I just didn’t feel the need to write even a short note on The Turn of the Screw after finishing it a few weeks back — I was so impressed with it, I felt at the time (and still do) that it was just going to stay forever as present in my mind as it was right after reading it. Of course, I know that’s how I feel, not what will happen — experience has shown repeatedly that even the most loved books will fade away from my memory. In fact, the more I loved a book, the more I’m likely to begin rewriting it in my mind, slowly or not-so-slowly turning it into something completely new.

It seems that it would be difficult to do this with James. The story is simple and quite conventional (a young governess in a deserted mansion with two young children to protect from evil supernatural influences), the motives are unsurprising for the time and type of literature (repression and sexuality, nature and culture, feminism and religion for instance). In fact, something that worked very well for me was that reading The Turn of the Screw almost felt like rereading it. I had both the pleasure of being surprised and that of noticing details I’m usually only able to see on re-read: the importance of silence, of vision and the play on all the meaning of what can/ cannot be said or viewed, for instance (including oneself — for instance, the governess notes, on first arriving at the house, “the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see myself from head to foot“, which I would usually be inattentive enough a reader to not pay attention to beyond what is necessary for the sake of description and to remark the difference time has made in the possibility/ impossibility to not constantly see our image). James also uses a lot of expressions hinting at things under the surface of things, mostly in his early descriptions (certain traits of the house, for instance, are described as “embodying a few features of a building still older, half-replaced and half-utilized”). James brings in these allusions early on in his narration, when things still look innocent enough, and tones them down when things start to go bad. The same thing goes for loaded sentences on education or imagination, for instance. Flesh is pretty much an exception, as desire pervades the book throughout.

And of course there’s the genius in not lifting the story’s central ambiguity: did the events unfold as they are told, are they distorted slightly by the retelling, or is the story, as told, entirely the product of a crazy mind? I have my own hypothesis (neither of these three), of course, but I could not see a single point where James had faltered and given more strength to one explanation or the other, nor (and that, to me, is even more extraordinary) does it feel that he is resorting to heavy-handed trickery to give each their own credibility. The different solutions just are all possible because they are all possible, not thanks to some crazy last-minute twist. I’ve seen the story celebrated many times for that one trait, and I couldn’t agree more. In fact I think it’s quite a shame so many scholars seem to have spent so much effort into making a definitive call on that point. Can’t we just agree to have a little magic in a book, and to marvel at it? “My equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut my eyes as tight as possible to the truth“, says the governess at one point; we don’t even need to be as hard on ourselves to let the book be a success, so why would we insist on the truth, all the truth, and (even worse) nothing but the truth?

Finally, there’s also the issue of the Jamesian sentence, an outrage by all modern standard as it is vague, convoluted, full of generic adverbs and imprecise meanings. Which of course works well for me in general, and perfectly in the context of this book. I’ll admit however that I wonder how burdensome it might become in a longer book, or in one more serious in subject.

All in all — just writing this little note lifted the reading-funk-induced pessimism I was expressing three days ago off my shoulders. I’m not sure what the next book will be to make me feel like this again, but I cannot wait to read it! And — I have now added more James, and Fielding to my must-read-soon list. James mentions Amelia in The Turn of the Screw, and I’m quite curious to find out how they communicate.