The Scarlet Letter

Rating:
Summary: a sweet moral blossom
Review: Anyone who suffered through this book in high school, but has since developed a more mature intellectual curiosity and is willing to put in a little effort, will here find one of the most incredible rereading experiences the English language has to offer.

A government official, his imaginative faculties deadened by years of dreary work in a Salem custom-house, shuts out the modern world and travels back in time two hundred years, using an old piece of emboidered fabric as a portal. Behold: a different world, the Puritan world, a dusky twilight zone between the Celestial City and the fires of Hell, where witches ride with Satan through the night air and the sky is a heavenly scroll with which God sends his chosen people messages via shooting stars. Here we become privy to a grim secret drama, a matter of life and death between three characters: Hester Prynne, beautiful, impulsive, conscious of her guilt and her mistakes, dutiful to her daughter and to the community who condemns her, and an expansive visionary amid the most closed-minded of people; Arthur Dimmesdale, the falsest person in the community, yet a devout religionist and believer in truth, who punishes himself with brutal acts of self-abasement; and Roger Chillingworth, the quiet man of learning whose devotion to scholarship does not prevent him from turning into a vengeful fiend.

The Scarlet Letter is amazingly germane to our world: sexual transgression, single parenting, rebellious children, abusive authority, the importance of community and family, the clash of cultures, gender issues, etc. Yet it is as sometimes as weird as anything David Lynch or Thomas Pynchon could come up with: reality and fantasy, mirrors and hallucinations, sadism, masochism, witchcraft, dementia, UFOs, weird mystical symbols, nocturnal vigils, silent Indians, drunken sailors, ridiculous parades. A thoughtful reader will laugh hysterically at the dancing ape mentioned in Chapter 21. The narration is wordy but stylistically appropriate for Hawthorne's purposes; it finds a perfect balance between tongue-in-cheek irony and the seriousness of life-and-death issues. The book's reputation as grave and ponderous is the result of our inability--or more accurately, our unwillingness to take the time--to detect Hawthorne's subtly ironic tone toward his well-intentioned but sadly misled ancestors. His sentences are also longer than our diminished attention can sometimes handle, which is our flaw, not his.

It is true that this story "tells" rather than "shows," violating the "show, don't tell" rule of creative writing. Our interior worlds don't follow linear plots, and a writer like Hawthorne doesn't have to abide by such formulaic rules. This is a book for the ages, magic via the written word. Read it again, and slowly this time. Preferably by moonlight.

Rating:
Summary: Very good and very unlike the movie
Review: I am an avid reader, specially of books in the English language. The movie "The Scarlet Letter" has been a favorite of mine, but reading other reviews of the novel (other editions) here in Amazon, prompted me to read it. People kept saying they were dissapointed with the movie and vice versa; people kept saying they could not deal with Hawthorne's 19th century language. But I could deal perfectly with the idiom, even though it's not my first language. Both the movie and the novel are excellent, although different.

Rating:
Summary: Very good and very unlike the movie
Review: I am an avid reader, specially of books in the English language. The movie "The Scarlet Letter" has been a favorite of mine, but reading other reviews of the novel (other editions) here in Amazon, prompted me to read it. People kept saying they were dissapointed with the movie and vice versa; people kept saying they could not deal with Hawthorne's 19th century language. But I could deal perfectly with the idiom, even though it's not my first language. Both the movie and the novel are excellent, although different.

Rating:
Summary: A remarkable introduction
Review: I recently purchased a copy of Modern Library's edition of Scarlet Letter. The introduction was very helpful in situating the book in its time, and also in showing how relevant it is to our world. Besides the helpful introduction, this edition has the nicest cover of all those on the shelf. Keep up the good work Modern Library!!!

Rating:
Summary: A remarkable introduction
Review: I recently purchased a copy of Modern Library's edition of Scarlet Letter. The introduction was very helpful in situating the book in its time, and also in showing how relevant it is to our world. Besides the helpful introduction, this edition has the nicest cover of all those on the shelf. Keep up the good work Modern Library!!!

Rating:
Summary: Let's be for real!!!!!!!
Review: I think that the book is pretty good so far, but it does have a few things that I can't quite relate to or understand. Most people in today's society don't get pointed out for commiting adultery. It's like an everyday thing now. People just don't do that anymore. I do think that is was great to see how the people back then viewed certain quailties and how they carried out their religious beliefs. To me, this was a story about a woman named Hester Prynne who was caught up in a bad love triangle. She was married to a scholar who had sent her ahead to Boston. She got caught up and fell in love with the minster Dimmesdale. She got pregnant and had a daughter who she named Pearl because she was the most precious and expensive thing in her life. All of her earnings went towards her. They made Hester and baby Pearl sit out on a scaffold allday to let the people come by and look at them and ridicule them. Hester had to wear a scarlet A on her bosom from hence forth. She made the most of it, though. Pearl had an intuition and she could recognize how was good and who was bad. She knew the Chillingworth, Hester's husband, was a bad man. She felt a connection with Dimmesdale. One day when Pearl was about seven years old, she asked her mother what did the scarlet letter mean and why did Dimmesdale always cover up his heart. Hester had still not revealed who the father of her child was because she loved him that much. As far as I have read the guilt is eating Dimmesdale up and he wants to tell the people but he doesn't know how. In the end you should try your best not to keep hurtful secrets inside because in the end it will be the thing that destroy's you the most!

Rating:
Summary: Let's be for real!!!!!!!
Review: I think that the book is pretty good so far, but it does have a few things that I can't quite relate to or understand. Most people in today's society don't get pointed out for commiting adultery. It's like an everyday thing now. People just don't do that anymore. I do think that is was great to see how the people back then viewed certain quailties and how they carried out their religious beliefs. To me, this was a story about a woman named Hester Prynne who was caught up in a bad love triangle. She was married to a scholar who had sent her ahead to Boston. She got caught up and fell in love with the minster Dimmesdale. She got pregnant and had a daughter who she named Pearl because she was the most precious and expensive thing in her life. All of her earnings went towards her. They made Hester and baby Pearl sit out on a scaffold allday to let the people come by and look at them and ridicule them. Hester had to wear a scarlet A on her bosom from hence forth. She made the most of it, though. Pearl had an intuition and she could recognize how was good and who was bad. She knew the Chillingworth, Hester's husband, was a bad man. She felt a connection with Dimmesdale. One day when Pearl was about seven years old, she asked her mother what did the scarlet letter mean and why did Dimmesdale always cover up his heart. Hester had still not revealed who the father of her child was because she loved him that much. As far as I have read the guilt is eating Dimmesdale up and he wants to tell the people but he doesn't know how. In the end you should try your best not to keep hurtful secrets inside because in the end it will be the thing that destroy's you the most!

Rating:
Summary: My opinion of The Scarlet Letter
Review: If stories of sacrifice, strength, commitment and love perk your interests, then this may be gratifying reading material for you. Hawthorne's text, The Scarlet Letter, requires concentration and thought to comprehend some of the wording. This book has a copious amount of run-on sentences which makes it seem way too drawn out. I also found it challenging to follow the plot and theme because of the ample amount of detail provided about each character and the various situations. I can see why The Scarlet Letter is considered a classic, but I would not recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Example of Classic Literature.
Review: The Scarlet Letter tells a story of a young woman named, Hester Prynne. As
the reader enters the story, Hester has a three month old baby girl and no
father in site. She had come to Boston months before to make a place for her
much older husband who was to arrive later but never had.
The normal punishment for adultery was death. Hester was very young,
however, so the church officials were "merciful." Instead of sentencing her to
death, she was to wear a red letter 'A' on the front of her dress and be put on
public display for three hours. After those hours she was to wear the "scarlet
letter" for the rest of her life. At the end of which her tombstone would be
engraved with nothing other than her name and the letter A.
While on public display she was given a chance to repent and escape
her punishment. She was asked to reveal the father of the child. In protection
of the man she loved, she vehemently declined the offer.
Needless to say, Hester and her child are shunned by the townspeople,
who believe them both to be hell sent. As you read The Scarlet Letter, you
travel with Hester through the next seven years of her life. You experience
with her the pain, isolation and ignominy she carries upon her dress, and in
her heart.
I enjoyed reading the Scarlet Letter and experiencing with Hester the
events and circumstances that shaped her life, the life of her daughter, Pearl,
and the life of the man she would forever love.

Rating:
Summary: Watch the movie
Review: The story may have had some merit however the writing style was so archaic and verbose that it took 50 words to complete a sentence. After trudging through about 100 pages he never came to any points or conclusions other that some people can remember what they ate 20 years ago in detail. This guy (Nathaniel Hawthorne) could have competed with Marry Shelly for most long-winded of the year. Some of it may not be his fault due to the writing style of the time but we surly do not have to put up with this.

This is one time that just about any movie exceeds the book. If you insist on reading then it may be smart to find a child's version. Son one could get rich translating the book into today's English.