Last entry on Henry James`"The Turn of the Screw"
Reviewed by Cándido Pintos Andrés
and Marián Machado Panete
“The Turn of the Screw”
reviewed by Cándido Pintos Andrés
After 23 chapters of intrigue , mistery and cliffhanger endings, I faced the last one with many questions and just a few pages left to find the answers. After some minutes of reading, I felt really disappointed because there was no clear explanation for what I was looking for. Are you kidding me Henry ? After all your periphrasis and verbosity and long and intricated phrases is THIS the end? Maybe you want me to feel as lost as the governess or maybe you are The Master of Ambiguity. Perhaps you want me to think of ghosts and sex and corruption and lies at the same time. Maybe you did not finish the tale because you did not want us to gather around the fire with Douglas to find the truth. Or maybe I am losing my mind and that's exactly what you want.
"The Turn of the Screw"
Reviewed by Marián Machado Panete
If building suspense involves withholding information and raising questions that arouses everyone’s curiosity, we are in front of one of the best examples. This psychological book grips the reader without explicit physical dangers; however the successive chain of events trigger a sense of dread all along the novella. The very end comes as a complete surprise.
Before nowadays serial “cliffhangers” and even Bluma Zeigarnik’s study on memory, in which she compared memory in relation to interrupted and completed tasks, he was able to hold the audience in thrall. Ambiguity, unfinished dialogues and lavish supply of vocabulary arranged in long sentences paved the way for this work of art. No surprise the book has been adapted several times in a variety of media: play, opera, films and a miniseries.
I highly recommend listening to the story. The sound of the words and the rhythm of the language amplifies the suspense.
