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
\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
\nThe 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><\/span>\u201cWe say, of course,\u201d somebody exclaimed, \u201cthat they give two turns! Also that\u00a0we want to hear about them.\u201d\u00a0<\/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\u00a0Ladder-edition<\/a>\u00a0by Adrian Dover. And to be\u00a0aware that Henry James once described\u00a0The Turn of the Screw<\/i>\u00a0 as<\/p>\n
\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
—<\/span><\/p>\n
go to next chapter<\/a>\u00a0– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/span>\u00a0back to the previous chapter<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n
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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 … Continue reading