by Henry James

isbn: 0393096696
subject: Fiction and Literature
finished: Early Fall 1997

The Turn of the Screw describes a woman's struggle to keep two children from being corrupted by a pair of malicious ghosts. As ghost stories go, it is very understated; the ghosts are never actually seen doing anything. This is good -- the tension in the story is a result of the narrator's ignorance of what is going on behind the scenes, and of what motivates the other characters. It is well told, and has a couple of truly chilling moments. I enjoyed The Turn of the Screw and recommend it, although it was stylistically annoying in places. Excessive use of commas (one sentence contains fourteen) and oblique dialogue sometimes get in the way of the flow of the story.