I decided I needed more of a classical education so that basically translates to finding the dusty section of the library where no one else trespasses and choosing one of those beasts to take home with me.

I read Turn of the Screw because I had seen a horrible movie called In a Dark Place with LeeLee Sobieski that insinuated child molestation and some other very disturbing phenomenon. The movie was as its title suggests dark and moody and in an effort to understand it better, I read the book it was drawn from. Although the book isn’t nearly as graphic as the movie, it has an ambiance of miasmatic pending dread where you’re afraid every page you turn might be the one that leads up to some terrible revelation. The things that makes the story so awful is that the release never comes. It’s an expected thing to build pressure in a reader, but convention gives readers an expectation of release, the moment where the proverbial needle lances the boil and drains the infection of suspense and anxiety. Never happens in this story. When you’re done reading, you take the sickly feeling of “something’s just not right” with you into the waking world. In this sense, I would say it’s a successful ghost story, not because the content is frightening in itself, but because it stays with you even after you close the book.

it was very hard to read. it didn’t seem to mesh. i don’t think i’ll read it again.