"Another Turn of the Screw" remains for me THE quintessential ghost novel, as the cover of my edition of the book states. And I believe that beyond other works within the Gothic genre that marked the beginning of these tales, such as "The Mysteries of Udolpho" (mentioned in this novel) and "The Castle of Otranto", it is this book by Henry James that definitively installs the concept of the spectral, the ominous, and the oppressive in a traditional novel.

Surely there are many more examples in this vast universe of literature, but when a reader desires to venture into these stories, it is very likely that the first title that comes to mind is the title of this book, written by this great novelist, famous for having divided his narrative between England and the United States.
This is one of his most resounding successes, along with other works such as "The Portrait of a Lady", "The Bostonians", "The Aspern Papers", and "The Ambassadors". His work is vast and unforgettable, and is still read worldwide today.
This novel also installs another crucial question in the narrative, which refers to the different points of view of the characters, since each one has its own vision of what it sees or believes to see.
First, we have the main character, the unnamed governess (we never know her name) who arrives at a huge mansion in Bly to care for and educate two supposedly charming children, named Miles and Flora. There she will meet the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, a character who is not so secondary and who will have a lot to do with what happens from the first "encounters" of the governess with strange presences.
The novel has had multiple interpretations, and all of them always fall on the governess, since as the chapters progress, the reader begins to ask certain questions: Are the ghosts of the previous governess, who return to the mansion to "stay" with the children and terrorize her? When reading the novel, we learn the story of Miss Jessel, who was young and beautiful like her and who died under strange circumstances, and also of the servant, Mr. Quint, supposedly violent, cruel, and promiscuous, who was found dead some time ago and who, apparently, both do not rest in peace.
Does the governess suffer from hallucinations? Is she mentally unbalanced? Is she going crazy? Is she paranoid? All these questions begin to be installed in our heads, but the answers clash with each other since all of them acquire a very certain probability. One of the most significant passages related to these questions occurs when the governess and Flora meet on the shores of the Sea of Azov lake, and I believe that it is the best scene in this novel.
There she is, Flora, and Miss Jessel. Is Miss Jessel there? The governess is seeing her, and Jessel looks at her with a demonic and truly spectral gaze, but Flora... Does she see her? Or does she see her and tell the governess that she doesn't?
This is how the encounters with the ghosts are set up, which at the beginning are between the governess and them through windows in the case of Mr. Quint and on the stairs and in the rooms when it happens with Miss Jessel, until the children and also Mrs. Grose begin to participate in them.
Everything seems so clear to the governess, but so confusing to the reader, and this is the game that Henry James leads us to with such mastery and genius. Because we will never know if the children know and don't want to say it or if the governess's mind is on the way to an inevitable mental collapse. This is how things are set up already from the third chapter, and the story will end with some points not closed, but keeping us, the readers, really expectant of what might happen.
"Another Turn of the Screw" makes allusions to terms such as terror, fear, hallucination, suggestion, ghosts, ambiguity, death, and to literary genres such as the Gothic, classic terror, mystery, psychological terror, or thriller.
This is so well told by Henry James that he himself felt a little afraid when he delivered the proofs to the editor, saying, "At the end, I was so scared that I was afraid to go to bed."
I can imagine what it caused in 1891 and beyond, that today's terror, starting from geniuses like Stephen King, can be considered much superior to the terror told by Henry James, but this novel never lost its relevance.
I read this book for the first time and was fascinated. I read it a second time when I studied Literature and it enchanted me again.
And even today, I'm still trying to give it another turn of the screw...

-Don't you see her as we see her? Can't you see her now..., right now? She's as big as a bonfire! Just look, good woman! Look!

Read this because of the new movie coming out soon. I always read the book before seeing the movie, even if it's going to be modern. And I have to say it was pretty good for an old horror story.

I really liked the setting. I mean, who doesn't love an old spooky mansion? It added a lot of atmosphere to the story. The characters were also quite enjoyable. They had their own unique personalities and quirks.

However, to be honest, I've had scarier nightmares. At times, I was just wondering when it would end more than what was happening to the characters. And at times, it was hard to understand what was happening. This is something I haven't had happen with Austen, Dickens, Hardy, or Twain.

Overall, it was an okay read. But it's not a reread for sure. Maybe the movie will be better and will bring more life to the story. I'm looking forward to seeing it and comparing it to the book.

Romanul horror și realismul psihologic sunt combinate cu succes în această opera a lui Henry James. Stilul său este tipic, cu o frazeologie complexă și o abundență de descrieri și metafore care contribuie la menținerea suspansului. Cititorul va fi permanent cuprins de un sentiment de neliniște și va avea mereu senzația că ceva malefic și violent pandă în spatele fiecărui cotlon.

Cei care își așteaptă ca horrorul să se manifeste în mod evident și direct vor avea o dezamăgire. În carte nu există nici vampiri sau alte creaturi și nici așa-numitele "jump scare"-uri specifice filmelor de horror actuale. Groaza este construită atent, pas cu pas și acționează în mod psihologic asupra personajelor și cititorului.

Personal, am admirat și apreciat această subtilitate, această manipulare fină a elementelor de groază. Singurul lucru care mi-a displacut a fost că a durat prea puțin. De asemenea, mi-ar fi dorit un final mai puternic sau poate mai diferit. Cu toate acestea, această carte este o opera de artă și o lectură fascinantă pentru cei interesati în genul horrorului și al psihologiei.

Narrated by Emma Thompson, I had the pleasure of re-reading this classic, gothic novella for the third time. It's truly a captivating experience.

I'm aware that many readers may not be overly impressed by this book. However, for me, it holds a special charm that keeps drawing me back. Yes, I know it can be rather verbose, especially when considering its relatively short length. But within those words, I discovered more than a few sentences that sent shivers down my spine.

I've always had a penchant for psychological horror and ambiguous stories. This novella hits most of the marks for me, delving deep into the recesses of the human mind and leaving room for interpretation. My original rating of the book, a solid 4 stars, still stands. It's a testament to the enduring power of this classic work.

Nothing will ever beat pms' review of this book.

However, here's a haunted house list that I made, and it has its own merits.

The list can be found at http://www.rifflebooks.com/list/20794....

This list offers a curated selection of haunted houses that are sure to send shivers down your spine.

Each entry on the list provides detailed information about the haunted house, including its history, the reported paranormal activities, and any tips or warnings for those brave enough to visit.

Whether you're a die-hard horror fan or just looking for a thrilling adventure, this haunted house list is a great resource.

So, check it out and see if any of these spooky locations pique your interest.

Just remember, enter at your own risk!

Henry James is a renowned author, and his work titled "The Turn of the Screw" is classified within the realm of horror literature. It was first published in 1898. This classic ghost story was likely quite terrifying during the time of its release. The narrative unfolds as a chilling encounter between ghosts and a governess entrusted with the care of children in the eerie atmosphere of a rural estate. The story is set in a dark and mysterious rural environment, which adds to the overall sense of dread and unease. As the governess attempts to protect the children from the malevolent spirits, she finds herself in a battle of wits and courage. The vivid descriptions and psychological depth in the story make it a captivating and spine-tingling read.

Many aspects of this book are quite agreeable. The gothic horror element and the battle between evil and innocence rather than a straightforward good-versus-evil narrative add an interesting layer. However, 'The Turn of the Screw' is extremely ambiguous. It's so open to interpretation that one can easily conclude there's no single 'correct' way to read it. The truth is, I simply wasn't invested enough in the story and its characters to truly care.

The plot, on the surface, is simple. A governess takes on a new post at Bly to look after two orphaned children now in the care of their uncle. But with constant ghostly sightings, strange noises, and supernatural events, the safety of those living there is far from assured. The author really tightens the screws on everyone, making it incredibly difficult to determine who has a connection with the supernatural world and why.

The writing style was indeed very good and was perhaps the best part of the book. However, everything else seemed to be lacking in some regard. Even the writing had its frustrating moments for me. While I do appreciate extravagant and elegant prose at times, I don't like it when it's ostentatious just for the sake of trying to be 'clever' or overly convoluted. I'm certain there are less complicated ways to convey messages like this.

At times, the author managed to create the perfect haunting atmosphere, only to have it almost disappear. The characterisation started off well but then devolved into stereotypical horror book tropes - the seemingly innocent child, the apparently loving and caring governess, and the stern and secretive housekeeper.

Alternatively, some might argue that the governess' strange behavior is due to the sexual tensions and desires that have built up within her as she lusts after her elusive but dashing master and landowner. I need more convincing on that front, or perhaps I read a different book. Other critics believe the demonic connection lies with the children, and that's something I can agree with. This alone shows just how ambiguous the storyline and plot are, with such important aspects of the story being interpreted so differently.

Over the years, other authors have no doubt taken inspiration and elements from earlier stories like this and developed them into greater works of horror or gothic fiction. So, this book does have its place. However, although 'The Turn of the Screw' was very good in parts and well-written overall, there was nothing truly special or memorable about it.

As a literary piece and a gothic horror novella, I wanted to love this. Unfortunately, I didn't. For me, this book is no more than a 3-star read. But giving it a 2 seems a bit harsh because the writing is excellent in parts, and it has a safe yet intriguing storyline. I encourage you to read other reviews as some of my Goodreads friends have enjoyed this more than I did and rated it higher.

Este es un claro ejemplo de que cada libro tiene su lector y en este caso, "Otra vuelta de tuerca" no ha sido para mí

Now you see me,

...now you don’t..

What the...

Meaning, understanding and certainty all become elusive chimera in this ambiguous game of hide-and-seek that Henry James plays with us. Have you ever been in one of those weird situations where you wondered if you were losing your mind, doubting whether what you were seeing was real? And what it was that you were seeing?

This is one of those "what the heck??" novels that you often find in the modernist genre. Not originally classed as a modernist novel, by now it is viewed as one by many modern critics because of the ambiguity and ‘layers’ that James managed to capture. It is just as slippery and ambiguous and as "what on earth is happening here?" as the most obfuscating of the modernist novels. One tends to struggle with trying to figure out what is going on like with Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity's Rainbow.

Henry James might not be playing around as much as ‘true’ modernists do with narrative voice although he built three layers into his narrative viewpoint, and the story is certainly a metatext. Like most modernists, he does play around to some extent with temporality, but only to a small extent, and only slightly with structure. However, it is the play with meaning, the: “what the heck actually happened here?” that lends so much ambiguity and scope for interpretation that makes this novella shine.

Part of what points to our narration being unreliable, is the fact that the novella is a nested metatext (being a story someone is telling about a story that someone else told him about a story that someone else told him). The fun is that it reads like a Gothic novel, and for all intents and purposes, would be a Gothic novel, were it not for the subtleties in meaning and content & context leaping out at the reader; especially the modern, sophisticated reader who doesn’t actually believe in, you know, ghosts.

However, the story isn't really creepy in the way that conventional ghost stories are. Well it is, sort of. But it's also like when you walk into your house at night and the lights are dimmed and there's this hat-and-coat stand at the end of the passage, and in the shadows, it looks like there's a person there, watching... and waiting... and you wonder: “IS THAT...????! Or no, is that just my imagination playing tricks on me?!”

Yet, you take your time, all the time eyeing that shadowy figure,

...and you quickly walk to the light switch, and flick it on.

(Though the governess’s shadowman had no hat… - therefore, not a gentleman.)

Have you ever had a dream in which you vaguely become aware of the presence of someone you feel you know? You seem to know him well from some other dreamscape, and yet you cannot place your finger on who he is, yet his presence seems so sinister. If someone were to ask you who the shadowy man at the edge of your vision was, you might reply: “Why, Nobody!”...and yet you fear him, but don't know why. You know the reason is sitting just at the tip of your consciousness, but it’s all cast in shadow, and yet, it makes you feel so terribly uneasy.

You may even wonder, in such a dream, if that shadowy image could somehow be you yourself, but the thought of that, -the very idea, makes your hair stand on end; gives you a leaden pith of dread that sinks into your stomach and grips your insides with discomfort. Dream analysts would say that that strangely familiar figure is a projection of the part of your own self that you find unacceptable. This other'self' can even appear threatening because often our aggressive impulses have to be suppressed as much as, or even more than, our sexual impulses. If that'self' came loose from under our control, it could be a dangerous thing, and therefore, we fear it, albeit on a subconscious level.

Have you ever had a dream like that? This novella was reminiscent of such a dream; made me feel like I was reading about such a dream. Some people read this as a ghost story, some as a horror story, and some as a psychological thriller or study.

“...there are depths, depths! The more I go over it the more I see in it, and the more I see in it the more I fear. I don't know what I don't see, that I don't fear!'

I must mention that I got most of the detail about the different types of analyses from the Beidler critical edition of The Turn of the Screw that is full of background material: cultural context, history, critical essays and interpretations of the text. There are Marxist interpretations of this story, Jungian interpretations, Freudian ones, Reader-response analyses, Post-modern, Modern, New Criticism, New Historicism views of the story, you name it.

Oh, and of course, there are those among some of the abovementioned, who take a gay view as well. There is no real evidence for or against the direction(s) James's orientation leaned, though I have read some excerpts of his letters to young men that would incline me to agree that there's a strong possibility that he was gay. Among the 'gay' proponents, are those who say that the governess is a subconscious projection by James of himself and his repressed urges. (Whatever other conclusions one might come to, you have to admit that the governess is one tight little ball of repressed urges. )

I see her as being under a lot of pressure from various origins. One of the pressures she has, is an urge to gain more power. If you think about it, the governess is actually a nobody. One of the younger children of an obscure country preacher, and a female to boot... not much going for her, beyond some homeschooling (privately bred) is there? And now she is suddenly 'at the helm' of an entire household, and quite a wealthy one at that. But her charming, seductive employer wants no contact with her. She is "at the helm" all on her ownsome. Quite a situation for an inexperienced young country girl to find herself in.

Wayne C. Booth, a well-known lit crit has said:

“In English alone I have counted, before I got too bored to go on, more than five hundred titles of books and articles about [The Turn of the Screw], and since it has been translated and discussed in dozens of other languages the total must yield more than a lifetime's possible reading.”

...so yeah... there's been a lot of gabble about this little story, and the interesting part is that hardly anyone seems able to agree on what the story actually says. James has been very subtle and clever. Even in his preface, and in his responses to readers of the story, he did not give the game away. Indeed, he says in his preface, that the reader's “own imagination, his own sympathy and horror will supply him quite sufficiently with all the particulars. ”

Ha, and so it has proved to be.

Start of SPOILER section:

Here are some of the variations on interpretations of how the screw really turns:

1) A "straight" Ghost story reading. In this version, the ghosts are real ghosts, and everything the governess says is reliable and true.

2) A variety of 'ironic' readings. According to the most cynical versions, the governess is cruel and egocentric; she either made the whole thing up to get attention, or used a fiction of seeing ghosts to try and gain the status of a heroine and to make the master of Bly (whom she is in love with) take notice of her.

Other readings are cynical of actual ghosts, but sympathetic towards the governess in interpreting the ghosts as illusions seen by the governess. Some feel that these illusions are the product of a diseased mind, or of a madwoman, some feel that they are the products of her hysteria, brought on by her sexual longing for the master of Bly.

Some of the ironic readings are mixed. Some people say that the whole thing was a prank by the children, or the servants, or even an attempt by Mrs. Grose to drive the governess mad, so that Mrs. Grose could have her position back as head of the Bly household.

In any case, this was my first take on the story, before I had read all the hundreds of interpretations out there:

My impression of the children's uncle, the governesses' charming, extravagant, seductive employer was; - what a douchebag. The typical tycoon who extricates himself from his interpersonal responsibilities with cash. Set the poor little orphans up in a nice comfortable mansion with a string of servants, and he doesn't have to know that they exist. (I quite enjoyed the Marxist critique of the story, and of course, no Marxist would have any charitable feelings towards our dashing rich aristocrat who so blithely consigns people to nothingness, banishing them from his sphere of consciousness, like ants. )

At first I was entirely sympathetic towards the governess. With her first sighting of Quint, although I thought the whole set-up of how she spotted him was eerie and strange, I initially suspected that Quint might be a ghost, though one isn't entirely sure - this is how subtle James is. I thought he might possibly be a person lurking around the place in a sinister way.

The thing that caught me there, was that she was walking around thinking and daydreaming about her employer and wishing he would appear - and lo! A man did appear. However, like the governess says - not quite the man she had wanted to appear.

Those who argue in favor of actual ghosts, say that the fact that Mrs Grose could identify him, proves that he was really the ghost of Quint. However, she has only the governess' word to go on, and recall the governess's initial vagueness about how he looked. When first asked to describe him, she says that he looks like "nobody". That rather shook me in a weird way. It was my first indication that all might not be quite right with the governess's mind.

The second sighting at the dining room really impressed me. Wow. One of the best and weirdest pieces of fiction I had read in a long, long time. There's so much in that little scene. First, the way she sees him suddenly through the window, looking in. Even if he were a'real' person, coming suddenly upon a stranger looking in on your privacy like that must give anybody quite a turn. Note, that she then realizes that he is not looking for her. She sounds almost a bit disappointed about that... but... how does she know that? How does she 'know' who he is looking for?

Then the next part is so well done. I read governess's problem as being one of ego and narcissism. Like we've said, nobody ever takes any notice of her; even the children don't take much notice of her; they merely seem to humor her while they’re actually living in their own little world. But the children had adored Quint and Jessel, as we have heard by now.

So what does she do? Just like a jealous stepmother, she goes out and puts herself in her predecessor's place. She literally replaces her predecessor's image and position with her own, by going around to where he had stood, and she literally says in the story: “ It was confusedly present to me that I ought to place myself where he had stood. I did so; I applied my face to the pane and looked, as he had looked, into the room. As if, at this moment, to show me exactly what his range had been, Mrs. Grose, as I had done for himself just before, came in from the hall. ”

This dreamscape-like scenario lends itself to some very interesting Freudian and Jungian interpretations indeed. In the Freudian view, (ok, there are a few, actually) Quint and Jessel's relationship forms an inversion of the governess and her employer's relationship. Jessel (and this is also part of the Marxist interpretation) had taken a step down when she fell in love with a mere servant, whereas the governess's ambition goes upward, towards her employer.

This'replacement' theme features very strongly in the story; note the schoolroom scene where Jessel'replaces' the governess by sitting in her chair at her desk. I quote: “..she had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers. While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the extraordinary chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder.”

To me the scary part is the implication that both Quint and Jessel are projections by the governess of repressed aspects of her own psyche.

But the scariest interpretation is reading the governess as a psychotic paranoid schizophrenic. If one reads the story as if this was a given, it’s very, very creepy, with the governesses’ psychosis gradually growing to such huge proportions that even the long-suffering Mrs Grose takes fright and removes little Flora as quickly as she can.

There are some people who feel that the governess murdered Miles on purpose, but my personal reading was more sympathetic towards her. I thought that she had perhaps only smothered Miles in her zealous embrace. Note that she does say:“I caught him, yes, I held him—it may be imagined with what a passion;” So.. she wasn’t just giving him a friendly light quick little hug there. She was squeezing the poor tyke.

I had more of a feeling that she was a person whose mind was slowly coming apart. I felt she was a person who clung to the children as being her only justification for being ‘someone’ in the world; they gave her life meaning, and it is via being their governess that she is ‘at the helm’ of the household at Bly. I felt her worst fault was a histrionic narcissistic type of problem.

Note her panic at Miles’s requests to be returned to school; how she fences with him. She seems terrified of him leaving Bly, of him escaping from her grasp, because surely then her status, part of her whole reason for being, would be diminished.

I also found that the governess kept seeming to read Mrs Grose's reaction incorrectly. Did Mrs Grose really want to kiss her? And all along, didn't the poor Mrs Grose simply comply with whatever ridiculous claims the governess came up with, just so that she wouldn't anger this madwoman, and/or wouldn't run the risk of losing her position at Bly? After all, the governess was put in charge of the household, and therefore she might have the power to fire Mrs Grose, or at least have her fired.

It's only at the end, after Flora couldn't take the governess' excesses anymore, that Mrs Grose managed to scrape together enough guts to stand up to the governess in trying to protect poor Flora.

There are those who see a lot of pederasty in the story; between Quint and Miles, and some people even between Jessel and Flora. I must admit that I originally also thought that there was at least more than friendship between Quint and Miles, because that would fit in nicely with the reason why Miles was expelled. It would then make sense that he probably said to "those that he liked" either that he likes them or loves them, or even that he would like to, to put in Victorian language, 'try out a bit of bug

Το Στρίψιμο της βίδας το προσέγγισα όχι απλώς σαν ένα απλό ανάγνωσμα, αλλά με μια βαθιά ψυχολογική ανάλυση για την παιδική ηλικία και την δύσκολη μετάβαση στην ενηλικίωση.

Τα παιδιά τα είδα ως καθαρές ψυχές, σαν λευκό χαρτί που είναι σχεδόν ανέγγιχτο από την ενοχή που προκαλεί η συνειδητοποίηση πολλών πραγμάτων καθώς ενηλικιωνόμαστε, όπως η αισχρότητα, η ντροπή και άλλα. Η γκουβερνάντα, όμως, είναι το σύμβολο που εισέρχεται στην ζωή τους για να τους υποδείξει το Κακό. Το κακό στο βιβλίο δεν είναι απλώς φυσιολογικό, όπως το αντιλαμβάνονται τα παιδιά, αλλά είναι κάτι που προκαλεί φόβο και αποφυγή στους ενήλικους.

Τα δυο φαντάσματα στο βιβλίο είναι το σύμβολο αυτού του κακού. Οι γονείς των παιδιών είχαν μια έκλυτη ζωή και η αισχρότητα τους ήταν το αποτέλεσμα αυτής της ζωής. Τα παιδιά δεν αναγνώριζαν αυτή την αισχρότητα ως κακό, αλλά η γκουβερνάντα, που ήταν μια ενήλικη ενάρετη, το έκανε. Όταν η γκουβερνάντα τους επέδειξε το κακό ως κακό, τα παιδιά αρχίσαμε να αντιλαμβάνονται το κακό και να δίνουν άσχημη συμπεριφορά.

Το βιβλίο οδηγείται στην τραγική κατάληξη του όταν η γκουβερνάντα επέδειξε στο μικρό αγόρι το φάντασμα του ανδρός και αυτός τον δει και πεθαίνει. Το κορίτσι, όμως, δεν παραδέχτηκε το κακό ως κακό και έζησε. Σε αυτό το μυαλό μου, η επίδειξη του κακού ως κακού στις δυο αγνές ψυχές των παιδιών οδηγεί σε αυτό το τέλος. Είναι η απότομη συνειδητοποίηση και το τέλος της αθωότητας.

Είμουν σίγουρη ότι ο James ήθελε να επιδείξει αυτούς τους συμβολισμούς στο βιβλίο του. Ωστόσο, σύμφωνα με μελετητές, είχα λάθος και αυτός ήθελε απλώς να γράψει μια απλή ιστορία φαντασμάτων. Τελικά, όμως, ποιος μπορεί να ξέρει και να μπει στο μυαλό ενός καλλιτέχνη και να δει τα τι και τα πως; Ποιος μπορεί να καταλάβει το ακριβές νόημα της τέχνης του; Η μαγεία στην τέχνη είναι ότι ο καθένας την προσεγγίζει διαφορετικά και αυτό είναι κάτι που δεν μπορεί να αλλάξει.

3,5/5 αστεράκια από εμένα..

\\n  WORST. BOOK. EVER.\\n Okay, to be fair, there might be worse books out there, but you get the general idea.

When you're sold a book as "the greatest ghost story ever written", you expect it to be spine-chilling, to keep you on the edge of your seat, and to make you so hooked that you can't sleep, right? Am I the only crazy one who thinks this way? Well, nothing doing. Otra Vuelta de Tuerca is a book that I found极其boring,极其slow,极其bad, and just about every negative superlative you can think of.

Henry James twists and turns everything so much (yeah, the pun is intended) that you end up understanding less than half of what's going on, and there's not much going on to begin with. What was this man's problem with clear dialogue? Come on, I know it might be his style to write about how a blade of grass moves for four paragraphs, but my goodness! I still don't understand how people can read this writer without going crazy and wanting to throw the book against the wall.

And the ghost story? Well, what a total disappointment. Was the governess really seeing ghosts? Or was she hallucinating and the children were following her madness? I'll never know, because this is one of those classics that I never want to read again in my life, not even to understand it better. I'm sorry, James, but you're on my blacklist.

Henry James is indeed a tough author, and I have to admit that his text appears to be rather convoluted. I have this little "joke" that the average letter count per word in this book is approximately 9. Of course, that's not entirely accurate, but I do vaguely recall the need to refer to a dictionary while reading this book. Perhaps that just makes me seem less educated.

Moreover, this book is quite old, and as a result, the ghost story it presents is not at all thrilling or capable of creating a "page-turner" effect. The same events seem to repeat over and over again, and it's supposed to be "scary," but it all leads to an ambiguous climax that is somewhat interesting. However, in reality, you find yourself so uninterested that you simply don't truly care what you believe.

I also find it extremely difficult to write an "out-of-the-box" paper on this work. I'm the kind of person who enjoys pursuing new and interesting topics when writing papers, but this particular book has left me in a bind, struggling to come up with a unique and engaging topic.