slow-cooked human nature…

Book review:

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, London: Collins’ Clear-Type Press, 1850

368 pages

This is magnetic literature. The Scarlet Letter pulls me in, and keeps me connected to Hawthorne’s compelling exposure of slow-cooked human natures.

As I turn the pages, I put my hands on the beating hearts of Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne.  Dimmesdale flails in the crass miasma of his weakness. Hester does not try to escape her torment, and she creates iconoclastic goodness in nearly everything she does. They came close to escaping their time.

The scarlet letter of Hester’s ignominy is perhaps the least destructive element of this story of love that is a transgression and a transforming secret.

There is so much emotion and too little joy in Hawthorne’s tale of 17th century lovers. Alas, the story line is viciously inescapable.

Here’s another thought: as the story is commonly known and discussed, there is hardly enough engagement with the essential role of little Pearl, the happy-go-lucky and morbidly insightful child whose experience is vital in every chapter. Pearl is a connector in every element of the tale.

I don’ think you’ll have any trouble believing this:

after publication of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne described it as “positively a hell-fired story, into which I found it impossible to throw any cheering light.”

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2018 All rights reserved.

Book review: Lord of the Flies

It was never more relevant…

by William Golding

click here

Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,

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