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Early James At His Best
Though James rejected this tale for inclusion in the New York Edition of his works, presumably because it was too simple and straightforward, many readers have not shared his judgment, insisting instead the work has great merit.
Its theme is an intriguing one that raises the following question: Is it better to be clever or good? Even here, for James, the answer is not all that simple, his conclusion being it's probably best to be some subtle combination of both.
Dr. Sloper and Morris Townsend, the central male figures, are clever men, but each is deficient in his own way. The caustically witty Doctor wants to be just, but his pride in being right about Morris as a fortune hunter ultimately overrides his fatherly concerns. For this reason, he becomes a sort of Hawthorne-like villain, a scientific, detached, almost gleeful observer of his own daughter's plight, rather than a suitably caring parent. He suffers, finally, not from an excess of cleverness, but from a defect of generous felt emotion. Morris, too, is a definitely clever character, but at the same time he's the spoiled creation of enabling women, a boy-man who's more a self-interested player at life than a vital participant in it, an early version of the fatherless "It's all about me" youth of later modern fiction.
The heroine Catherine is a sorely beset young woman, pulled this way and that, now by her right-at-all-costs father, then by her fortune hunting suitor. She is a good, dutiful daughter throughout, though the novel details her growth in intelligent personhood. She finally gains the independence needed to tell her manipulative father where his parental rights end and her own moral self begins. Similarly, once her education in life is complete, she is able to avoid a final romantic capitulation, telling the shameless Morris in the novel's last scene what her mature self now requires he hear from her. Naturally, he's too self-involved to accurately understand her real character.
This short novel, finally, is rich in witty literary parody. It's closing chapters read like an inverted "Odyssey," with the patiently waiting Catherine weaving embroidery in Penelope-like fashion, until the surprise return of the long wandering Morris. All in all, despite the masterly author's doubts, this is a work of considerable distinction.
'94 Blackstone Audio is AWFUL
The 1994 Blackstone Audio Book version of "Turn of the Screw" is read by Pat Bottino. Mr. Bottino's uninspired presentation destroyed the story.
Perhaps Mr. Bottino got better in later ventures, I don't know, but he mangled "Turn".
Avoid this version at all costs.
the sacrificial American girl
Washington Square can be read as an upper-class fairy tale. Catherine Sloper has the tendency to see the people around her as if they were characters in a novel. Her father's education has been based on safeguarding Catherine from the vulgarity of "appearance". He is mostly concerned with her daughter not being overdressed. But how is she to learn not to overestimate her acquaintances? The influence of her aunt, a woman of powerful romantic imagination, misleads the young Catherine in her view and opinion of the young and dazzling Morris Townsend. Is he really madly in love with her? What has made this young gentleman worthy of receiving the benefit of every doubt in the Sloper household? Catherine seems to lose her sense of her rights in this relationship: "she had only a consciousness of immense and unexpected favours".
The problem is that Aunt Penniman delights in a drama, and the young Townsend has too high a sense of performance himself to disappoint her. A kiss and an embrace may no longer be a demonstration of affection, but a "sign". The poor bachelorette does not think too much about it, and will take whatever comes her way. Can this man be untrue to her when he says that she is irresistible? Is he in love or is he mercenary?
In the opinion of Dr Sloper, the young Townsend is out to seek his fortune through marriage. He has been reckless in his early youth, squandering his small fortune. But is it too despicable of him to seek to remake his life through matrimony? How are we to draw the moral profile of such a person? Are we capable of mercy, or only of Sloper's smug scorn of Catherine's need for love? It seems to be the case that the "interested" Morris may be altogether more likeable than Catherine's father.
When is the right moment to leave a partner whom one mistrusts? Isn't it better to suffer for a twelvemonth and then get over it than to commit oneself for life to someone unworthy of our cares, be it boyfriend or Dad? Is Morris really a selfish idler? On the occasion of her being disinherited, would Morris still care to marry an unattractive and impoverished girl?
Cosmopolitanism is in the novel a measure of young Catherine's incapacity to develop. After her father takes her for an artistic tour of Europe, she hasn't managed to grow into a "wiser" woman. But how is wisdom to be measured? She becomes withdrawn from her tactless and proud father. After she has been cruelly jilted, Dr Sloper is perverse enough to mock her having lost her chance to marry a charming young man. One is led to believe that Sloper had some Freudian attachment to his daughter, who had come to substitute his her beautiful mother in Sloper's heart. James's understanding of romantic and human emotions is deeply moving.
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