The Turn of the Screw cover art

The Turn of the Screw

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The Turn of the Screw

By: Henry James
Narrated by: Simon Vance, Vanessa Benjamin
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About this listen

 One of the world's most famous intellectual ghost stories, The Turn of the Screw is a haunting tale of suspected supernatural possession. A governess at a country house claims that Miles and Flora, two orphaned children in her care, are being controlled by spirits for some evil purpose. No one else can see the ghosts, and the children themselves are silent. Are they being dominated by spectral forces, or are they hiding something? Is the governess simply paranoid, or is something else going on?

With its possibly ambiguous content and powerful narrative technique, the story challenges the listener to determine if the unnamed governess is correctly reporting events or is instead an unreliable neurotic with an overheated imagination.

©2006 Henry James (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Classics Genre Fiction Ghosts Horror Philosophy Psychological Society Horror Fiction

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All stars
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I’ve listened to many audiobooks and by far this was the oddest! The narration however was brilliant.

Odd story

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Much preferred the film - unusual for me. I usually prefer the book (or audiobook). In this case, the speed of the narration is such that it's very hard to understand. With printed text, it's possible to go back to the start of the (full page) sentence and give it another shot.

A little impenetrable

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this is meant to be a classic but for me it was one I could not really get into and finish

difficult to get through

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I read this wanting to understand whether the source material for much of The Haunting of Bly Manor’ gave any insights into the Netflix adaptation. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. Quite the reverse, in fact… what you know from Bly Manor confuses and corrupts your understanding of the source.

The Turn of The Screw is supposed to be confusing and unclear. The point of it is that you need to work out whether the Governess recording her account is a reliable witness. Those of us coming to it from Bly will be certain she is: but in the book that’s pretty unlikely. It’s been adapted so often precisely because the book itself is so open to interpretation. Unresolved it lives in the memory of your mind tries to work out the puzzle.

In terms of the performance… it’s ok, but I found myself unable to focus on it for long. I suspect that this book is stronger in print than in audiobook, and that the mind wanders at precisely the points where our narrator becomes more confused. Next time I’ll stick to the source. Glad I heard it though.

A confusing novel, better read than heard

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I wanted to read this book because I had seen so many TV and film adaptations that I wanted to know for myself what James was saying with regards to whether the governess was indeed having a ghostly encounter or if it was all in her mind. Much as I enjoyed this book, I am unfortunately none-the-wiser, and resorting to Wiki, can see that I am not the only one, with the 'reality' of the ghosts vs. the state of governess' mind a point of great contention. An interesting listen which I am glad I bought.

Good

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Well read creepy gothic novel that I listened to in one sitting xx 😳

creepy

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I quit at the halfway mark. I kept waiting for it to get better. Imagine prissy, victorian women gasping and being horrified 24/7, more at peoples behaviour than at a ghost. They gasp at each other, gasp at the children, gasp at the servants and suffer histrionics. There is a ghost. It appears at a window and occasionally observes the gaspers...The children are somehow involved but could care less about the ghost. If half-way through, the "mystery" has not managed to capture me...I could care less about the gaspers.

If you want horror, something even vaguely scary...take a pass... if you want frantic hissy-fits, go for it.

Ghost story? More like little women.

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The female reader did well until she tried to speak in the voice of the housekeeper, putting on a “servant” accent that sounded more like Estuary to me. Very distracting. Ugly too. I tried to keep listening but gave up. A nineteenth century servant would have had a pleasant rural burr.

Unconvinced

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First the good points; the production is clean and easy on the ear, perfect for attempts to scare yourself on a late night and in the dark.

But that's where it ended for me. With few exceptions, I was just irritated, mostly by the constantly elliptical nature of the prose and dialogue.

I'm not someone who shies away from complex language or plotting; I don't demand instant satisfaction out of a story, or things to be tidied away neatly, but the baroque sentence construction just had me sighing internally and wishing they'd get on with it.

Perhaps a work that's best suited to the printed page, at least as far as I'm concerned, but as an audiobook I derived very little enjoyment.

Great performance, interminable prose

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I struggled with this, did not even finish it, it's so highly rated, I planed to listen to this then watch the film, not going to bother, slow and boring, hard to follow, not for me

so highly rated, disappointed

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