The Least Scary Story & Some Frightening Facts
Book Choice for October 2020: The Turn of The Screw by Henry James
**As ever, this review contains tons of vague Spoilers**
Hello again Dear Readers, today I invite you to travel back with me to the prettiest month, the ghostliest month, lovely October, which, separated as it is from us by the first week of November 2020, otherwise known as the longest week in recorded history, seems now so very, very far away.
You may not have realized it, but the above paragraph, written using approximately six hundred and forty commas, with little interjections and some phrases which turn back upon each other and run the risk of making little to no coherent sense, is an accurate reproduction of Henry James’ writing style.
Ughhhhhh.
One of the things I was most looking forward to in my proscriptive reading this year was getting to read a ghost story in October, in the run-up to Halloween. Well, my hopes of something spooky were completely dashed by the Turn of the Screw, which was so harmless I don’t even know how to begin to describe it. I picked up an Oxford paperback edition, which also included some other absolutely innocuous stories, namely Sir Edward Orme, which features a slight hallucination, one which probably could be cured by not eating too late at night, Owen Wingrave which is a story in which nothing may have happened at all, although the police should question everyone that case is not going to hold up in court, and The Friends of Friends, which features wedding jitters. I mean, basically.
All of these I read on the way to reading the Turn of the Screw, saving it for last, holding out hope. Ohmygoodness, was it ever boring. I know, I know, Henry James is supposed to be this great master. I know, I know, its supposed to be deeply psychological. Let’s be honest, it was vague and bland and should have been told in 15 pages, not 100. I was soooo disappointed. I’m sure I’m supposed to be a lot more appreciative of the subtle nuances blah blah—-but the back of the book features a quote from a newspaper (circa 1900 we must remember) wherein the Turn of the Screw was called “the most evil story we have ever read.”
Its absolutely forgettable, and after the initial few jump-outs, you will be waiting and waiting for a payoff that never comes. Better luck (to me!) next year. I obviously like my ghost stories full of burning eyes, unexplained appearances, premonitions, and the sensing of evil or doom. Real evil or doom—danger! Obsession! Revenge! You know, like the plots most ghost stories have—the ones people actually sit around and tell each other—possibly our last personal experiences of storytelling in this modern age are the suspicious events that have happened to us, or to a friend of a friend (or very often for some reason, to our grandmothers). The Turn of the Screw is meant as a work of art—-but did anyone ever actually enjoy it?
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Let’s move on from all that, with some Truly Frightening Tales. Its about time for a thesis update, but I am almost too paranoid to talk about it. You see, during the first half of November, during some Truly Scary times for the US and far beyond its borders, a youngish-lady sat typing in front of a florescent screen in the creepy-dark early mornings….and she realized…that the section she had been saving to write-up last (probably she had had some presentiment of perdition) has, like a monster outside her control, grown to a huge size, and an equally terrifying importance, and our heroine simply did not see this coming. But she should have [insert moralistic Victorian overtones]. Basically, she thought she had ordered her thoughts well in the first 3 chapters and made all her points. Then, at what feels like 30 seconds before midnight, she realized: the final section IS the point, it is the WHOLE point of this work she has laboured so long to set up well and ground in justifiable fact—-but who cares about that—the enormous, unconquerable (?) section is what the people will come for. And there is still so, soooooooo much to do.
I’m do apologize. For that ramble, for the self-indulgence, and because I can’t be any more specific about what the problem is, because it makes my stomach churn. Remember April? When I was practically giggling about getting “quarterly flashes of insight” that lead me forward in my PhD, and show me the way? Well, I’ve realized they aren’t just beautiful illuminations—-they are painful!! albeit necessary. However, I am very glad that I had this realization now, about what the point is, rather than getting this clarity next February, because that truly would be too late. One often hears people say that they didn’t really understand their PhD until they were at the end of it—-but even I cannot delude myself that I am somehow ahead of the game now, I feel so very far behind, despite this unbidden revelation.
But this REALLY IS research, right? Going down a misty road with a dim lantern? Then one realizes, someone already wrote that road (bear with me) so you dive off into the undergrowth—maybe there is a dropped footnote here, or some old, forgotten diaries or excavation reports of explorers long dead—then you start thrashing around in the weeds, getting all mucky, you start counting things, you write it up, you are pleased and growing more confident…usually after this point (now THIS is a twist, Henry James!) you finally read that 40 page German article that you’ve had shut in your desk drawer for 3 years; and you find out that someone coolly published your discovery in 1995.
The final creepy story in this collection concerns our greatest of all fears, greater even than missing a citation, if it can be believed, greater than a deadline, in fact, it concerns the Ultimate Deadline…..(woooooooo)
So, months have passed and I have diligently been taking my thyroid medicine. It was time to go back to the doctor, all was well and she prescribed me more, of the same dosage, and told me to come back in 4 more months. She also had the good news that I had moved from a 5.1 of something, to a 1.0—-I truly have no idea what this scale is, but I hope it is the German marking system where a 1,0 is a perfect grade. I was delighted at having made such “progress” and said so. And she said, direct quote: “Yes, I am glad we are treating it now. If we didn’t treat it, you would die.”
Oh.
I was under the impression that if I didn’t take this medicine I would be back to having rough afternoons, and my quality of life would be kind of meh. I didn’t realize that it was um, REALLY GOOD, that I happened to go to the doctor and they happened to find it and happened to treat me, although I barely understand what is going on. It seems like I have let this hang on a real crapshoot…I just could have just as easily NOT begun treatment. And I don’t know WHEN the deathly effects would have kicked in, like, would it have been years (impossible to know by her verbal tense) and would I have gotten some other warnings beyond being tired? I’m not gonna lie, I came home a bit shaken.
This feeling was compounded by the fact that when I asked “Why?” has this happened (I’m not sure if you are allowed to ask doctors why) she told me that this type of thyroid problem is a relatively new development, they aren’t so much in her generation, now it is young people, and lots of them, who are developing them.
As that is terrifying, I asked again, “Why?”
She said, “Well, the environment is changing a lot. It could be from pollution, or preservatives in food.”
I thanked her and left, and I did have a little cry at home.
We’re all screwed.
It really is ending. The world I mean. We are starting to actually be impacted by the things we have done, the alterations we have made (beyond the general frying and drying of the earth). We aren’t going to be able to live here anymore. It’s going to destroy us…I mean, we are going to destroy us. And its not in the distant future, its happening now. We are not living the same lives our recent ancestors did; the environment has changed so much.
As for the ghosts…