In BOOK + MOVIE, I feature one book and its film adaptation(s) and tell you if the movie versions are as good as the source material. I'm quite aware that films & novels are different mediums, but I'm only comparing the general mood and how it affects me as a reader & viewer.
With a plethora of movies nowadays with "I-betcha-didn't-see-that-coming" plots, sometimes, I just wanna think that
The Innocents is just a simple ghost story. But after reading Henry James'
The Turn of the Screw, I'm convinced that there's more to the story than ghosts or delusional protagonists. The way James wrote almost everything in an ambiguous way that forces the readers to decide and convince themselves what really happened makes this one of the best novella of its kind that I've read.
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Author: Henry James
Year Published: 1898
# of pages: 157
Genre: novella, horror gothic fiction
Country: U.K., U.S. |
Baffling us by clearly indicating that the main character could be unstable, and the one character that supports her could also be unreliable in a way that it's clear she's submissive, while supplying us with sufficient head-scratching moments coming from the uncannily intuitive children, makes us reconsider the plausibility of otherworldly presence in the house.
Are there really ghosts? Or are there just loose screws in The Governess' head? That's just what makes this story stand out.
