Twice-Told Tales by Hawthorne (book review)
enticements to lingering reverie…
Book review:
Twice-Told Tales
by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
First published in 1837 (first series) and 1842 (second series)
This edition first printed 1911, reprinted 1964.
357 pages.
We preserve the remnants of our youth in chambers of the brain that often are, for good or ill, inaccessible to our conscious minds.
The baubles of memory in Twice-Told Tales are potent sparks that guide us to the once-remembered moments, the enticements to lingering reverie that fills new moments with newly imagined memories that rescue us from once-remembered despair, and fill the blank spaces with second chances.
Hawthorne collected such moments of youth, such bauble treasure, in “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” in the fertile and fervid desperations of four venerable friends who eagerly swallow an elixir that boosts them to a capering re-enactment of their youth—but oh, so brief, so immaterial, so ephemeral that the long glass in the room can only reflect their withered miens, and none of the hot young beauty that they see again, for precious moments, in the emboldened gazes that they share.
Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales include “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” and 38 other short stories (originally published in 1837 and 1842) showing off his evocative prose, and embracing a wide range of human emotions.
You’ll be able to find something you like.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review:
The American Revolution: A History
The “Founders” actually were afraid
of “democracy”…
by Gordon S. Wood
click here
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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