"Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, read by David Buchalter

[aqaq89121]

who thought someone was going to come out from that door?

[dsbuchalter]

@Dix994 Thank you for the suggestion. I will certainly keep this passage in mind and try to make that recording as soon as time allows. At the moment I'm very bogged down with school assignments, but your request just helps me have the energy to work through them faster. It's a great story, isn't it? I was just thinking about Jamesian candlesticks yesterday, too...

[MrWilum]

I love the Facebook group -- I've just posted a vlog on "The Turn of the Screw" and its finest cinematic interpretation on my YouTube channel.

[dohertykaki]

Totally absorbing! I love the way you incorporate food into your videos! You are a great orater(sp?)There's that word,again : "Interloculator". BRAVO!!

[JaYnEsAyZ]

lol he was eating a DATE >>!!! i haven't had a date in a LONG TIME.. : (  oh well- lovely video david..

very well read as usual.

[KeithaLePale]

O_o what were u eatin'?

[CinderellaMan16]

You have a very nice voice. Great job! Good English major!

[GaeasBlessing]

LOL @ bringing a date along.

Solid reading.  Great inflection. Good editing too. 5 stars.

[dsbuchalter]

Thank you kindly. I'm glad somebody appreciates a dry (fruit) sense of humor.

[dsbuchalter]

Well thanks, Nar--I'm honored.

[xnarx]

I like the way your voice sounds when you read. It's rare for me to like someone's voice (:

[dsbuchalter]

Perhaps *you* should pick up the old Olympic torch and bring it home to the end of chapter 1, Lisa!

[moonpoetry]

Well, I could do that. But I guarantee that your reading is better! (I kind of hate the sound of my own voice!)

P. S. Dickinson is my favorite author of all time. I'm not sure if any other writer tops her in my book. I read her complete poems the summer before my Junior year in high school and there was no going back. I knew that I was going to devote my life to words in some way, and I felt as though I had found a kind of kindred spirit in those pages...

[dsbuchalter]

I don't believe you that you hate the sound of your own voice. I don't think it's possible.

I have sat by Emily Dickinson's grave many times. She lived right next to the cemetery where she was buried. She wrote about death quite often; quite often, she looked out the window to that Amherst plot that was her backyard and saw funerals taking place. She wasn't as much of a recluse as people often say. She had many pen pals.

[moonpoetry]

Well, I do talk quite a lot, don't I? And I did love the sound of my mother's voice so much; people say we sound the same. I've just been made fun of for said voice for so long. As a matter of fact, my supervisors even deducted points from my tutoring evaluation because of my voice! They said I was great with everything else, but that I had trouble controlling my voice!

I would love to visit Dickinson's house and her grave someday; Keats as well. Both have touched my life in enumerable ways.

[dsbuchalter]

Yes, the house where Keats stayed when he wrote "Ode to a Nightingale" (and allegedly stuffed it behind some books on a bookshelf), on the outskirts of London, was an almost holy place for me. They have his death mask there, and a portrait of him sitting in a chair, with another chair turned sideways that he rests his arm on. The worst thing that one can do is confuse reality and fiction, the artist for the art, but I must say, Keats just seems like a really nice guy.

[moonpoetry]

My fellow poets say my poetry is too romantic, so I make jokes about wanting to marry Keats if I had lived in the 19th century. But one of my colleagues suggested I write a story in which John Keats and I meet, and we actually don't get along. It's a good idea, but I think we would have shared many opinions about art. He does seem so very nice. Emily, on the other hand, I'm not sure about her! :) But God, you are so lucky to have been in Keats' house. Write a song about it! I dare you!

[dsbuchalter]

Speaking of Keats--I wrote an essay on a passage in Henry James's "Turn of the Screw" where he continually alludes to "Ode to a Nightingale." Actually, I suggest that Flora's (the girl in Turn of the Screw) name--along with A LOT of other things in the novella--comes from that line from "Nightingale": ". . .tasting of Flora and the country eglantine, dance and provincial song..."

Miles's little boat trip, I argue, alludes to part of Keats's voyage trip to Italy, where he died.

[moonpoetry]

I must read more James, then. That's all there is to it.

[dsbuchalter]

That's what this whole Henry James Readers' Group project is about--spreading the love (of James). Just as an aside, James is obsessed with the phallus, and everything perverse, in addition to his highbrow end--so don't say I didn't warn ya!

[moonpoetry]

I can be perverse! :-)

[dsbuchalter]

I never doubted it.

[moonpoetry]

I've never read James before. (Yes, it's shocking--you may now pummel me with proverbial tomatoes). But I enjoyed your reading. I looked the story up, and you ended in the middle though, I know. You should post another video and finish the introduction! Also, I like your idea of starting a reading group on Facebook. Maybe I'll start one for Emily Dickinson!

Take care, David.

--Lisa

[dsbuchalter]

PS. Dickinson rocks!