Starting the year with a screw.

Like any good millennial, or gen z...or is it gen y...? Does anyone actually know? Anyway, it's too early to be digressing. Let me start over (much like I did with this book) like any good 90s born pariah, I consumed a piece of media loosely based on a piece of literature of which I had absolutely no intention of ever reading. The bastardisations are usually more than enough to satisfy my ever shrinking attention span. But this was different. I didn't just aimlessly consume The Haunting of Bly Manor, rather, it consumed me. I couldn't get enough of it - its perfect mix of melancholia and well-crafted dialogue spun in such a way that it felt like a heated blanket. Its offered comfort too distracting to allow for room to dwell on the fact that it's a definite fire hazard. After rewatching the series for the third time (it was definitely the sixth) I turned to the greatest thing the internet has ever given us - Wikipedia, and I used some of my best research skills to decipher the clues and come to the conclusion that the series had some similarities with Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. A novel that, despite being an English Literature student, I had somehow avoided, maybe I'm just a poor student...not entirely out of the realms of possibility. So I got myself on *insert used books website here* and used my hard earned student loan to order a copy, consequently starting my 2021 off by immersing myself in the horror. This novel was originally published in 1898 so be prepared for words like 'perhaps' and 'dreadful' and 'unavowed'. The unnamed narrator draws us in and takes us on a gothic journey of dread and terror and lots of descriptions about Bly manor as it changes with the seasons. Picture the scene: it's Christmas Eve, there's a fire going, our setting is a big, old house, and someone brings up the natural subject of progression for the conversation - ghosts. Some guy called Douglas pipes up by telling us about his sister's governess who apparently was subject to some ghostly sightings that she very conveniently wrote down. Douglas sends for the spooky scribblings and, in the meantime, sets the scene for us really getting into the whole crackling fire vibes. The governess in question has been hired by a man to care for his niece and nephew. The uncle has hired this girl with one instruction and one instruction only - seems like an easy gig so far - to handle anything that could possibly come up and to bother him with nothing. Not if the manor is on fire, not if the children are drowning, not if the family name is in tatters - "handle it", he basically says (I'm reading between the lines with my university degree education).

The governess arrives at Bly anticipating bad and being met with worse. Miles and Flora (names I did not associate with the 1800s but rock on Henry James) are as enigmatic as each other from the get-go. From Miles’ deeply sus suspension from boarding school to Flora’s daydream believer turned creepy wanderer tendencies - the unnamed governess sure has her work cut out for her. Without delving too much into the plot (to avoid spoilers and also because it is late and I am tired and a copy of the book should only set you back about £2) I will say that it definitely lives up to it’s status of critical acclaim - see LEGEND - and deserves its place as one of the greatest examples of the horror novel in existence.

what I will say, because I am incapable of just ending on a nicely rounded thought, is that something I noticed when reading it is that *SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER* only the governess ever actually mentions seeing the ghosts. Now, you can imagine my disappointment when I researched this and realised that lots of “highly qualified and super smart” critics had already acknowledged this point. And here I was thinking I was deserving of the Pulitzer for simply realising it. Not only had these aforementioned smartypants folk made the observation, they also had analyses and thoughts and opinions regarding what it could signify. Of course they were just trying to show off. Given that the governess is a female and it was the 19th century, lots of this analysis revolves around notions of a sexual nature. Namely, of the repressed variety. I’m not sure to what extent I agree with that, but that’s because I’m a female of the 21st century with the privilege of not being subjected to my every thought exposed as a sexual repression. Well, not as much as two centuries ago...right? Do I buy into the idea that it is only she who sees the ghosts? I think so, but am I saying it’s because she’s a country bumpkin? No. But this is the gift James gives us with his mere hundred or so pages. The gift of a spellbinding ivy that weaves and wraps itself over you long after you’ve put it down. The gift of the judge, jury and executioner roles; all of which are proffered to the reader in their judgment of the characters. It’s rich language only serves to tighten its clutches around you, and the never ending sense of dread burrows its way down until your stomach is so filled with it you have to physically let the book fall from your fingers for a few moments every ten pages. But you are compelled to pick it right back up again, and you’re right back in it without the passing of so much as a beat in real time.

I gave this book five stars on goodreads,

mostly because it’s worth five stars and a little because it was the first book of the year for me and I wanted my three friends on the app to think I had chosen well.