<![CDATA[Hawthorne: A Life]]>

false <![CDATA[Hawthorne: A Life]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1190532842m/1933551.jpg 171005 2 Handsome, reserved, almost frighteningly aloof until he was approached, then playful, cordial, Nathaniel Hawthorne was as mercurial and double-edged as his writing. “Deep as Dante,” Herman Melville said. Hawthorne himself declared that he was not “one of those supremely hospitable people who serve up their own hearts, delicately fried, with brain sauce, as a tidbit” for the public. Yet those who knew him best often took the opposite position. “He always puts himself in his books,” said his sister-in-law Mary Mann, “he cannot help it.” His life, like his work, was extraordinary, a play of light and shadow. In this major new biography of Hawthorne, the first in more than a decade, Brenda Wineapple, acclaimed biographer of Janet Flanner and Gertrude and Leo Stein (“Luminous”–Richard Howard), brings him brilliantly alive: an exquisite writer who shoveled dung in an attempt to found a new utopia at Brook Farm and then excoriated the community (or his attraction to it) in caustic satire; the confidant of Franklin Pierce, fourteenth president of the United States and arguably one of its worst; friend to Emerson and Thoreau and Melville who, unlike them, made fun of Abraham Lincoln and who, also unlike them, wrote compellingly of women, deeply identifying with them–he was the first major American writer to create erotic female characters. Those vibrant, independent women continue to haunt the imagination, although Hawthorne often punishes, humiliates, or kills them, as if exorcising that which enthralls. Here is the man rooted in Salem, Massachusetts, of an old pre-Revolutionary family, reared partly in the wilds of western Maine, then schooled along with Longfellow at Bowdoin College. Here are his idyllic marriage to the youngest and prettiest of the Peabody sisters and his longtime friendships, including with Margaret Fuller, the notorious feminist writer and intellectual. Here too is Hawthorne at the end of his days, revered as a genius, but considered as well to be an embarrassing puzzle by the Boston intelligentsia, isolated by fiercely held political loyalties that placed him against the Civil War and the currents of his time. Brenda Wineapple navigates the high tides and chill undercurrents of Hawthorne’s fascinating life and work with clarity, nuance, and insight. The novels and tales, the incidental writings, travel notes and children’s books, letters and diaries reverberate in this biography, which both charts and protects the dark unknowable core that is quintessentially Hawthorne. In him, the quest of his generation for an authentically American voice bears disquieting fruit. From the Hardcover edition. 165126 2003 Hawthorne: A Life total:24|5:5|4:11|3:7|2:0|1:1| 24 91 42 5 4 6 false false Tue Dec 30 10:55:37 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 30 10:55:37 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Feb 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Dec 16 02:22:31 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 06 16:28:37 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Apr 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jan 17 17:59:39 -0800 2009 Sat May 02 07:12:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 10 21:51:23 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 29 23:07:24 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Aug 18 19:55:34 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 18 19:56:47 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Nov 16 08:57:52 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 16 08:57:52 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sat Sep 12 11:33:26 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 12 11:33:26 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Sep 04 10:32:38 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 04 10:32:38 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Aug 31 14:14:52 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 14:14:52 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Sep 05 09:14:28 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 30 09:05:45 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 05 09:14:28 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Aug 25 06:57:57 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 25 06:57:59 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Aug 01 09:43:27 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 11 06:37:03 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 09:43:27 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jul 04 06:25:54 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 04 06:25:54 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jun 16 19:31:21 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 19:31:21 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jun 08 04:26:20 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 08 04:26:20 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Jun 19 20:09:38 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 19:02:09 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 20:09:38 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon May 11 06:01:09 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 06:01:09 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon May 25 15:35:25 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 11 10:48:02 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 15:35:25 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Mar 08 06:31:21 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 08 06:31:21 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jan 14 08:53:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 08:53:08 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1933551