So I finished my first story by Henry James: The Turn of the Screw. I had been reading it for days, never quite sure where I had left off the last time because the prose is so dense it isn’t easy to locate yourself. And that was my general impression of the piece–“Man this is dense!”

James created an entire story from the back-and-forth meandering thoughts of the Governness. At no point is the plot terribly exciting or suspenseful. There rarely was a chapter that had me riveted (even his self-concious cliff hangers). But the woman’s overwrought impressions were delightful to decipher.

Upon completion I ran to the web to confirm for myself (by having someone else say it) that Miles had died. For I assumed that he was the man, Douglas, in the beginning who introduced the tale.

But no, he definitely died, and suddenly the entire story is now called in to question. Who was Douglas and what was his relationship with the Governness? Were there really ghosts or just projections of the woman’s extreme worrying? And what of the boy? Was he gay? Did he get expelled from school for pederasty?

So in the end I will say that I did enjoy this story, and will probably continue to read more of James in the future. I feel that his creation of a character’s psyche is something I could do well to imitate. But in the meantime, I am going to start a new book: The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood.