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The Turn of the Screw |
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By Henry James |
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Title: The Turn of the Screw Author: Henry James Table of Content
Post your review or comment Your review or comment will be placed here on this page Name: Jack Saturday _____ [Date: 7/23/05] Title: The Murderer Subject: whodunit Review/comment: Funny to add to such a long controversy about a piece of fiction. A detective novel in which the reader is forced to be the detective. Strange that all kinds of grown-up people would work at a controversy over the "reality" or not of fictional beings, "ghosts" of Henry James's imagination. Question: Does an author have any obligation, if presenting a puzzle of his own invention, to provide sufficient clues to the clever reader to offer satisfaction/closure? This is the first book that evoked in me the term "literature abuse" or "story abuse"-- that is, abuse of the reader by using conventions of story to lead the reader down a garden path, then pop him or her in the nose and then slam the door. A kind of "practical joke" like pepper-hot gum. We come to expect from a master novelist an inner coherence and consistency, which, if missing at crucial points (like the end) implies conscientious abuse. Revenge on somebody transferred to the reader. Which is all very funny considering that we're talking about a made-up story. Something I haven't seen mentioned. Douglas was the same age as Miles. Our governess went on to be a successful and loveable governess of "Douglas's sister." The scene with her and Miles in his bedroom felt a little bit erotica perhaps that was obvious to many. She may have liked them young and pretty herself, since she charmed Douglas ten years after her affair with Miles. A suggestion, surely offered by others in all this: Miles killed Quint, and told some schoolmates, who squealed. This must have been discussed as a possibility. His own death then would have been a kind of cosmic justice or something. I don't want to expend the energy to piece together the death of the previous governess etc, but both kids, great collaborators, may have collaborated in the murder which, in the inside-out and unexpected and suddenly backwards theme of the novel ("turn of the screw"), would have been a somewhat acceptable event in many eyes considering that these kids may have been tortured in different ways, and other members of the household were abused by Quint. Quint came back from the grave to confront his murderer. As Freud came along to alleviate to some extent, the unspoken and repressed was getting to dangerous proportions in Victorian England. a society indeed with a rigidly "proper" above and a dark below. WWI came along to rip it to shreds for young men, but up til then must have been pretty maximal in tension. One more thing I connected "The Turn Of The Screw" with H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine", another Victorian romance projecting the schizophrenic split in Victorian society between innocence in denial of its service to evil, and the good protagonist from elsewhere, or elsewhen. --Jack Saturday |