The Turn of the Screw, one hundred pages in this edition, is Henry James' best known novella. Ostensibly a ghost story, it tells the tale of a governess sent to a house to take care of two children. After being at the house for a few days she begins to see dead people that she believes are communicating with the children. It's pretty straight forward with a decent twist at the end. Check it out if you please.
I liked this story, but, having never read anything else by James, I was more impressed with James' unique style of prose. I look forward to reading another of his works. His most well known novels are: The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, and The Wings of the Dove. He wrote many though.
His brother, William James, was also a famous intellectual. He was a well known American philosopher and psychologist who taught on a wide variety of subjects, from anatomy to philosophy and psychology, at Harvard, beginning in 1873. One of William's most widely acclaimed works is The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study of Human Nature, a psychological look at the various ways that people approach and are affected by religion. It is listed as No. 2 on the Modern Library's critics list of the top 100 nonfiction books of the 20th Century, so, if you are in the mood for some nonfiction and are interested in taking a deeper look at religion, check this book out also.
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1 comment:
I had read a bunch of the fiction ones on the 100 greatest list which I checked out, but I was severely lacking on the greatest non-fiction. I hadn't even heard of most of the non-fiction ones, much less read them. Anyways, I have heard of this book, but haven't ever thought to read it. Thanks for the advice!
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