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Summary: One of the best ghost stories ever!
Review: Nathaniel Hawthorne is probably much more well-known for his classic book "The Scarlet Letter". As good as that book is, this book is as good in it's own right. It is probably one of the best ghost stories I have ever read! It is also a story about love and loss, curses that live through the years, The most profound truth that Hawthorne focuses on in this book is that the sins of the father are felt by children through many generations. The setting for the book is a brooding, old New England house. This house used to be the home of a proud family, but it had been haunted for generations by an ancient blood curse. At the beginning of the book, Judge Pyncheon dies in his family home in his great oak chair. The strange thing is that though alone, his shirtfront is stained scarlet. And to make matters worse, his body is not discovered for some time. This strange death is somehow traced back to the old family curse, and the reader is treated to what the Judge saw in his last hours. But the story is also a love story. It is in fact the love of two young people that appears to break the curse of the house. The book is a gothic romance, but it is much more than that. I can't really say enough about this book. I read it sometime ago, and it has stuck with me for a long time. It's a great one!
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Summary: Hawthorne's Supernatural Thriller, 19th Century Style
Review: Nathaniel Hawthorne is probably one of the most despised figures in the American literary canon, at least in the minds of the millions of school children forced to read "The Scarlet Letter." I will go so far as to admit I never finished that novel. I took one look through the book and laughed at the ridiculous idea of reading such a convoluted looking story. That was at age seventeen. Now, many years later I am able to go back and actually read some of these daunting novels. What is surprising is that they are not daunting at all, just written in an ornate style from a different age. The plots often deal with the same issues and concerns modern people fret about. For those uninterested in relationships and human dramas, there are also great old stories with supernatural elements, which is where this book comes in. This edition of the book includes an introduction by Mary Oliver and several commentaries on the work by Edwin Percy Whipple, Henry T. Tuckerman, F.O. Matthiessen, and Herman Melville. The Melville commentary is actually a letter the author of "Moby Dick" sent to Hawthorne where he concludes with a demand that Hawthorne "walk down one of these mornings and see me." Pretty neat.In "The House of the Seven Gables," the author tells his reader the story is a romance. What he means by this terminology is not a cheap paperback that involves swooning hearts with Fabio on the cover, but "a legend prolonging itself, from an epoch now gray in the distance, down into our own broad daylight." Hawthorne's specific goal is to show that the bad behavior of one generation devolves on future descendents. He accomplishes this by examining the Pyncheon family, a clan founded on America's shores by the stern Puritan Colonel Pyncheon, who used his considerable influence to inveigle prime real estate from one Matthew Maule in the 17th century. Pyncheon carried out this task by using the Salem witchcraft scare to secure Maule's execution. In his last moments, Maule laid a curse on the good Colonel and all of his descendents, telling him that God would give them blood to drink as a punishment for this evil injustice. Shortly after the Colonel builds his house with seven gables on Maule's property, he dies in a way that makes Maule's curse seem to be a reality. Rather than trace this terrible evil down through the ages in minute detail, Hawthorne only touches on a few important points before beginning his story in the middle of the 19th century. The Pyncheon family is slowly moldering into extinction when Hawthorne introduces us to poor old Hepzibah Pyncheon. She lives alone in the ancient estate, reduced to near starvation because her brother Clifford is in prison and Jaffrey Pyncheon, a rich judge who lives in his own manor in the country, refuses to offer her assistance. The only way to survive for Hepzibah is to open a penny store in an old part of the decaying house. Just when things reach a nadir, another Pyncheon turns up to save the day. This is Phoebe, a vivacious young lady who lives in the country. This fetching lass is a blessing for Hepzibah; she runs the penny store, helps to lift the gloomy atmosphere in the house, and when Clifford returns from his long imprisonment, Phoebe entertains the doddering man with her multitude of charms. She even strikes up an acquaintance with Holgrave, a young boarder in the house. Things start to look up when yet another tragedy strikes the Pyncheon family, leading to the momentary evacuation of the ancestral estate by Hepzibah and Clifford before Hawthorne settles all accounts in an ending that is both quick and highly implausible. The reputation this book has with many people is not good. They disparage the lengthy digressions, the massive amount of time Hawthorne takes to explore Hepzibah's dilemma over opening the penny store, the sentences that go on and on without seeming to make any point whatsoever, and the organization of the book as a whole. There is some foundation in these charges. The chapters describing the penny store do seem interminable, especially when viewed in the context of the story as a whole. As for the descriptions of Hepzibah's scowling countenance and Clifford's puny mental state, we get the idea well before Hawthorne quits harping on them. Yes, there are flaws in "The House of the Seven Gables." However, I personally enjoyed the deeply rich 19th century prose. Hawthorne's command of the English language is impressive and, at times, as precise as a cruise missile. One need only read the chapter about Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon's unfortunate incident in the house to grasp the beauty of this author's style. As for the digressions, if people have a problem with chapters such as "Alice Pyncheon" and the introductory material setting down the history of the doomed family, it is really their loss. It is when Hawthorne writes about supernatural elements that he really managed to grab me. If this counts as a lengthy digression from the story, I will take more, please! If I had to assign a Hawthorne novel to a group of slack jawed high school students, I would give them this one in place of "The Scarlet Letter." At least with "The House of the Seven Gables," someone might enjoy the eerie curse that united the Maules with the Pyncheons for two centuries. A letter sewn on clothing cannot stack up against ghosts, a disembodied hand, and mysterious deaths. The kids will still grumble, but not as much when they realize there are less "thees" and "thous" tossed around in this novel.
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Summary: Hawthorne Redemption
Review: Nathaniel Hawthorne's "House of the Seven Gables" is an enjoyable read for anyone interested in classic American literature. Some readers consider Hawthorne's meticulous style of describing settings and characters frustrating, but they fail to realize that the story "The House of the Seven Gables" is in fact, settings and characters. The reader must realize that this book was written in 1851, so it lacks the showmanship of explosions and flying poltergeists, but if properly embraced, "The House of the Seven Gables" is a very enjoyable read. As I read this book, I felt that Hepzibah and Clifford were not the only characters attempting to rid themselves of a family curse. I felt that Hawthorne himself was attempting to exorcise the guilt brought on by his ancestor, John Hawthorne, who had presided over the Salem Witch Trials, hundred of years prior.
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Summary: Hawthorne's Splendid Gothic Masterpiece
Review: Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables", may not be as riveting as his "The Scarlet Letter", but still will be appreciated by those familiar with 19th Century psychological fiction as epitomized by, for example, Henry James, with more than a passing nod to Edgar Allen Poe. This is a complex tale spanning generations between the Pyncheons and the Maules; a blood feud which emanates from the infamous Salem witch trials. Hawthorne is a splendid writer of descriptive prose, and it is so descriptive, that I must confess I was confused occasionally as he goes back and forth between the late 17th Century Pyncheons and Maules and their mid 19 Century descendants. This novel isn't nearly as tragic as "The Scarlet Letter", ending on a somewhat hopeful, optimistic note.
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Summary: Okay....
Review: This book was slow and hard to read, with way 2 many words and boring characters :( i think it would have been way cooler if the house had exploded at the end or something.
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Summary: More About Language Than Horror
Review: This is more of a story for the person in love with our language and will leave thrill seekers (and most youngsters) cold. After getting off to a great start for a horror story, the story line sort of bogs down in the middle before coming back to an active pace for a predictable ending.
Hawthorne sets the scene for a family feud between the powerful Pyncheons and the lowly Maules. Through a series of strong arm tactics, the senior Pyncheon brings a curse onto the family with the House of Seven Gables - a house designed and built for Pyncheon by Maule's son on land that had been wrested from the Maule family. After generations of failure and thwarted ambition, the Pyncheon line is almost dead and the curse continues to linger. There is only an old maid with a scowl to scare children, Hepzibah; her brother Clifford who returns from a long imprisonment for the murder of his uncle; Judge Pyncheon, the son of Clifford's victim, an ambitious man who cloaks the depravities of his soul with a false magnanimity; and Phoebe, a country cousin who seems not to be born down with the weight of the curse except through her exposure to the others. When the Judge dies under mysterious circumstances in the House of Seven Gables, the curse is set to either finally destroy the Pyncheons and the Maules or to expire and leave them to a new peace.
House of Seven Gables is more notable for me in the language that he uses. The way he describes everything is absolutely beautiful, particularly when he is describing the young women - " All her little womanly ways, budding out of her like blossoms on a young fruit tree, had their effect on him, and sometimes caused his very heart to tingle with the keenest thrills of pleasure. At such moments - for the effect was seldom more than momentary - the half-torpid man would be full of harmonious life, just as a long-silent harp is full of sound, when the musician's fingers sweep across it."
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Summary: House of the boring gables
Review: This is quit possibly the worst book i have ever read, it was dry, there was no plot, and it was hard to understand. if you are considering buying this book, bad idea...don't waste your penny, i recommend not reading anything by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he is the worst writter in the history of book writing.
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Summary: One of My Favorite Hawthorne Novels
Review: This mysterious novel about a cursed family and its mansion is one of Hawthorne's few works with a happy ending. Perhaps Hawthorne, when he wrote it, had come to some degree of peace with the curse that was rumored to have been placed upon his own family. The novel is interesting, and it contains some profound insights. It boasts one of Hawthorne's "reformer" characters, Holgrave. Hawthorne did not seem to have much faith in reform and reformers, but Holgrave is a more sympathetic character than Hawthorne's other reformers, because he is portrayed as an optimistic youth who will eventually outgrow the excesses of his reformative tendencies.
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Summary: Enjoyable but not spectacular
Review: Though there were definitely times when this book was slow or difficult to understand, Hawthorne's writing, through the use of metaphors, allusions and other rhetorical devices is a wonderful accomplishment. It was hard for me to get into the book at the beginning and especially through the long discussion of the Pyncheon family but it payed off to know this information when the climax arose. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book, but was not totally impressed by the story, reguardless of the universal themes that apply to us today.
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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
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