The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 2 March 1998
by Henry James
Henry James, one of America's greatest (if, using this book as an example, among the most grim) novelists. His short tale of a governess isolated with two orphan children is both haunting and frightening. There are surprising intimations of physical or sexual abuse peculiarly modern for its time (published in 1897). Its disturbing ambiguity may leave the reader wondering about the very sanity of its narrator. The children, Flora and Miles, are enchanting to the governess, but spooky apparitions about the estate where they are sequestered convince her that supernatural forces are bent on the children's destruction. Her narration, though, waxes and wanes from convincing to paranoid, leaving much room for the reader's horrific interpretation. This intricate invention is a fascinating appeal to the reader's imagination, making the book just as haunting and convincing as the reader wishes it to be. A peculiar classic.
Also by Henry James: [The American]
See also: [The Master by Colm Tóibín]