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Rating: 
Summary: Seems Incomplete
Review: Hawthorne expresses his cynical attitude toward Utopian reformers in this novel. The narrator, Miles Coverdale, visits a Utopian commune (Blithedale Farm) where he interacts with a haughty, seductive woman named Zenobia and a timid creature named Priscilla. He meets the philanthropist Hollingsworth, who is so intent on reforming humanity that he does not have much concern for individual men and women. But all of these characters seem to have a secret and mysterious past, which is largely revealed but never fully explained by the end of the novel (at least not to my satisfaction). The story is rather bleak; it is confusing in parts, and it is difficult to tell whether or not you can fully trust the narrator's perspective. But it is somewhat interesting, and as usual with Hawthorne's novels, there are some deep insights and memorable characters.
Rating: 
Summary: magic realism
Review: Hawthorne was able to work within a strict set of boundaries to create something of a social call to arms and equally,a strange, unwordly tale. The scenes in the forest are a clear antecedent to those writers in the 20th century working the magic realism vein. Above and beyond all of this though is the magnificent use of language to create atmosphere and brilliantly delineated characters. It's a gorgeous book ; the effect as rich as a Gauguin painting.
Rating:
Summary: magic realism
Review: Hawthorne was able to work within a strict set of boundaries to create something of a social call to arms and equally,a strange, unwordly tale. The scenes in the forest are a clear antecedent to those writers in the 20th century working the magic realism vein. Above and beyond all of this though is the magnificent use of language to create atmosphere and brilliantly delineated characters. It's a gorgeous book ; the effect as rich as a Gauguin painting.
Rating: 
Summary: vintage stuff
Review: Hawthorne's work here allows for readings on a number of levels with varying themes--gender roles, socialism, religion, voyeurism v. exhibitionism... it goes on, surely. It's a fine tale of a group of utopian socialists who try to realize their dreams of a perfect society. It's also a fine example of the developing American literary voice and style--and unlike some works that might fall under a similar heading, it's not painful for the contemporary American to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Well, It Could Have Been Worse
Review: I love Hawthorne. But of all his novels, I like this one the least. It lacks the swift action of "Fanshawe" (1828), the memorable characters of "The Scarlet Letter" (1850), the suspense and deep psychological insights of "The House of the Seven Gables" (1851), or the images of "The Marble Faun" (1860). I would not make time to read this. But then it is not quite a flop either. There is some interesting interaction amongst the characters. Also, Hawthorne does give us an important message about the hypocrisy behind utopia.
Rating:
Summary: Surprising
Review: It's been over seven months since I read the BLithedale roamnce, and I find myself still turning it over in my head. Hawthorne has received alot of bad treatment by feminists groups...but in many ways, I think this book is rather feminine in perspective. Skip the big Hawthorne novels and concentrate on his later, better, less well-known works. They're magic.
Rating:
Summary: " Utopia Folded Its Tent In 1847 "
Review: Nathaniel Hawthorne's third major novel, The Blithedale Romance (1852), is a faster moving and more colorful novel than his second, 1851's bloodless The House Of The Seven Gables, but, sadly, that it the best that can be said for it. Like a vaguely - conceived puzzle with several essential pieces missing, the book ambles uncertainly along, thematically a little bit about everything but finally about nothing in particular. As with all Hawthorne's novels and many of his shorter works, there is a barely a paragraph or chapter that is not triply overwritten, and obfuscation, rather than clarity, is the order of the day throughout. Depth of any kind is not one of the novel's strengths, and stilted language ("Lip of man will never touch my hand again") abounds. Hawthorne's cast - introverted, voyeuristic narrator Miles Coverdale, apparent utopist visionary Hollingsworth, wealthy feminist crusader Zenobia, and guileless ingenue Priscilla - are more like glittering but partially - carved mannequins than substantial characters capable of sustaining a novel.
The Blithedale Romance has historically been promoted as a novel about an experimental socialist utopia, but as Brenda Wineapple outlined in the excellent Hawthorne: A Life (2003), Hawthorne himself was unsure of what the genuine focus of the book was. Earlier titles considered were "Hollingsworth," "Hollingsworth: A Romance," "Miles Coverdale's Three Friends," "Zenobia," and simply "Priscilla." For lack of anything better, "The Blithedale Romance" was chosen; upon publication, the novel was praised by Washington Irving and Herman Melville, but panned by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who thought it "unworthy of Hawthorne's talent." Reviews were generally negative, and James T. Fields, Hawthorne's publisher, said, "let us hope there will be no more Blithedales." A socialist experiment in creating a utopia - Blithedale - does figure in the background, and acts as the novel's primary setting, but, except for some very occasional blather, the complex concerns of bringing a functional, working utopia into existence are entirely ignored and have nothing to do with the real impetus of the novel. For most of the book, only the primary characters seem to be claustrophobically present at Blithedale. Caught up in an incestuous tangle, the four are enclosed and cut off from the rest of humanity by the potentially shattering world of nature that lies inherent in the farm itself. Nothing emphasizes this more than the existence of Coverdale's own hidden tree-top bower and surrogate womb, where he finds escape and solace from the explosive emotional realities bubbling under the brittle social surface; a late pagan masquerade, straight out of 'The May - Pole Of Merry Mount' solidifies Blithedale as a liminal space where anything might happen, including free love in all its hetero-, homo-, and bisexual aspects. But caught up instead in a sudsy melodrama of vaunted idealism, unconscious egotism, shrewdly - enacted treachery, and unrequited love, the characters shuffle through a hazy, uneven plot that is little more than an undisguised 19th century soap opera. The Blithedale Romance is also a shaky indictment of Protestant hypocrisy, as its characters are uncomfortably snared between dueling impulses of wishful altruism and a wolfish desire for the absolute triumph of individual will. As presented, the noble society of man is a fragile sham, a frail plywood structure eternally dissolving at the edges, visibly or otherwise. Neurotic temptress Zenobia (a character primarily based on Hawthorne's friend Margaret Fuller) is the only partially successful character, though her ridiculous, syrupy, and embarrassingly off - center platitudes about struggling womanhood ("in the battlefield of life, the downright stroke, that would fall only on a man's steel head - piece, is sure to light on a woman's heart, over which she wears no breastplate...," "I am a woman - with every fault, it may be, that a woman ever had, weak, vain, unprincipled (like most of my sex; for our virtues, when we have any, are merely impulsive and intuitive,) passionate, too...") virtually guarantee her absurdist martyrdom on a wayward altar of feminist suffering. As the story draws to a conclusion, a series of extraordinary and crudely executed coincidences attempt, and fail, to tie the torpid plot into a neat bundle. Hawthorne finally allows semi - warrior, quasi - vampire, and arch hypocrite Zenobia to go the way of masochistic Ophelia, gurgling brook, brisk current, emerald moss, reeds, rushes, and all. Far from shedding light on the inferior status of women in American society in the 1850s, Hawthorne presents the subject like a mocking and garish caricature. Since Hawthorne wanly satirizes everything and everyone, including his narrator, himself (as the author of the book, who is not to be confused with the narrator), and his style, and as his attempts at satire and irony are uniformly without edge, the book sinks, as Ophelia did, like a stone.
Rating:
Summary: A Necessity
Review: The Blithedale Romance is a somewhat dark, depressing tale of idealism gone awry and of friendship and love torn asunder by private ambitions. The romance of these pages is not what many modern readers may expect to find here; there is no penultimate consummation of love among these characters, nor is there much happiness indeed to be discerned from the complexity of their relations one with another. Much has been made of Hawthorne's own temporary residence at the utopian-minded Brook Farm a decade previous to the publication of this work; it is true that some of the experiences derive from his own memories, but Hawthorne went to great pains to make clear that this is a romance first and foremost and bears no direct relation to the experiences of his own life. Those who would read this novel in an attempt to get at Hawthorne's true feelings about the utopian socialism he flirted with and watched from afar during his pivotal creative years may well miss out on the thought-provoking treatment of such wonderfully literary, fascinating characters as Hollingsworth the idealistic philanthropist, Zenobia the modern feminist reformer with a fatal flaw inimical to her self-realization, and the sweet and frail Priscilla. The first-person narrator of this story is Miles Coverdale, a man difficult to come to terms with. He joins with the pioneers behind the utopian farming community of Blithedale and truly takes heart in the possibility of this new kind of communitarian life offering mankind a chance to live lives of purpose and fulfillment, yet at times he steps outside of events and seems to view the whole experience as a study in human character and a learning experience to which his heart-strings are only loosely bound. The drama that unfolds is told in his perspective only, and one can never know how much he failed to discern or the degree to which his own conjectures are correct. His eventual castigation of Hollingsworth cannot be doubted, however. This rather unfeeling man joins the community on the hidden pretext of acquiring the means for fulfilling his overriding utopian dream of creating an edifice for the reformation of criminals. This dream takes over his life, Coverdale observes, and his once-noble philanthropic passion morphs him into an overzealous, unfeeling man who brings ruin upon those who were once his friends. It is really Zenobia, though, upon which the novel feeds. She is a fascinating woman of means who makes the Blithedale dream a reality, a bold reformer seeking a new equality for women in the world who ultimately, at Hawthorne's bidding, suffers the ignominious fate of the fragile spirit she seemed to have overcome. This is not a novel that will immediately enthrall you in its clutches. The first half of the novel is sometimes rather slow going, but I would urge you not to cast this book aside carelessly. The final chapters sparkle with drama and human passion, and you find yourself suddenly immersed in this strange community of tragic friends-turned-foes. You care deeply what happens to such once-noble spirits, and while you may not find joy in the tragic conclusion of the ill-fated social experiment of Blithedale, you will certainly find your soul stirred by the tragedy of unfolding events.
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