The story begins with a group retelling the story of a young,inexperienced governess being hired by a wealthy young man to look after his young nephew and niece in the country. She is said to have recounted this later as a horrifying experience to a younger man who is part of the group when the story begins.The governess only exists in the man's story;the story within the story takes life within the governess's account.
This young woman falls in love with her employer in an idealistic,doomed sort of way and is content to obey his wish of never being contacted once she has taken up the position as governess.
What follows is a series of ghostly experiences which she describes,attributing an 'evil' alliance between the 2 small children in the story with the previous governess who is now dead and her lover,the master's valet,who is also now dead.
The young woman's distress, over involvement and heroic acts preoccupy the reader for most of the story.The beauty of the writing style is that it is precisely James' intention to do that. In the most eerie and old fashioned way,the story is left to the mind of the reader while finding completion in the governess's.
After reading this,I suddenly became interested in the stream of conciousness style of writing-simply because of the sheer fascination inherent in holding one's own concious experience as separate from that of the novel's protagonist.
Also when it comes to that most abused of all print entities-the ghost story,i found myself wondering-so what is a ghost story? Which leads me on to my next book.
