrator, who is willing manipulate those around him and toy with their emotions. This is an interesting character study, and a tense and readable story. Though less imaginative than The Turn of the Screw, I found it more satisfying.