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Summary: Read this book!
Review: Im 17 years old and I enjoyed Hawethorne's classic tale, House of the Seven Gables. I read many of his works and he is my most "intimate" author; using him as the subject on my research paper. My favorite theme he uses in this story is that a person who has committed a transgression feels guilt in his heart due to his puritanical heritage.
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Summary: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles Dickens
Review: In my opinion, this is Hawthorne's masterpiece. Generally speaking, I do not like to compare Hawthorne and Dickens. However, this is probably the ONE TIME American Literature CAME THIS CLOSE to the fine masterpieces of Europe. Like Dickens, Hawthorne presents us with profound and chilling images. As Dickens presents us historical backgrounds and realistic pictures of Victorian England, Hawthorne does so (except with Puritan America.) As Dickens offers us deep psychological insights into human nature, so does Hawthorne. Hepzibah is fine as the poor woman who is out of place and needs to survive somehow and take care of her brother Clifford. Clifford is memorable as the character who teaches us about a second chance at youth, and who has to later take care of Hepzibah. Phoebe is touching as the innocent young woman who brings what cheer she can. Jaffrey is frightening as the villain who wants the mysterious lost treasure AT ANY COST. Chapter 18 not only offers a unique narration style, but is probably the most terrifying moment in all of Hawthorne's writing. As frightening and tragic as this story seems, Hawthorne manages to offer us a happy ending. If you are not that familiar with Hawthorne, you may do good to read Chapter 13 FIRST. The events in Chapter 13 take place before anything else.
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Summary: A Wonderful Morality Play, A Classic of American Literature
Review: It is extremely disappointing to me to read the immature comments of younger people who have described this wonderful old classic of American literature as "boring" and "slow-moving." And to be subjected to the mindless generational argot they apply to Hawthorne's masterful work; words they cannot even spell, and themes of literature they cannot possibly fathom because their attention span is about two minutes long. In other words, anything short of the nightly sit-com swill, video games, and MTV that passes as "culture" in an increasingly uncivilized society is deemed boring and out of touch. What a sad commentary on our educational system, parents and teachers who fail to inspire children to learn, and the overall abilities of this school-age generation to comprehend. How tragic. How pathetic. How very typical.
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Summary: A Beautiful Work of Art
Review: It's very obvious from reading all of these reader reviews that The House of the Seven Gables is not for everyone. But, I urge you to determine if it is for you. If it is, you certainly don't want to miss it. This novel was not written with today's readers in mind. You cannot call it quick-paced, by any stretch of the imagination. The novel is however, a wonderful work of art. Every sentence, every word is carefully crafted, carefully chosen. This novel is meant to be read slowly, to be savored. The novel tells a fairly simple story--the story of the house, and its perhaps doomed family of inhabitants. Many years after a curse by a supposed warlock--there are only 4 members of the doomed family surviving. Is the house haunted? Maybe. Hawthorne is so clever--every time he tells us about a supposed ghost or haunting, he gives us a more "reasonable" explanation. Were they ghosts swirling around the house one evening, or was it just the wind. Is the family doomed? Maybe, but then there is young Pheobe who seems anything but. The House of Seven Gables is far superior to any contemporary gothic you can read. It is novel writing at its best. The characters have depth, the story is engaging, and even, at times, funny. But, you have to be ready for a novel written well over a hundred years ago. If you are, you are in for a treat.
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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.
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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: Required Reading for a Reason
Review: Nathaniel Hawthorne's heirs apparently made a deal with the U.S. education establishment wherein this book was declared Required Reading for high school English students -- thus forcing thousands of them to buy a copy each year. If that had not occurred, no one on Earth would buy or read this turgid literary cure for insomnia. HOTSG is said to be an early American classic. That merely indicates how desperately hard-up the early Americans were, for anything, anything, anything at all to read.
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