New York Review of Books Review

"THE TURN OF THE SCREW" is one of the most chilling ghost stories ever, largely because it is so deliciously elusive. Its author, Henry James, refuses to single out the good and the bad, the mad and the sane. Are there malevolent spirits haunting this Essex country home, or is there simply an isolated and nervous young woman whose sanity slowly erodes? It's an amusing but not essential argument. Either way, something nasty is afoot at Bly, and the discomfort is doled out precisely and relentlessly by James. The spareness of the writing gives the story its power and eerie credibility: There are no great, startling, gotcha scares. Instead it's a queasy terror built on unsettling pieces of information; curious reactions; small, pointed lies. As an audiobook reader, the British actress Emma Thompson (she of such distinct sense and sensibility) pairs perfectly for this effect. Certainly nothing bad can happen to this capable young woman with an arch sense of humor - yet it does, and the horror is only magnified by the determined pragmatism with which the story unfolds. After a cursory interview, Thompson's nameless governess travels from London to the countryside to take charge of two young children, Miles and Flora, who are orphans. Their uncle, a dashing fellow with whom our governess becomes a bit smitten, offers one edict: He wants to know absolutely nothing about the children. Not their successes, not their problems, not their welfare. She is to "take the whole thing over and let him alone." It's a strange, unsettling assignment, and herein James begins his subtle but consistent attack on the reader. Upon her arrival at the rambling house in Essex, the governess finds a friend in Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper, an earthy, warm woman - beautifully voiced, like the children, by Thompson - who is so desperately grateful for the arrival of our governess that she's "on her guard against showing it too much." Little Flora is beautiful and sweet and terribly polite. All, it seems, may be well - until Flora's older brother, Miles, arrives home expelled from school, bearing a vague report that declares him "an injury to the others." The governess fiercely ignores such a suggestion: Miles is even more enchanting than his sister: "divine." She is besotted with both of the obedient, golden-haired children. They will stay with her at Bly and make a cozy family. Then the ghosts come, a pair of lovers - a house valet named Quint who came to an ugly end and the children's former nanny, whose death remains a mystery. These are not screeching, wild spirits. Instead they linger. They watch. They want the children, and it seems the children may want them. The ghost story has long been a sneakily feminist realm in which female characters are allowed to do the protecting, the fighting and the heroic deeds, and "The Turn of the Screw" is no different. Says the governess of facing down the spectral Quint: "There was nothing in me there that didn't meet and measure him I had, thank God, no terror. And he knew I had not." She leaves no doubt that this is a woman becoming her own hero - protecting her two young charges against the ravenous ghosts. But the children (as children often do) have other plans. Voiced quite stunningly by Thompson, in a singsong lilt that is not remotely sweet, Miles and Flora are just as unnerving as the speechless ghosts. Thompson has captured perfectly the gentle flirtation of children's manipulation: "When I'm bad I am bad," Miles murmurs. While the ghosts transmit a conscious aura of evil, the children are the true game-players here: As much as the governess is determined to save them, they don't want to be saved. In fact, they want to run headlong into danger. They lie beautifully and sweetly: the sociopathic fibs of children, denial in the face of the obvious. The governess describes one of Flora's lies as "the glitter of a drawn blade." "The Turn of the Screw," first published in 1898, is a story strangely suited for the age of anxious helicopter parenting. It preys on the determination to keep children safe, to watch their every move, to know their inner lives. The fear that around every corner is a stranger who might wish them ill, and that they, in their innocence, may fail to recognize the danger. It's reflected in the governess's increasing panic regarding the whereabouts of her charges - when Miles distracts her, Flora immediately takes the chance to vanish outside, risking her life with dark spirits. There is a reason so many good ghost stories revolve around children: They can be the most able and adamant of liars, yet we want to believe, so fervently, in their innocence. We can't know where they go in their inner lives, those daydream moments in which they seem nearly haunted. In this age of anxiety, in which a child may be in her room and yet, through a laptop, can be anywhere in the world, "The Turn of the Screw" is particularly resonant - every parent's battle to protect children from unnamed malevolence. GILLIAN FLYNN'S novels include, most recently, "Gone Girl." She won a 2015 Edgar Award for "The Grownup," a ghost story.