Henry James\u2019s masterpiece deserves all the protection a well maintained\u00a0omerta<\/i>\u00a0can 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 comfirmed 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. To the result that, because of the information he provided in the appetizer above, 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 headstart 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
\nWhich I did after two decades. When it occurred to me that I knew the story’s outlines from earlier sources.<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\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
\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
\n“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\u00a0(New York ed. ; 1908)<\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\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.<\/p>\n
\nA 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
\n
- \n
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
- \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
In case you don\u2019t buy such foolhardiness, be aware that Henry James once\u00a0described\u00a0The 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\u00a0omerta.<\/i>\u00a0If 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
—<\/span><\/p>\n
go to next chapter<\/a>\u00a0– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/span>\u00a0back to the previous chapter<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n
<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Henry James\u2019s masterpiece deserves all the protection a well maintained\u00a0omerta\u00a0can 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 comfirmed … Continue reading