I read this novella, a combination of fable, fairy tale, and Dionysian revelry in one sitting--as it traversed a story that took place over many years but almost could have been a day. A couple has three governesses, nearly indistinguishable, to take care of their boys, also nearly indistinguishable, in a house that also has some indistinguished maids and an old man voyeur next door. The governesses plan parties, play games, and generally bring light and life to the house--except when they turn into frenzied predators who find strange men and devour them, leaving them dead. These routines are only changed, albeit not particularly fundamentally, when one of the governesses has a baby.

The writing is very experimental, at parts it had my interest, and I liked the way it drew on but subverted so many of our notions of governesses from fiction like Jane Eyre. But I found the fact that it had no particular story arc, purpose, resolution or the like--all of which would have been strongly present in the fairy tale world it alludes. At some point when you don't care about any of the characters (most of whom are not actually characters) and you don't care which direction it is all going (because it is not going any particular direction), it is hard to be too excited about the inventiveness of a book. Fortunately this one is short and focused enough that the "hard to be too excited" doesn't turn into a worse feeling by the time it ends.