Category: Fiction

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I first started to read The Turn of the Screw by Henry James a few years ago soon after I bought it. I stopped reading, mainly, I think, because it seemed so slow to get going with long, convoluted sentences that seem to drag the story down. So, it was with low expectations that I began once more to read it. I was surprised. This time the story didn’t drag, the sentence structure didn’t bother me and I became engrossed in the tale. It’s an ideal book for the RIP Challenge.

The Turn of the Screw

But is it a ghost story or a psychological study? Either way there are creepy, disturbing things going on. It’s a story within a story, told as a ghost story to a group of people as they sit gathered round a fire in an old house. It tells of two children and their governess. She has been employed by their uncle who wants nothing to do with them. Their previous governess had died under mysterious circumstances (was it in childbirth?).  The older child, Miles, was away at school and soon after the new governess arrives Miles returns home, expelled from school for some terrible unexplained offence.

The children seem to the governess to be beautiful, little angels, but are they as innocent as they seem? And can they see the ghosts or not? Is the governess imagining them, peering in menacingly through the windows, standing silently and staring from the top of a tower, or gazing intently across a lake. Are they the ghosts of Miss Jessel, the previous governess and Peter Quint, also a previous employer? What relationship did they have with the children? Do they still have a hold over the children? These questions are never fully answered and the governess, aided (or not?) by the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, becomes increasingly unhinged by all the events. I think it’s all the better for the ambiguity.

The story is dark and melodramatic, about good and evil and with hints of sexual relations, reflecting the Victorian society of the time. The Turn of the Screw is based on a ghost story told to James by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson. It was first published in 12 instalments in Collier’s Weekly, a popular,  illustrated New York magazine in 1898.  By that time his wrist was too painful to actually write the story and he dictated  it to his secretary, William MacAlpine, who typed as James spoke.

My copy of the book  is in the Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series, edited by Peter G Beidler. It contains not just the text, but critical essays from four contemporary critical perspectives, plus explanations of the biographical, historical and cultural contexts. I haven’t yet read much of the additional material as I wanted to see what I made of it myself. Just scanning the essays I think they show the widely different interpretations and controversies this book has aroused and should prove very interesting reading.

Ireland Reading Challenge 2011 Update

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

The Ireland Reading Challenge is being run by Carrie at Books and Movies. It involves reading any book written by an Irish author, set in Ireland, or involving Irish history or Irish characters. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, audiobooks, children’s books ‘“ all of these apply.

I have now completed the first level, Shamrock,  by reading these two books, both by Irish authors:

Two very different books!

The Luck o’ the Irish is next level of the Challenge, and it involves reading another two books. With a bit of luck I should manage this by the end of the year! :) Oops just realised the Challenge ends at the end of November!

My choice of books, from my stock of to-be-read books is this:

  • Anybody Out There by Marian Keyes
  • The Gathering by Anne Enright
  • Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
  • Sovereignty of Good by Iris Murdoch
  • Ulysses by James Joyce ‘“ if I read that next year I’ll be really pleased (and surprised)!
  • The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
  • Watchman by Ian Rankin
  • Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy

I might try Iris Murdoch’s Sovereignty of Good next – a bit of philosophy, that should make a change!

The House of Stairs by Barbara Vine: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I finished reading The House of Stairs, the  third psychological thriller by Barbara Vine yesterday. It is a most remarkable book, in that it turns a murder mystery upside down, as it were. It is clear from the start that there has been a murder and the murderer is known – she has just been released from prison. But who did she murder? Why, where, when and how? The other characters all know – but not the reader.

The crime is only revealed very gradually, building up the suspense and tension in a series of flashbacks, as you realise the how, the where and the when, but only by inference – guesswork on my part really. The why too, can be worked out, but as for the who – I kept changing my mind, only finally deciding it must be this person, just a few pages before the denouement.  Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara  Vine certainly sets a puzzle, a tangled web of characters, situations, and psychological profiles. And, of course, there is a certain ambiguity right at the end. It’s not a book you can read quickly, but it certainly kept me turning the pages wanting to know what had happened.

The first person narrator is Elizabeth, who is told a terrible secret about her mother and lives her life as a consequence in fear of inheriting the family disease. At the beginning of the book she sees her old friend Bell, and follows her at a short distance, not sure it really is her. It gives her a sense of unease and a quiver of panic bringing back memories of earlier events that had resulted in Bell’s imprisonment for murder fourteen years ago.

She and Bell and a number of other characters (who come and go) lived with Cosette in the House of Stairs, so called because it’s a big house on five floors with a staircase of 106 stairs.  Cosette had been married to Elizabeth’s mother’s cousin and they came to view each other as mother and daughter. Cosette is a caring character, very tolerant and easy-going, one who welcomes other people into her home, who listens to them and leaves them feeling revitalized. Bell, however, is cold and uncaring. The menace is felt as Bell climbs the stairs to her room on the top floor, the 104th step creaking as she does so and enters the room, the room with the dangerous window that came down to no more than six inches or so from the floor (page 121).

There is so much I could write about this book. For one thing there are various allusions to Henry James’s work, which Elizabeth is studying hoping to write a thesis about James – to say any more would be to reveal too much.  Another allusion is to Tennyson’s poem Mariana and one that interested me greatly to a painting by Bronzino of Lucrezia Panciatichi, dressed in a beautiful red gown. It reminds Elizabeth of Bell, and when she wears a similar red dress found in Cosette’s belongings the resemblance is striking. I found a reproduction of the painting on Wikipedia:

Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi (circa 1540), Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Lucrezia Panciatichi by Angelo Bronzino

Elizabeth has a thought, which struck me as particularly chilling. She looks at people

… wondering which of them, if any, are like her. I mean like her in that they have killed someone and been sent to prison for it, served their sentence and come out again. It is a new phenomenon. Murderers used to be hanged.

Now they are set free and come back to live among us. Or to exist. I look at people and I wonder. … ordinary people looking like everyone else, having ordinary jobs, perhaps living next door. (page 212)

The House of Stairs:

  • Paperback: 282 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin 1989
  • Source: I bought the book (a secondhand copy)
  • Rating 4/5

Barbara Vine’s earlier psychological thrillers are:

Odd: Booking Through Thursday

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

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This week Deb asks:

What’s the oddest book you’ve ever read? Did you like it? Hate it? Did it make you think?
I’ve read plenty of odd books, some of which I’ve not liked, and some I’ve enjoyed immensely. They certainly make me think. Actually I think a lot of books I read can be classed as ‘odd’, in one way or another, but as for the oddest – that’s very hard to decide.

The People's Act of Love by James MeekOne that came to mind as an odd subject is The People’s Act of Love by James Meek. I read this before I’d started this blog and just have a brief note saying that I thought it was ‘strange’. My memory tells me it was chilling, disgusting in parts yet compelling reading in others. Anyway, I finished it, so it can’t have been that bad. There’s an enthusiastic reviewby Irvine Welsh in the Guardian 9 July 2005.

Lambs of God by Marele DayAnother one is Lambs of God by Marele Day, one I enjoyed much more than the Meek book. It’s another book I read in my pre-blog days. On the back cover it’s described as

a mesmerising novel with the power of all the best fiction – that of shining an oddly angled and penetrating light on the real world. This is the conflict of the church of the primitive saints and the church of worldliness and simony; the struggle between them is as gripping as a thriller.

I thought it was very strange, about three nuns who, for example have a Haircut Day, once a year, followed by Shearing Day for the sheep they look after. I fancy re-reading it – if only I had time!

Dracula by Bram Stoker: Book Notes

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

These are my thoughts and reactions on reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

I knew the story of Dracula from film and TV versions – with most notably Christopher Lee and later Louis Jourdan as Dracula, but have steered clear of reading Bram Stoker’s book until now. I didn’t really know what to expect from the book but I was interested to know how Stoker described Dracula, was it anything like the film versions? This is what he looked like when Jonathan Harker first entered Castle Dracula:

… a tall old man, clean-shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere.

… he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength that made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice – more like the hand of a dead man than a living man.

… His face was a strong – a very strong – aquiline, with high bridge of nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily around the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over his nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. (pages 22 – 25)

Not like the film versions I’ve seen.

Dracula is composed of letters, journal entries, newspaper articles and transcripts of phonograph diary entries, from several characters, so the story is told from several different viewpoints. Stoker used a variety of sources in telling his tale – folklore, myths and legends and historical facts, all blended together with his own inventions. It’s a very scenic novel, and I could easily imagine the locations  – most memorable are those describing Jonathan Harker’s journey and first meeting with Dracula. Dracula doesn’t eat and has no reflection in a mirror, can change his shape dramatically and grows younger, but apart from the opening chapters he remains an elusive figure.

It’s also a very sensual and melodramatic novel, full of religious references. So there is the question of life after death, the existence of the soul, the triumph of good over evil, the nature of sexuality,  fear and superstition. Vampires are at the same time appealing and repulsive. Much use is made of hypnotism and putting people into trances. I was struck by the comparison with Christianity – Dracula drinks the blood of his victims and has everlasting life as one of the Un-Dead and Christ gave his life to redeem the world. It reminded me of the Communion Service – this is my body, this is my blood.

It is too an adventure story with a final chase scene and a love story. It reflects the time in which it was written, with women seen as frail creatures unable to withstand the danger that the men confront. Mina Harker, that most resourceful woman, is left behind whilst the men seek out Dracula and plan to kill him. I was puzzled – why was she left alone with no cross and garlic flowers to protect her when the men were fully armed? The outcome was predictable.

I found the character of Renfield most interesting. He is one of Dr Seward’s most dangerous patients in the lunatic asylum, who wavers between lucid and intelligent episodes and sheer madness. His hobby is catching flies and eating them. He progresses to eating spiders and birds.

I thought it was a fascinating book, found it thought-provoking, both whilst I was reading and after. A book which certainly qualifies for the RIP Challenge.

Crime Fiction on a Europass: Italy

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

Kerrie’s  Crime Fiction Europass stops in Italy this week, which gives me the opportunity to write about David Hewson‘s Italian mysteries featuring Detective Nic Costa and his partner Gianni Peroni. The books in this series are:

  • A Season for the Dead (2003)
  • The Villa of Mysteries (2004)
  • The Sacred Cut (2005)
  • The Lizard’s Bite (2006)
  • The Seventh Sacrament (2007)
  • The Garden of Evil (2008) Shortlisted for Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award 2009.
  • Dante’s Numbers (revised edition The Dante Killings in the US) (2008)
  • The Blue Demon (City Of Fear in the US) (2009)
  • The Fallen Angel (2011)
  • Carnival for the Dead (2012)

This is a new series for me and I’ve jumped in to read the fourth book, The Lizard’s Bite, I hope I shouldn’t have read the earlier books before this one.

 

In a dilapidated glass furnace off the island of Murano the fire races out of control. Two people are dead, and for Leo Falcone, exiled to Venice, with Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni, the question is whether he’s dealing with one murderer or two.

For Costa, life in Venice is more perplexing on other fronts too. His relationship with Emily Deacon is deepening, and she is missing the law enforcement work she’s abandoned for a different, quieter career. Slowly, the sluggish world of the lagoon begins to enfold the Romans in its sinister grip, as they try to untangle the complex family ties of the tragic Arcangeli family on a private island falling into ruin. (Description copied from David Hewson’s website)