The Turn of the Screw

By: Henry James / Narrated By: Penelope Rawlins, Ben Elliot

Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins

The return of a favorite… yesssss!

This, The Turn of the Screw, makes its return just in time for a Halloween week listen.

And I’ll just say it: You’re either gonna love it, or you’re gonna hate it.

Me? I love the dratted thing, preCISEly for all the reasons that most loooooathe it: The language, the histrionics, the mystery, the oh so abrupt ending that makes you wonder what just happened to not quite 5-hours of your life.

As in all olden-types of this era’s literature, the story opens with a gathering of individuals who are DYING to hear a story, one that titillates even as it spooks and creeps the audience right outta their skins. A gentleman knows a creepy story, one straight from the horse’s mouth. It was given to him by the very woman it happened to, and it’s of a woman looking backwards in time.

And so it goes. A very young woman, in dire need of employment, gets a gig as a governess. She’s hired by a gentleman who has inherited two newly orphaned children, and he’d really rather not be bothered about their upkeep. He hires the young woman with the proviso that she not, never, ooh undoubtedly noooo, get in touch with him.

She agrees to this rather amiably. She shall go into the country to care for little Flora and young Miles. At first all is well. Flora is a beautiful little gem, but then things start to go all sideways-like, when Miles is sent home for doing something all bad, but nobody knows what; info is not forthcoming. Miles, two years older than Flora who is 8, is absolutely exquisite in his youthful perfection.

But then things start getting creepy as the governess discovers the unthinkable: Two ghosts inhabit the country house, and they wander along out on estate grounds. Worse? Both Flora and Miles commune with them, apparently. Even WORSE? These ghosts are of evil intent.

This starts freaking the governess out, big time. She confides in Mrs. Grose, all her fears. And as the ghosts become more active, the governess gets more and more spastic, more and more hysterical. She does NOT want the children taken, have them damned to some weird whatever.

The thing is? The listener starts wondering what, exactly, is real? The kids are way creepy, say the oddest most damning things. But seriously, that young woman is getting shrill and desperate. And is she the only one who can see the ghosts, two old employees from a few years back?

Is it just her and the kids against the world? Or is it just her?

This is my favorite version of the story, preferable even to the narration that Emma Thompson delivers. Emma’s, forgive me but ‘tis so, a trifle too old for the portrayal here of a young woman in over her head. THAT version made it so that only one answer was possible. Which casts out a goodly amount of sheer fun. Big Sis thought it was one thing, and I offered another possibility. Fun! All this because of the tiptop narration by Penelope Rawlins, who sounds exACTly like a young woman painted into a corner, at the end of her rope, on the brink of HORRIFIC insanity. Ben Elliot provides the setup for what’s to come in a nice and eerie manner, but Rawlins takes over the show perfectly.

Yeh yeh yeh. P’raps there IS only one thing right and proper, only one way it truly can be taken, but I’m totally a sucker for ambiguity. And the abrupt ending? Awesome. Ended just the way it should given that the listener has been watching the devolvement of a mind teetering on the edge.

Brava for this performance of one o’ m’ Fave stories. And yessss to ANY Halloween celebration that includes this story!!!