The Complete Novels and Selected Tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne is unfortunately known to many readers only as the author of the Scarlet Letter, which I was forced to read in high school. There is nothing wrong with that novel - but it is Hawthorne's short stories that really grab me. They are fascinating - Rappaccini's Daughter for instance, which equals in horror anything Poe wrote - and Hawthorne comes across as someone I would have loved to be able to sit down with and have a conversation.

Fanshawe - I can't imagine anyone reading this today were it not by Nathaniel Hawthorne. When he wrote this he was barely out of college, and he would later try to destroy every copy in existence. I can see glimmers of the genius he'd later display in his novels and short stories. I first saw that in the confrontation between "the Angler" and Hugh Crombie: "Your good resolutions were always like cobwebs, and your evil habits like five-inch cables." Great line--and I can see some of the classic Hawthorne themes here concerning good and evil and redemption. But oh, the melodrama! And his heroine Ellen Langton is a rather dull, insipid, damsel-in-distress. There's also far too much tell, not show here--Hawthorne would get much, much show more better. Two Stars

The Scarlet Letter - Hester Prynne is a heroine with a capital A. I was puzzled when in my recent read of Ahab's Wife Hawthorne was depicted as, well, puritanical and that critics consider the novel as patriarchal in its sentiments, because my memory of the novel was that Hawthorne's sympathies, even admiration, was with Hester. After a recent reread I saw no reason to change my mind, even if I can see flaws. Among them the "introductory sketch," "The Custom-House" framing the story I found pointless and boring. And admittedly, there are melodramatic romantic touches I found a bit much. (A capital "A" in the sky? Really Hawthorne?) Past that first chapter though, I immediately found myself gripped by the story and by Hester. It's not a long novel--about 88 thousand words, about 150 pages. We first meet Hester coming out of a prison door by which are roses that legend said bloomed at the feet of the martyred Ann Hutchinson, banished from the Puritans' Massachusetts Bay Colony for her heresies and her daring in preaching despite her female sex. Early on is mentioned that not far past is the Elizabethian Age in which a woman ruled. Hester comes out of that prison with a Scarlet "A" emblazoned on her bosom, and I can't help but admire that this is no small, demure "A" but one Hester herself elaborately embroidered with golden thread. She refuses to name the man that shares her sin even though it would mean she could take that letter off her dress rather than wear it the rest of her life. She names the child of that adultery Pearl after the "pearl of great price" and fights to keep her when the authorities are thinking of taking her child away. Hester stays true to herself throughout and never runs away. Five Stars

The House of Seven Gables - This tale of a family curse is, believe it or not, a lot sunnier than The Scarlet Letter. There so much that's rich here. The vocabulary, the imagery and certain scenes are burned into my memory--particularly that of Judge Pynchon seated in a certain oak chair. It would take Hitchcock or Spielberg to do justice to that scene. And poor Hepzibah and Clifford are such vivid characters--as are even minor secondary characters like the small urchin Ned Higgins who provides some of the humor in the story. Phoebe alas is only the usual 19th century heroine, such an angel you expect birds to weave ribbons into her hair. I found the romance fairly predictable. But there's a lot more to the book than that. I especially found interesting the theme--touched upon by both Clifford and Holgrave--of how the weight of history, ancestry, heredity, even just the stones of an old manse can crush individuals and families beneath them. Four and a Half Stars

The Blithedale Romance - Blithedale is the name of a commune in which this story takes place. But it's only backdrop, not really the subject, and that disappointed me. Why bother having that as your setting if it's not tightly woven into your plot and theme? It's supposedly based on Hawthorne's own experiences on Brook Farm, a utopian commune. I've read that Hawthorne was suspicious of utopianism, and one would think that was fed by his own experiences, but I felt it got short shrift here. Yes, I can see aspects of the novel that are critical. Coverdale, the first person narrator, has all these puffed-up aspirations that seem to drain away once he meets anyone with dirt on his hands--let alone gets his own hands dirty. Hollingsworth is a portrait of the dangerous monomaniac you meet among a lot of those with utopian schemes. And then there's Zenobia. What a waste of a character. She's the patron of the place, a feminist before her time easily toppled over by love of a not very worthy man. In the end it's all a just a love triangle that I can't really see tying well into a theme about the impossibility of the perfectibility of man. (Of course the point might have been the imperfectness of women, and the impossibility of feminism, but you can't expect me to give Hawthorne points for that.) The ending to me seemed melodramatic and the last line made me roll my eyes. Three and a Half Stars

The Marble Faun - I got through even the not very good Fanshawe, but Fanshawe was little more than a hundred pages, and Hawthorne’s other two novels two hundred odd pages--The Marble Faun is 402 pages, and by page 150, I was feeling it was going on forever. Mind you, I rather loved Miriam--rather rare to have a strong female Jewish character in 19th Century fiction. Perhaps Hawthorne took a page from Sir Walter Scott's Rebecca in Ivanhoe? For that matter it was refreshing to see two women artists who were living--and making a living--independently. But then Hawthorne rather reversed that strong depiction of women with Hilda, Miriam’s fellow artist and friend, praised for being a “handmaid of Raphael” and simply copying rather than following her own vision and thus invariably creating “fancies of snow and moonlight” like women authors... And what does it say that I found such digressions as his description of art and Roman monuments more interesting than the main narrative so transparently about a modern retelling of the Fall of Adam? And if how Hawthorne depicts Jews is commendable for his time, how he portrays Catholics is just abominable--even if understandable for a Protestant of his time. And worst of all is the "marble faun" of the story, Donatello. If ever a metaphor was overdone... Two and a Half Stars

This volume also contains “thirty-seven novelettes and tales” from Twice Told Tales, Mosses from an Old Manse and The Snow Image. No one should miss reading “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” all classics assigned me in high school as creepy and striking as anything in Poe. show less