The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Book Summary Information
Author: Nathaniel HawthorneEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-11
ISBN: 1442140712
Number of pages: 130
Publisher: CreateSpace
Book Reviews of The Scarlet Letter
Book Review: It's Like Being Given A Slow Mental Colonoscopy--Torturous!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
It's impossible to know where to begin with this so-called "original" master of American literature, but I'll try: Hawthorne's work is horribly overwritten, to the point where he states the same thing over and over again using strained metaphors and ungodly verbal flourishes. His characters are either caricatured (such as the misshapen and humpbacked Roger Chillingworth, Hester Prynne's husband, who is unlike the other characters in that he is halfway interesting, though he receives the least amount of exposure in this book) or ridiculously emotional and self-pitying. This book relates the aftermath of an affair in a Puritan city between the town pastor Dimmesdale (who, despite his legions of admiring fans and women, seems to be passionate about nothing other than maintaining a lowly, miserable existence) and Hester Prynne, a boring seamstress whose every thought, reaction and twitch is used by Hawthorne to teach moral lessons that go on for pages with no paragraph breaks.
The story takes several chapters, about half the freaking novel, to really start revving; and even then the novel is a drag. Halfway through the book, Chillingworth becomes Dimmesdale's physician with the intention of torturing him subtly because he suspects that Dimmesdale is the adulterer who secretly deflowered Hester. Dimmesdale is completely ignorant of this, once again exposing how blind and idiotic he is--why else would a sinister, humpbacked doctor want to be your friend? Revelations about Hester and Dimmesdale's affair slowly start to spill out (and when I mean slowly, I mean SLOWLY--slower than it would take George W. Bush to learn to speak fluent Arabic). Much of this section concentrates on Hester's illegitimate daughter Pearl, who is the most overt symbol in the book and is constantly referred to as "elvish" though she is nothing like an elf; elves inspire cheer and contentment, while all Pearl does is bore the reader to death with her games in the forest, which are described for pages and include many twenty-letter-long words that Pearl undoubtedly does not know. One of the more notable aspects of Hawthorne's style is that all his characters speak exactly as he writes or would write: at one point Dimmesdale remarks that, "There is the child, standing in a streak of sunshine, there across this brook." What person would actually describe something aloud when they and their companion can easily see it with their own eyes? When I read "Scarlet Letter" (and I was forced to because of a school project--YUCK), I dreaded the chapters that concerned Dimmesdale; inevitably the chapters would contain no action and would instead simply be a meandering description replete with dozens of odious metaphors describing how exquisitely miserable this poor but brilliant pastor is. Ultimately, Rev. Dimmy, as I like to call him, is so physically and mentally weak that I have to wonder why Hawthorne would make one of his main characters such a horrible wimp.
One of my last gripes is that Hester and Dimmy are so wracked with moral guilt at their affair (as evidenced by the dozens of pages describing their moral agonizing, replete once again with several odious metaphors) that it's unbelievable that they would have had the affair in the first place--what the heck were they thinking when this contrived "sin of passion" consumed them? All that I can add to this is that everything in the book is either boring talking, metaphors or infinitely untalented description. I hope that someday Americans will reject such horrible writing as their cultural legacy, and will throw Hawthorne's title as an "original master" of American literature to a writer more talented and far more deserving.
Summary of The Scarlet Letter
"The Scarlet Letter" is a timeless tale of passion and revenge, guilt and grace, sin and redemption. It cemented Nathaniel Hawthorne's reputation as America's greatest writer of fiction. This is a beautiful, new, top-quality edition of Hawthorne's masterwork.Classics Books
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