Great production

This is a shortish book but it’s one of the greats, and Emma Thompson provides a stellar performance. Highly recommended.

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Spooky

Emma Thompson's narration was excellent. On the surface, this story is a mildly spooky ghost story but on reflection it is perhaps much more disturbing.

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Emma Thompson Slays In This Chilling Classic

💛 Yes, it’s from the nineteenth century and yes some of the prose is dense, but this is a bona fide creepfest. One of the gothic variety. Think isolated mansion, ghostly sightings, beatific children (a la Nightmare on Elm Street, The Omen) and oooodles of ambiguity.

💚 Told from the perspective of a governess sent to look after two orphaned children, it descends into flashes of spirits seen or not seen, feelings of being watched and general ominousness. And doubt. Because I was never sure of what was real and what wasn’t.

💜 In my humble view, there is nothing scarier than angelic kids. Well, except for the same kids singing nursery rhymes. A lot of this story centres on just how cherubic the children are. It’s a battle for their souls.

❤️️ I watched Netflix's The Haunting of Bly Manor without realising it was based on this. If anything shows just how timeless this horror classic is, it’s that.
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SOUNDBITE

🎧 EMMA THOMPSON. That’s who performed this audiobook. Dame Emma brilliant-in-everything-she’s-ever-done Thompson. And this was no exception. She is powerful as the governess, portraying her as ever more anxious and desperate. Her reading helped me in parsing some of the more labyrinthine sections through context.

🎧 Thompson is utterly chilling as the children. I’m unsure about her hyperbolic portrayal of the housekeeper Mrs Growse. It very much leaned into the But there are so many interpretations of this classic tale that this happens not to coincide with mine.
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SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO...

This and the more modern The Haunting of Hill House are similar in many ways and both were made into fantastic mini-series. Highly recommend both.

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Perfect and torturous

I have put my life on hold to finish this, it has so kept me on the edge of my seat. The performance is simply incredible. Emma Thompson should have an award for this. The story has you needing more all the way along. The legendary restraint of Henry James writing and Emma Thompson’s first class narration made this audiobook an experience to return to and mull over many times. I loved it.

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Still creepy

I've read this book some 40 years ago; thought it scary then; listened to is this week and thought it still creepy.
Beautifully performed.

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Difficult language, beautifully read.

I found it quite hard to follow at times because the language is very complex. Unexpected plot though... and Emma Thompson was fabulous as ever.

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Not my favourite ghost story

[{"type":"Overall","question":"Would you listen to The Turn of the Screw again? Why?","id":235,"answer":"No. I have never read Henry James and was very much looking forward to this introduction but overall it was a bit of a disappointment."},{"type":"Story","question":"What did you like best about this story?","id":191,"answer":""},{"type":"Performance","question":"What does Emma Thompson and Richard Armitage - introduction bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?","id":206,"answer":"It was mainly Emma Thompson. Richard Armitage had little role it in.I normally adore Emma Thompson and she was one of the main reasons I bought this one. But the constant fussing and hyping of the two women was a bit frustrating and I can\u0027t say I particularly enjoyed her narration because instead of the chill of a ghost story she seemed to give an air of hysteria to the story.The character of the little boy was creepy. The things he said and especially the way his voice was narrated did not make him the adorable little angel he\u0027s supposed to have been. His character rather sounded like he was constantly testing and possibly manipulating the governess."},{"type":"Genre","question":"Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?","id":245,"answer":""},{"type":"Misc","question":"Any additional comments?","id":-1,"answer":"I don\u0027t want to spoil the end for people who have yet to listen but I was just nonplussed at what happened there. I found it quite unreasonable. One reviewer thought that it was not a ghost story but the story of mental illness. I have to say the governess did sound like she might be hallucinating and going increasingly \u0026quot;mental\u0026quot;. However, if it was to be no more than hallucination then the ending makes even less sense."}]

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Great reading by Emma Thompson.

Good solid ghost story. Not as good as The Woman in Black. I would read more Henry James.

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wonderful narration but not that scary

prologue and story both wonderfully narrated. I liked the old fashioned language of the book too. but it's a bit slow to climax and not that scary.

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Ghostly

I read this novella a couple of years ago and couldn’t resist buying this audiobook which is narrated by the wonderful Emma Thompson. As I remembered, this is a really spooky story. James’ language is weaving and complicated and in places, ambiguous. Is this actually a ghost story or is there something else...?

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