Mila, Marcial and Paula, members of the reading workshop,
share their first impressions, chapters I-VI
Henry James’ novel “The Turn of the Screw”
Source for Image: https://images.booksense.com/images/371/606/9781800606371.jpg
“The Turn of the Screw,” reviewed by Mila Prol
A young woman arrives at a manor house, to take care of two children. Soon, she feels some threat looms over the innocent pupils, and her mood changes from excitement to fear, in a place full of secrets. Encounters with ghosts, secrecy about the inappropriate little boy's behaviour at school, and the illness and death of her predecessor are the breeding grounds for a supernatural and dark atmosphere that reassure her commitment to protect the children. Something sinister is growing in the caregiver's mind, who doubts about what is real or imagined. Are the angelical children so innocent…?
“Hat Trick” by Marcial Muñoz
“The story won’t tell,” said Douglas, “not in any literal, vulgar way”.
“...and there was a touch of the strange freedom, as I remember, in the sign of familiarity of his wearing no hat”.
Architecture apart (I still remember Notre-Dame’s neo-Gothic spire crumbling away), just in our heads Gothic seems to linger. In mine -the turn of the screw-, it comes and goes. My hat off, spine-chilling ghosts I see. My hat on, it’s flesh and blood what scares me. Whoever you are, dear nameless governess, languish no more.Allow me to invoke, on your behalf, the spirit of Las Sinsombrero.
“The Turn of the Screw,” reviewed by Paula Fernández Abalde
The reader is immediately thrown in the story as Douglas attempts to trigger our interest in it. In order to aim at reliability, the story is rendered from the perspective of an outsider. The atmosphere of the story, the characters, and the location, are all the ingredients of a ghost story where, to turn the screw, two apparently innocent children are at stake. The children’s governess, an eerie character itself, pivots between madness and sanity. By chapter four, we cannot still explain why she knows the character of Quint in such detail. Equally, we are left to wonder about the strange relation between her and Miss Grose:
No!” I took the good creature in my arms
and, after we had embraced like sisters, felt still more
fortified and indignant.
The governess, feeling heroine-like, believes she is the only one who can see evil souls.
