CONTENTS<\/p>\n
Part 1 ; The Art of Phrasing<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Part 2 ; The Art of Making Sense<\/a><\/p>\n Part 3 ; The Art of Song Writing<\/a><\/p>\n Part 4 ; The Art of Reading Attentively<\/p>\n Due to a barrage of spam, the comment option had to be disabled.<\/p>\n Serious reply\u2019s will be copied to this page from the link below<\/p>\n enter a comment<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n or :\u00a0the art of reading attentively<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, Emily Dickinson<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n the turn of the screw<\/b><\/p>\n The novella by Henry James (1843 – 1916) is for sheer size not really suited to try\u00a0wordsubstitution on, but it will do the trick all the same. Time consuming it may be, but that does not prevent the actors from the RSC to perform this very exercise on every Shakespeare play that nowadays runs in Stratford : this helps them to understand what is going on on stage.<\/p>\n But is it obligate? for a few key scenes perhaps. But\u00a0reading attentively will by now be sufficient to\u00a0recognize familiar patterns if and when they occur. Which is a good thing too,\u00a0because you are on your own this time. I would love to reveal the story\u2019s\u00a0brilliant simplicity, but Henry James won\u2019t have it :<\/p>\n “So long as the events are\u00a0veiled the imagination will run riot and depict all sorts of horrors, but as soon\u00a0as the veil is lifted, all mystery disappears, and with it the sense of terror.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n To explain a mystery without unveiling it, is like squaring the circle ; it is\u00a0allowed, but one better don\u2019t even try. Which leaves only one approach open,\u00a0and that is to make you read the narrative just for the pleasure of unveiling\u00a0the events yourself :<\/p>\n The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the\u00a0obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas eve in an old house, a\u00a0strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till\u00a0somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a\u00a0visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of an\u00a0apparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion \u2013 an\u00a0appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping in the room with his\u00a0mother and waking her up in the terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his\u00a0dread and soothe him to sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she\u00a0had succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was this\u00a0observation that drew from Douglas \u2013 not immediately, but later in the evening\u00a0\u2013 a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call attention.\u00a0Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which I saw he was not\u00a0following. This I took for a sign that he had himself something to produce and\u00a0that we should only have to wait. We waited in fact till two nights later; but\u00a0that same evening, before we scattered, he brought out what was in his mind.\u00a0– – – — — \u00a0– \u00a0– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – — – – – –\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI quite agree \u2013 in regard to Griffin\u2019s ghost, or whatever it was \u2013 that its\u00a0appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a particular touch.\u00a0But it\u2019s not the first occurrence of its charming kind that I know to have\u00a0involved a child. If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do\u00a0you say to two children\u2014?\u201d\u00a0– – – — — \u00a0– \u00a0– – – – – – – – – – – — \u00a0–\u00a0<\/span>\u201cWe say, of course,\u201d somebody exclaimed, \u201cthat they give two turns! Also that\u00a0we want to hear about them.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If you want to hear about them too, time has come to purchase a copy of the\u00a0novella. Or to open the free available Ladder-edition<\/a> by Adrian Dover. And to be\u00a0aware that Henry James once described The Turn of the Screw<\/i>\u00a0 as<\/p>\n \u201ca piece of\u00a0ingenuity pure and simple, of cold artistic calculation, an amusette to catch\u00a0those not easily caught (the \u2018fun\u2019 of the capture of the merely witless being\u00a0ever but small), the jaded, the disillusioned, the fastidious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Another author then, who likes to fool the best part of his audience. And, judged by his aim, Henry James has thrown the glove at Sherlock\u00a0Holmes himself. He was, after all, a contemporary. But, for the sake of his own\u00a0pleasure, he has to play things fair, because there is no fun in fooling Sherlock\u00a0with a problem that has no solution. And the problem itself is \u2018pure and simple\u2019.\u00a0A description that rules out obscurity for obscurity\u2019s sake, and rather points\u00a0at the efficient use of words in a poem. As a matter of fact, the beauty of the\u00a0problem that Henry James composed is in its solvability. And in the amusette\u2019s\u00a0very design to be elementary. Which, of course, is no help to poor witless\u00a0Watson. If he, for instance, notices the anomaly in the novella\u2019s opening\u00a0paragraph, he can be trusted to explain it away as not necessarily an anomaly\u00a0within the world of the story itself. Sherlock Holmes, on the other\u00a0hand, takes for granted that Henry James expects his more attentive readers\u00a0to appreciate the clue.<\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n elementary<\/b><\/p>\n Henry James\u2019s masterpiece deserves all the protection a well maintained\u00a0omerta<\/i> can provide. Just your luck then, that Sherlock Holmes always has a\u00a0theory at the ready after hearing a mystery\u2019s first lines of introduction. One\u00a0that covers all angles, and is always confirmed by what he hears next. By the\u00a0time he sets out to investigate, it is merely to pick up the evidence to close a\u00a0case that has already been solved. A pattern that Henry James makes good use of. And heaving read the introductory section, Holmes is after a\u00a0certain manuscript. It is written in a woman\u2019s hand, and Holmes expects to find\u00a0it in the possession of the introductory section\u2019s anonymous narrator ; the\u00a0third in a succession of narrators, and our direct source of the story. No big deal,\u00a0perhaps, but part of a theory that enables him to picture the Christmas party\u00a0in as close a detail as any of the people sitting around the fire.<\/p>\n Restricted\u00a0to being honest in a veiled way, Henry James is not making a fool of\u00a0good old Sherlock! And what about you? If Holmes\u2019s head start discouraged you,\u00a0or his unexpected line of inquiry, just be assured that this is no account by\u00a0John Watson of his greatest successes. This time Holmes can bark at the\u00a0wrong tree (that would be the day) as well as any James expert. Or suffer an\u00a0unexpected drawback. Read the entire novella. Then take your time to develop a theory of your own, and return to the Christmas party.<\/p>\n Make sure that your theory covers all the facts you\u2019ll derive from the introductory section,\u00a0and then use Henry James\u2019s veiled honesty to your advantage at your second go :<\/p>\n If you notice details in either introductory section or main story that prove\u00a0it consistent with your theory, it can\u2019t be much wrong. And the more little\u00a0details to that effect will catch your eye, the more reason you\u2019ll have to see\u00a0them as proof that your theory is consistent with the story. It is a method\u00a0that Sherlock Holmes himself applies in the process of his search for that one\u00a0piece of evidence (manuscript ; woman\u2019s hand) that still eludes him. And he is\u00a0by now convinced to find it exactly where he predicted it to be at his first\u00a0assessment.<\/p>\n Two details in particular justify the determined continuation of his thorough\u00a0search of the premises : one is the strand of poetry that Sherlock found\u00a0interwoven with the bone-chilling final turn of the screw, the other is his\u00a0observation that at the story\u2019s extreme ends the always accurate situation\u00a0descriptions do not match a stated fact. And you have a stroke of luck here,\u00a0because the Ladder-edition gives one of these anomalies away :<\/p>\n \u201cIn the first,\u00a0magazine, text Flora\u2019s age is given (in chapter 7) as six years, changed in this\u00a0text to eight; James, however, forgot to change various features of the text,\u00a0such as Flora\u2019s high chair and bib and her simple writing lesson, to suit a more\u00a0advanced child, leading surely to slight confusion in an attentive reader!\u201d<\/p>\n Adrian Dover<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Ladder-edition more than once points such an error out. But this time it goes Lestrade on a hot scent. As you need to derive from the presented facts, if you don’t want to hang on Holmes\u2019s\u00a0tail, and suffer the self-inflicted ordeal of his \u201celementary, my dear\u00a0Watson!\u2019 An \u2018elementary\u2019 this time, that concerns the heroine\u2019s\u00a0reliability. Well, let me say here distinctly, it can be taken for granted. If you\u00a0are not prepared to take the word of Henry James, when he says so in\u00a0the preface to a later edition,<\/p>\n take mine : she holds nothing back, and tells\u00a0no lies either. She can\u2019t. Firstly because feeding false information is no fair\u00a0play, secondly because the heroine writes her account of events down in order\u00a0to come to terms with the memory. Other motives, that is, can\u2019t be\u00a0established, because it takes the manuscript decades after her death to go\u00a0public. Holmes therefore trusts her enough to stake his reputation on it. And her story’s tampering with the evidence fits perfectly in his initial theory anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n In case you don\u2019t buy such foolhardiness, be aware that Henry James once\u00a0described The Turn of the Screw<\/i>\u00a0 as an amusette to catch those not easily\u00a0caught. Sherlock Holmes, however, is the most fastidious of investigators, and\u00a0can be expected to take into account what escapes the attention of any other\u00a0observer.<\/p>\n On which conclusion I now leave you on your own ; in the reassuring\u00a0knowledge that you will respect the omerta.<\/i> If not because you are going to\u00a0admire Henry James enough for composing such a masterpiece to pay him the\u00a0respect, then at least because other attentive readers deserve to enjoy the\u00a0mystery as much as you did. And, as its humble contribution to this joy,\u00a0Literature Studies now provides for this mystery\u2019s context :<\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n the closest literature studies ever got<\/b><\/p>\n “A deliberate, powerful, and horribly successful study of the magic of evil, of\u00a0the subtle influence over human hearts and minds of the sin with which this\u00a0world is accursed.”<\/em> (The New York Times Saturday Review of Books and Art)<\/p>\n The first to enjoy this study, were the readers of Collier\u2019s Weekly<\/i>, which\u00a0published The Turn of the Screw<\/i> between 27 January and 16 April 1898. The\u00a0quoted review, however, refers to the novella\u2019s first appearance as a book in\u00a0October 1898. A review that declared it worthy of being compared to Robert\u00a0Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.<\/i> Henry James would have loved to\u00a0read this flattery, especially because it gives nothing away, while it all the same\u00a0plants the flag of its anonymous author spot on : the first to have cracked the\u00a0case. But not the only one, and a similar review appeared nine days later\u00a0independently in a Detroit magazine.<\/p>\n Just in case : this is the example to follow whenever you face the same\u00a0problem of suppressing the desire to show off, that caused me to lift the veil a\u00a0little higher than Henry James would have appreciated. But those things happen\u00a0when generations of experts fail to explain that a properly told story is, within\u00a0its context, all one needs to find out what exactly it is telling. Who should blame\u00a0me then, for assuming that nobody can find his way out The Turn of the Screw<\/i>\u00a0 without\u00a0a guide?<\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n the blindness that followed<\/b><\/p>\n All of these possible conjectures demonstrate that “the whole story is to be\u00a0doubted, and we can be certain of nothing.” This is why “we have had theory\u00a0after theory proposed as the answer … and there is still no single explanation\u00a0which satisfies everyone … The whole point about the puzzle is its ultimate\u00a0insolubility”<\/em><\/p>\n This is the way to turn failure into success. And its author is Louis D. Rubin in\u00a0One More Turn of the Screw<\/i> (1964), as quoted by Edward J. Parkinson\u2019s 1991\u00a0dissertation<\/a> The Turn of the Screw ; a history of its critical interpretation<\/i>\u00a01898 – 1979<\/i>. A book that, in its turn, is presented \u00a0as<\/p>\n A valuable study for Jamesian scholars, as well as for\u00a0students of literary theory – it can be seen as a study of the development of\u00a0literary theory in the twentieth century with this particular literary work as a\u00a0touchstone study.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The study would have been even more valuable, if its author had taken the\u00a0trouble of judging developments, rather than merely presenting them in\u00a0chronological order. True, he had no Holmes at his side to expose the puzzle\u2019s\u00a0ultimate insolubility as inadequate research, but he should at least have\u00a0exposed the basic flaw at the root of all research in this field :<\/p>\n \u201cAgain and again, of\u00a0course, the same incidents from the plot have been cited by different critics\u00a0to support conflicting – often diametrically opposite – interpretations.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This focus on supportive evidence is fatal – true science is in the attempt to\u00a0prove one\u2019s convincion (i.e. interpretation) wrong<\/i> – and, because the resulting\u00a0stalemate between contradicting interpretations prevents any future progress,\u00a0it has effectively neutralized literary criticism as a branche of science.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n The haunting of Bly\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cGood ghosts, speaking by book, make poor subjects, and it was clear that\u00a0from the first my hovering prowling blighting presences, my pair of abnormal\u00a0agents, would have to depart altogether from the rules. They would be agents\u00a0in fact; there would be laid on them the dire duty of causing the situation to\u00a0reek with the air of Evil. Their desire and their ability to do so, visibly\u00a0measuring meanwhile their effect, together with their observed and described\u00a0success \u2013 this was exactly my central idea; so that, briefly, I cast my lot with\u00a0pure romance, the appearances conforming to the true type being so little\u00a0romantic.\u00a0This is to say, I recognise again, that Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are not\u00a0\u2018ghosts\u2019 at all, as we now know the ghost, but goblins, elves, imps, demons as\u00a0loosely constructed as those of the old trials for witchcraft; if not, more\u00a0pleasingly, fairies of the legendary order, wooing their victims forth to see\u00a0them dance under the moon.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Note the absence of the word \u2018hallucination\u2019.\u00a0And a little earlier in this preface to the 1908 New York edition, Henry James\u00a0reports to have been one of the guests around the fire when the host told the\u00a0outlines of his story as a hearsay account of a real appearance. At the time a\u00a0fashionable topic, and Henry James kept himself well informed on the latest\u00a0developments in the field of scientific measurement of ghosts. And describing\u00a0the ghosts that haunt Bly, he is in fact defending his choice to ignore their\u00a0scientific specifications. From which follows that his ghosts originally answered\u00a0to these specifications. As to be expected from real appearances.<\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n a fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cOne wonders whether James intends to put us in mind of Jane Austen and the\u00a0Bront\u00eb sisters by using this formulation?\u201d<\/em> (Adrian Dover)<\/p>\n The Bront\u00eb sisters had no connection to Hampshire whatsoever, and this\u00a0note seems to suggest the editor\u2019s identification of the governess as Agnes\u00a0Grey ; alter ego of Anne Bront\u00eb (1820 – 1849), whose recollections may have\u00a0provided the narrator with her initial misgivings to accept the vacant job.\u00a0Agnes Grey indeed is a likely mold for the heroine as the private tutor who\u00a0handles her little charges with professional ease. This governess, however, is\u00a0clearly composed from a number of Austen creations :<\/p>\n Being the youngest of several daughters, she could be Lydia Bennet from\u00a0Pride & Prejudice<\/i>. Her age of twenty, however, and her eye-catching power of\u00a0observation are second Bennet daughter Elizabeth\u2019s. A protagonist who prides\u00a0herself for her accuracy in judging other people\u2019s character and intentions at\u00a0the instant. In the James version she had had brothers too, which adds another\u00a0novel to the heroine\u2019s recipe, in which she has a brother, without causing any\u00a0inconsistency with her apparent \u2018sisters only\u2019 background.<\/p>\n This second novel sufficiently defines the father of these young ladies as\u00a0the \u2018poor country parson\u2019 from Douglas\u2019s introduction. And Jane Austen\u00a0describes the daughter of that shepherd of souls in a way that suggests her to\u00a0have lied to her employer about her qualifications as a governess. Because the\u00a0problems she has to face at Bly are somewhat out of her depths, her hubris<\/i> is\u00a0connected to these qualifications anyway. And the resulting tragedy has\u00a0certainly learned her the lesson of being honest to herself : the heroine never\u00a0lies.<\/p>\n The employer, a handsome bachelor \u201cin the prime of life\u201d (a standard\u00a0eufemism), won’t be fooled that easily when it comes to assessing\u00a0applicants for a job, and he certainly knows a girl\u2019s real age (in the Austen\u00a0novel seventeen rather than twenty) when he charms one. But after eighteen\u00a0frustrating months he is also desparate to find somebody who is prepared to\u00a0guard his private little secret in as remote a place as possible.<\/p>\n This remotest of places is his ancestral estate, and, as far as\u00a0Northanger Abbey\u2019s<\/i> imaginative heroine is concerned, such a place must surely\u00a0be haunted : she is the star in a parody on the gothic story. If one knows how\u00a0to catch an expert, the resulting opportunity is too good to miss, and already in\u00a0her first sentence, Jane Austen sums up virtually every argument that\u00a0Literature Studies has at one time or another held against a governess who is\u00a0seeing ghosts :<\/p>\n “No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n Place<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cIt is a street in Marylebone, London, running north from Cavendish Square to\u00a0the Marylebone Road beside Regent\u2019s Park; its current association with the\u00a0medical profession, through the opening there of many eminent practitioners\u2019\u00a0consulting rooms dates only from the late nineteenth century: at the time of\u00a0the main narrative of the tale this street was merely one of the many\u00a0fashionable residential streets in the area north of Mayfair. Later in the tale the street becomes, by metonymy, a reference to its occupant, the\u00a0governess\u2019s employer\u201d<\/em> (Adrian Dover).<\/p>\n Don\u2019t let this editor put you off the scent : the dead only return when there is\u00a0some terrible score to settle. Reason why they usually haunt their location of\u00a0(violent) departure.<\/p>\n And, beginning with a joke about dying of an excess of\u00a0respectability, Henry James is absolutely consistent in his step by step\u00a0unveiling why Miss Jessel returned to Bly instead. And her motive also suits\u00a0Peter Quint ; her sad true lover, who brooded on impractical revenge, and who\u00a0drowned his grief in liquor. Untill he joined her in the life here-after.<\/p>\n The place where they met, is, for us mortals, a little more difficult to find.\u00a0Being derived from Northanger Abbey it should be somewhere near Cirencester,\u00a0but Henry James preferred to locate Bly in Essex. A much wider area to\u00a0search, which makes us to depend on the occasional clue about where to pin its\u00a0exact location down on the survey map with a little marking flag :<\/p>\n It takes the coach from London \u201clong hours of bumping\u201d to reach the\u00a0house\u2019s nearest stopping-place in the late June evening. This places Bly at\u00a0roughly the same distance from London as Catherine Morland\u2019s home in\u00a0Fullerton (Wilts), but in the opposite direction. A detail that invites to draw a\u00a0straight line from one place to the other ; a line that has Harley Street\u00a0halfway. This attempt locates the scene in the middle of nowhere. Which, of\u00a0course, is the very place to locate a fictitious building. The nowhere in\u00a0question, by the way, is Hamfort Water National Nature Reserve, and what\u00a0would an English country-house be without such a copy of the Thames in its\u00a0private grounds? At Bly this copy takes about twenty minutes to\u00a0circumnavigate. Which seems impressive enough, but is in fact rather small for\u00a0the location, and a wetland is no proper building site anyway. We therefore need\u00a0to reconsider :<\/p>\n The Morlands live in Fullerton. Which in reality is a couple of houses and\u00a0farms along Fullerton Road. And the nearest parish church is in Chilbolton (Hamps). No vicarage in Fullerton then. But by happy chance the Austen vicarage at nearby Steventon is just a little to the north of the line Fullerton – Hamfort Water.\u00a0Correct for the distance to Harley Street, and we find ourselves at Great\u00a0Bentley, correct for the deviation as well, and we arrive on Flag Hill, just to the\u00a0west of Riddles Wood. Where else should Bly be?<\/p>\n A little to the northwest of Flag Hill we find Thorrington Hall. In itself a fine\u00a0old place which dates back to the early Tudor age. But as an estate not quite in\u00a0the same class as Northanger Abbey. Reason also to dismiss the other listed\u00a0buildings in the area. In fact the only country-house to the northeast of London\u00a0with grounds that match the Bly estate, lake included, is just south of\u00a0Sheringham. As it happens, its position at the Norfolk coast places it roughly\u00a0opposite Bly at the coast near St. Osyth. The house itself is not fully\u00a0compatible, because far from ugly. And it would be seriously understaffed if it were\u00a0to serve as James\u2019s private orphanage, but, at its double scale, it matches\u00a0Bly\u2019s general impression. It is also famous enough to take for granted that\u00a0Henry James knew the place. And he certainly would have known that the place\u00a0is haunted. By two ghosts actually, and because chance stops at nothing to\u00a0make the connection, the male appearance is a servant, the female a Lady.\u00a0Both are dreadful to see, despite agreeable looks, while the Lady was in her\u00a0time as infamous as Miss Jessel. And she definitely died of too much\u00a0respectability.<\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n Action<\/b><\/p>\n In The Turn of the Screw<\/i>, Henry James pays tribute to many an author. Having\u00a0based the governess on a choice of Austen characters, he develops her\u00a0narrative along the lines of some classics from the previous century. The fact\u00a0that the ghosts are human, for instance, while the governess perceives them\u00a0as supernatural, reflects Anne Radcliffe\u2019s The mysteries of Udolpho<\/i> (1794). A\u00a0novel that the governess mentions in chapter four. In the same sentence she\u00a0recalls the mystery from Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre <\/i>(Charlotte Bront\u00eb ;\u00a01847), from which novel James copied the autobiographical structure, the bad\u00a0news from home, and the heroine\u2019s apparent \u201ctendency for deceit\u201d. While the\u00a0sentence itself effectively states that a plot along the lines of these novels\u00a0would not have fooled her for long.<\/p>\n The screw\u2019s final turn is a strand of poetry that I can\u2019t discuss without\u00a0violating the omerta.<\/i>\u00a0 But it is definitely not written by Edgar Allan Poe ; the\u00a0century\u2019s undisputed maestro<\/i> of gothic suspense, who Henry James seems to\u00a0ignore altogether. The strand of choice, meanwhile, is cunningly woven into the\u00a0story\u2019s prose. A method of word substitution, so to speak, that leaves it\u00a0virtually invisible to people who suffer from blindness for vital clues on a silver\u00a0plate. But that also leaves the original poem virtually unchanged, because by\u00a0this method even the slightest alteration of the original poem\u2019s order of words\u00a0is out of the question.<\/p>\n The introductory section is clearly inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s Twice-<\/i>Told Tales<\/i> (1837). If only by its title. And its recollections of a an evening with friends place\u00a0James in the position of the third narrator :<\/p>\n \u201cSaturday, January 12th, 1895\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Note here the ghost-story told me at Addington (evening of Thursday 10th), by\u00a0the Archbishop of Canterbury: a mere vague, undetailed faint sketch of it \u2013\u00a0being all he had been told (very badly and imperfectly) by a lady who had no art\u00a0of relation, and no clearness: the story of the young children (indefinite number\u00a0and age) left to the care of servants in an old country-house, through the\u00a0death, presumably, of parents. The servants, wicked and depraved, corrupt and\u00a0deprave the children; the children are bad, full of evil, to a sinister degree. The\u00a0servants die (the story vague about the way of it) and their apparitions,\u00a0figures, return to haunt the house and children, to whom they seem to beckon,\u00a0whom they invite and solicit, from across dangerous places, the deep ditch of a\u00a0sunk fence, etc. \u2013 so that the children may destroy themselves, lose\u00a0themselves by responding, by getting into their power. So long as the children\u00a0are kept from them, they are not lost: but they try and try and try, these evil\u00a0presences, to get hold of them. It is a question of the children \u2018coming over to\u00a0where they are\u2019. It is all obscure and imperfect, the picture, the story, but\u00a0there is a suggestion of strangely gruesome effect to it. The story to be told \u2013\u00a0tolerably obviously \u2013 by an outside spectator, observer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n An author\u2019s notebook is a sketchbook, and its notes are not penned down with\u00a0the intention to share them with others. To question the honesty of Henry\u00a0James in this entry is therefore in itself questionable. To be at the safe side,\u00a0one better takes this entry as evidence of the source\u2019s influence on the result,\u00a0rather than the other way round. But that reversion looks rather temptatious :<\/p>\n location\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Addington Palace (1774)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>great old country-house<\/span> Judged by the original story\u2019s outlines, it is a good thing that Henry James left\u00a0us a transcript of his own. The lack of quality, however, is worth noticing,\u00a0because traditional folk tales are usually specific on details like names and\u00a0places. As a result the original story looks very much like a hearsay account of\u00a0a real incident. And that is exactly how Henry James presents it. Both in the\u00a01908 preface, and in the introductory section to his transcript. And its\u00a0narrator is an outsider. Yet, Henry James makes the heroine specific enough on\u00a0names and places to suggest a traditional tale, which it can\u2019t be without being\u00a0specific on the exact nature of the danger that the apparitions represent. Yet, it is on that matter that the narrative goes evasive, while the story\u2019s surviving version needs a very sharp\u00a0observer indeed to recognize the children as bad. As a result, the original\u00a0story\u2019s specific-against-vague effect has been reversed, and a traditional folk tale is once again ruled out.<\/p>\n The status of the children is the key to all interpretation. And because our\u00a0transcript version needs an Elizabeth Bennet to recognize them as bad, it left\u00a0literary criticism sharply divided on the part played by the heroine. Is she\u00a0responding on a genuine threat, or on a delusion? The answer is in James\u2019s\u00a0dealings with two pieces of evidence. One is the boy\u2019s confession that he is\u00a0\u2018bad\u2019. The other is the girl\u2019s bad language. This evidence is in itself genuine\u00a0enough, but it is placed in a context that raises questions about its reliability as proof of a supernatural presence. Not even the independent witness of the girl’s bad behaviour can chance that. A\u00a0problem that in real life never fails to hamper attempts to verify the reported\u00a0sighting of a ghost. As a result the\u00a0sceptical ghosthunter still thinks himself fully entitled to doubt. Just as to be expected in cases when\u00a0the reported ghost is actually there. What about that for\u00a0deceitful ambiguity?<\/span><\/p>\n The last detail to notice, is that the first draft was made \u2018much later\u2019 in the\u00a0sense that an author usually sleeps in the same room as his notebook. This is\u00a0the only way to ensure that an interesting idea gets penned down before it\u00a0fades from memory. This one didn\u2019t fade at all, because the final transcript is\u00a0exact on every point that can be checked : Edward Benson was old Trinity, and\u00a0so is Douglas. The archbishop died within two years after telling the story. And,\u00a0according to the upcoming dating attempt, so did Douglas. And he maintains the\u00a0parallel by describing the governess as a true lady. If not by class, then at\u00a0least by personality.<\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n Time<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cWorking backwards, one places the governess\u2019s experiences in the second\u00a0quarter of the nineteenth century.\u201d<\/em> (Adrian Dover ; introduction)<\/p>\n And rather late in that quarter, apparently, because Adrian Dover identifies in\u00a0chapter four a conscious reference to Jane Eyre<\/i>\u00a0 (Charlotte Bront\u00eb ; 1847). In\u00a0consequence the governess would have taken the train to Colchester, which\u00a0had entered service in March 1843. This dating attempt therefore disagrees\u00a0with the story\u2019s consistent unawareness of modern times. The simplest way to\u00a0deal with the anomaly, is to question the location of Bly within a day\u2019s walk\u00a0distance of the nearest train station. The more convenient way is to ignore the\u00a0clue as an anachronism. The way to avoid the company of Sherlock Holmes is to\u00a0do both at the same time :<\/p>\n Some forty years at least separate the events at Bly (1847 or later) from\u00a0the Christmas party, and probably a lot more. This \u2018probably\u2019 dates the\u00a0Christmas party in 1895 : two years before the story is published after what looks like a much longer period of time. This because\u00a0Douglas has passed away, with a strong suggestion that many years have passed between events. But ‘poor Douglas’ as a rule refers to someone who died just weeks ago.\u00a0In January of this same year 1895, Henry\u00a0James learned the story himself. On a Thursday again. This is too much of a\u00a0coincidence, and one has to consider the possibility of careful planning. At the\u00a0same time, the \u2018looks like\u2019 dates the Christmas party back to 1889, and\u00a0Douglas\u2019s summer romance within two years of Miles\u2019s death. The calendar\u00a0therefore brings both options at exactly the same distance of its limit of\u00a0probability. A distance that can be accepted as possible, but also one that is\u00a0far too close for comfort.<\/p>\n Chance is very well capable of creating such a regularity, but is more likely\u00a0to destroy it, and it stands to reason that symmetry results from intelligent\u00a0design.<\/p>\n In which case Henry James has deliberately created the ambiguity of\u00a0two equally questionable datings where pinpoint precision was the easier option.\u00a0Once again, there is no compelling reason why chance should be ruled out as the\u00a0source of this anomaly. But when ruled out notwithstanding, the question is :\u00a0why would Henry James take the trouble? To create a certain effect, obviously.\u00a0And the obvious effect of this dating ambiguity is a structural unreliability of\u00a0narrators : if we believe Douglas when he dates the tragedy at Bly \u2018long before\u2019\u00a0he met its heroine in 1855, we can\u2019t trust the third narrator\u2019s account of the\u00a0Christmas party, which deviously suggests to have been written many years\u00a0afterward. If we, with equal authority, take these many years for granted,\u00a0Douglas met the heroine in 1849, and his \u2018long before\u2019 is to be counted in\u00a0months rather than in years.<\/p>\n Structural unreliability implies that we can\u2019t trust either narrator, but they\u00a0can\u2019t be both wrong at the same time, which leaves us with a pinpoint accurate\u00a0dating that is six years off its mark.<\/p>\n A challenge to the reader<\/strong> :<\/p>\n The method to break this deadlock will in due time be placed underneath a link in this line. But do not touch it\u00a0until you have finished the novella. Or you are going to regret to have lifted\u00a0this veil before reading the main narrative. And you do not really need to lift it\u00a0anyway. Now you have read the introductory section of\u00a0The Turn of the Screw<\/i>,\u00a0and all about its context, you have learned enough to figure the dating out for\u00a0yourself. It won\u2019t be easy, though, to unravel the trickery in the story\u2019s time\u00a0line, that, underneath the link, can make a fool of even a most fastidious\u00a0investigator. But in the end you will see through the double dealings of Henry\u00a0James, and establish the exact year that the heroine arrived at Bly. This year\u00a0can\u2019t be earlier than 1837, or later than 1849. And its reliability is based on an\u00a0evidently consistent pattern in the time line.<\/p>\n Good luck.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PS. You can check your solution by solving this anagram :<\/p>\n ‘For the lines of Dickinson reveal the true horror, but at google press was grace.’<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CONTENTS Part 1 ; The Art of Phrasing\u00a0 Part 2 ; The Art of Making Sense Part 3 ; The Art of Song Writing Part 4 ; The Art of Reading Attentively the turn of the screw elementary the closest … Continue reading \n
Poetry and how to survive it<\/b><\/h2>\n
\nI know that is poetry.
\nf I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,
\nI know that is poetry.
\nThese are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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Which I did after two decades. By the time it occurred to me that I knew the story’s outlines from earlier sources.<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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“in The turn of the screw, please believe, the general proposition of our young woman\u2019s keeping\u00a0crystalline her record of so many intense anomalies and obscurities \u2013 by which I don\u2019t of\u00a0course mean her explanation of them, a different matter; and I saw no way, I feebly grant\u00a0(fighting, at the best too, periodically, for every grudged inch of my space) to exhibit her in\u00a0relations other than those; one of which, precisely, would have been her relation to her own\u00a0nature. We have surely as much of her own nature as we can swallow in watching it reflect her\u00a0anxieties and inductions. It constitutes no little of a character indeed, in such conditions, for a\u00a0young person, as she says, \u2018privately bred\u2019, that she is able to make her particular credible\u00a0statement of such strange matters. She has \u2018authority\u2019, which is a good deal to have given her,\u00a0and I couldn\u2019t have arrived at so much had I clumsily tried for more.\u201d (New York ed. ; 1908)<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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A beautifully simple one. And it leaves no stone unturned. But even without, Holmes\u00a0would have reached the same conclusion by one of these two opposing lines of reason :\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n
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The heroine did not tamper with the facts, because a later narrator did. And whatever the\u00a0reason, it is one that proves the heroine true to her story\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/li>\n
The heroine did tamper with the facts. This proves her true to her story, because she made no attempt to compose a truth that matches the lie.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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How difficult it is to pick the right choice, is demonstrated by Dr. Parkinson in his very next\u00a0lines (chapter VI), in which he \u00a0refutes a correct observation. A matter of arguments that do not apply. And\u00a0of poetic justice : even a correct observation is not entitled to have its basic facts wrong<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Moaning Myrtle from the second Harry Potter novel, for instance, finds her way back to the\u00a0first floor girls\u2019 toilets, because she hates the other girls for compelling her to seek refuge\u00a0there. The precise circumstances of her death, by the way, make a striking parallel with the\u00a0narrow escape by Hermione Granger in the first novel. And these two girls are very much of the\u00a0same feather indeed.<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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\nsource \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u2018a lady\u2019 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0a governess<\/span>
\ntold by \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Edward Benson (*1829) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Douglas
\ndate \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thursday 10 Jan. 1895<\/span>) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Thursday 26 December<\/span>
\nretold by\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Henry James (*1843)<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0third narrator<\/span><\/p>\n\n
The title page of Jane Eyre is dated 1847. It is unlikely that Henry James knew that the novel\u2019s\u00a0first volume was published as late as 16 October. This while the heroine refers to the second\u00a0volume, which definitely dates her arrival at Bly in the summer of a later year.<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n