The House of Seven Gables

Rating:
Summary: Too Neatly Wrapped Up
Review: I tried to read this book for the first time when I was in my late teens, but I couldn't stand it. The language was just too flowery and long-winded. After twelve years or so, I just tried to read it again. This time, I was able to get through the book.
I thoroughly enjoyed Hawthorne's descriptive language. His ability to paint a picture through words is amazing; however, this same technique is what caused the book to move so slowly. Hawthorne took hundreds of words to say what could easily have been said in a couple of sentences. Yes, that is just the way American romantic novelists of the mid-nineteenth century wrote; still, for American readers of the twenty-first century who are used to fast-paced life, this sort of writing can be difficult at times.
My biggest problem with this book was its ending. Everything was just too neatly wrapped up. The remainder of the Pyncheon clan and Holgrave had too happy an ending. With the background of the Pyncheons, they should not have had such an ideal ending! The ending should not have been so neatly tied up. There should have been loose ends and serious problems remaining for everyone.
If you enjoy Hawthorne or just simply want to become more familiar with mid-nineteenth century American literature, read The House of the Seven Gables. If you cannot abide books that spend more time with setting, descriptions, etc., than actual movement of the plot, you might want to read another book.

Rating:
Summary: Give it time...
Review: Many complain that Hawthorne's style is too turgid, too stilted and dense to be enjoyable. Admittedly, I was not that fond of The Scarlet Letter, though its merits probably rest beyond the attention spans of most people committed to reading it in lit class. As anyone will tell you, it takes supreme effort and time to wend through any Hawthorne book.

I found The House of the Seven Gables much more enjoyable, a novel more accessible to the casual reader than the Scarlet Letter, but still imposing and impressive and just a bit pompous, as anyone can say of the little Hawthorne they have read. The characterization is marvelous. The adumbration of Hepzibah's insular misery and Clifford's simple minded pariah-hood, and the reforming agent of Phoebe's love and rustic vivacity, as well as multiple other character sketches and glorious descriptive passages, are what carried me through this novel. Unlike in the Scarlet Letter, it seems as though the tedium (what little there is here) is always at some point made up for, as though Hawthorne was attempting to counterbalance certain dry passages with heavenly description and character revelations.

Those who detested the Scarlet Letter will likely find little but soporific tedium here; for those whose initiation into Hawthorne's craft was not overly harrowing, keep this one in mind for a rainy day.

Rating:
Summary: A mixed review from this Hawthorne fan
Review: What can you say about Nathaniel Hawthorne's "House of the Seven Gables" that hasn't been said before? It's dark; it's Gothic; much of it is depressing; and the language is dense 19th century prose. Those who read primarily for plot will find it slow going, and those who look for likeable characters may be largely disappointed. In other words, for modern readers, this book may be a tough sell. Personally, I found it a little dull and a letdown after having recently reread (and enjoyed) "The Scarlet Letter."

Nonetheless, "The House of the Seven Gables" has its pleasures. Hawthorne, the scion of an old Massachusetts Puritan family, injects an unusual sense of historical depth into his writings. This is certainly true of "The House of the Seven Gables," which explores the idea of character flaws, evil and retribution passed down from generation to generation in a single family. Of course not everyone in the family is guilty, but the sins of a few taint the lives of all. As in much of Hawthorne's work, the supernatural, sometimes implied and sometimes explicit, plays a role in the workings of the plot. Even the daguerrotypist--nothing but an early photographer to us--must have given the 19th century reader a frisson because of his combination of mesmeric powers and miraculous ability to produce telling images out of pure light.

Hawthorne is a master of description, an expert at using his words to create images that convey far more than simple visuals. Even when the plot seemed stale and the characters wooden, the author's use of the language made it worth continuing. Hawthorne's descriptions of a little boy's love of animal-shaped cookies, of the garden with Maule's bitter well, and of the dead Jaffrey unmoving in his chair, to mention just a few, made the book well worth reading. "The House of the Seven Gables" may or may not be Hawthorne's best work (that's always a matter of opinion--try some of his short stories too), but it is an interesting book nonetheless