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Feb 22, 2011

Joselito rated it:

A clueless group here in goodreads.com made this this its book of the month read under the "Horror" genre when there is no horror in it. The author called it, instead, a "Romance" but there is no romance in it, either, except a brief declaration of love for each other of two protagonists towards the end with all its unmistakable phoniness ("How can you love a simple girl like me?" Duh, all men profess to love simple girls!).

This is actually a sex book wr More...

23 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2008

Jason rated it:

(My full review of this book is much larger than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read 100 supposed "classics" for the first time, then write reports on whether or not I think they deserve the label

Book #2: House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The story in a nutshell:
Like any good horror story, the spooky House o More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Aug 17, 2009

Kim rated it:

OHMYFREAKIN'GAWD.

Why the hell did I pick this up again? Life's too short, you say? You have 200+ other books on your 'to read' shelf and this was sucking your will to read? Give it up! You're right... all of it... and my answer is... my excuse being... because I'm freakin' stubborn. Its Hawthorne . I mean how much more New Englandy can you get? I couldn't just--- give up... I'd be betraying my countryman...

Whatever.

For a few years, i More...

13 comments like (18 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Shawn rated it:

This book dares you to read it. I hadn't thought about putting it up here, because, in fact, I have never finished it. I have the distinction of having had the book assigned to me no less than three times in various college courses, and never once read the whole thing.

The problem is I do not care about a single character in this novel. A rich family is cursed because they screwed over a poor family? Great. Where's the conflict? I hate rich people, and didn't want to see them redeeme More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2008

Alan rated it:

This is the worst book ever written in the English language that is somehow celebrated against far superior novels from the same era, somehow earning him enough respect to have his crusty face emblazoned onto the Library of Congress.

If the story were to take place in modern day Atlanta, it would be about some inbred, old money steel magnolia losing her shit up in Buckhead, and dragging her family down with her while she squanders what little remains of their inheritance on palm reade More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jul 26, 2011

Q rated it:

Having read Scarlet Letter in Jr High -I was surprised how much I enjoyed House of the Seven Gables. He called it a romance vs a novel; for a romance has a moral. Here the moral was the actions of past generations effect the current generation.

This book is a great historical novel - of changing times in New England. The Puritanical ways are changing to new thought. the impact of the Salem Witch trials - having cast a web of strife for many - is now coming back to center. Greed an More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Clif rated it:

The House of the Seven Gables begins with a preface by the author that identifies the work as a romance, not a novel. That may be the author's preference, but I think most romance fans will be disappointed if they read this book. The book is a classic by a famous American author, so it deserves to be read. Once you finish the book and look over the complete plot, you can see how romantic love has healed a 200-year family curse. Therefore, in that regard it is a romance. However, the experien More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 17, 2008

Andrea rated it:

I did it, DTA!!! And I can almost feel the handsome Mr. Hawthorne smiling down on me as I type. :-)
After touring the house in July 2007, I felt the least I could do was to read the book that made the house famous. While I'm not generally a fan of 19th century American literature (give me Dickens any day!), I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would. By the 3rd chapter, Hawthorne's language had drawn me into the story, but it was his occasional flights of slyly sarcastic hum More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 15, 2010

Skylar rated it:

This mysterious novel about a cursed family and its mansion is one of Hawthorne's few works with a happy ending. Perhaps Hawthorne, when he wrote it, had come to some degree of peace with the curse that was rumored to have been placed upon his own family. The novel is interesting, and it contains some profound insights. It boasts one of Hawthorne's "reformer" characters, Holgrave. Hawthorne did not seem to have much faith in reform and reformers, but Holgrave is a more sympathetic c More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 27, 2008

Joe rated it:

I'm so glad you're dead, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

So this is a classic horror novel in which nothing at all happens for a few hundred pages except the description of some house, an old hag selling oatmeal, and some guy who may or may not have hypnotized the other chick who's boarding there. There might be something scary but I was too busy falling asleep to notice. If Hawthorne were alive, he'd be a zombie, which I'd totally be okay with because then he could get shot in the head by zom More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Nov 29, 2008

Christie rated it:

When I finished this story, I found it hard to care about it. It is my least favorite of Hawthorne's books. The characters were mostly unlikable, the plodding plot fattened up with many pages of useless description that added nothing. It was a relief to be done with it, an achievement that can only be attributed to my stubborn refusal to stop reading once engaged, no matter how annoying the material. :o) It does feel irreverent to be trashing Nathaniel Hawthorne. But time would be better spent More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 19, 2007

Vanessa rated it:

How can you not love a ghost story? Even better, a ghost story that unravels to reveal how superstition can obscure truth (in this case, science.) I have read Hawthorne before and should not have been suprised, but I was, regardless, surprised by Hawthorne's sharp criticism of superstition. Hawthorne's language (quaint) belies the modernity of his resolution.

He also has an obvious fondness for quirky characters, which is sweet.

You do have to push youy way past a certain p More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Alicia rated it:

This book is 90% description, atmosphere creation, and 10% plot. It is not a romance - there's too little development of this angle. It is not a horror or ghost story - there's a lot of ominous mood, but only a passing mention of a ghost and nothing horrific happens. The story stems from the idea that a rich man was cursed when he doomed a poorer man to death in the distant past by having him convicted of witchcraft. The book is really a description of and history lesson about - a house. Hence, More...

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Dec 21, 2011

Treasure rated it:

Part of a series of adapted classics (Calico Illustrated Classics), this one follows the dark, dreary, cursed Pyncheon family. Kids will enjoy the creepy mood of the story, though they will need background information on Puritans, witchcraft, and the early history of America. A glossary or additional resources section would have been a nice addition. The occasional illustration and the short chapters are ideal for mid level readers and struggling readers—a great choice for ESL students when othe More...

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Mar 25, 2011

William rated it:

This narrative, published in 1850, starts with a preface by Hawthone explaining his concept of the Romance, which is to be distinguished from the Novel because it provides the writer with greater latitude to takes risks. The Novel is somehow more straightforward, more conservative, less flexible as a vehicle for experimentation.

The first chapter gives us the backstory in a kind of lump sum. Most contemporary novelists probably write such a backstory but often cut it, since, lacking act More...

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Feb 27, 2011

Brian rated it:

Set in the mid-nineteenth century, The House of The Seven Gables tells the story of the Pyncheon family. Descended from a Puritan ancestor who was involved in the witch trials of the seventeenth century, the remaining members of the family now live under a curse and the plot of this novel is concerned with the working out of that curse.

Living in reduced circumstances in the eponymous seven-gabled house is the elderly spinster, Hepzibah Pyncheon along with her brother Clifford who has More...

0 comments like

Dec 30, 2010

Karissa rated it:

I've had a copy of the House of Seven Gables sitting on my bookshelf for a number of years. The poor little book is slightly out of place between a plethora of fantasy and science fiction novels. Every once in a while I try to venture into a different realm of subject. That's the reason I finally picked up this book to read. I would have read it sooner but I was forced to read "The Scarlet Letter" in high school and never had the heart to read another Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.

More...

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Dec 11, 2010

Janette rated it:

I can see why English teachers like this book. The vocabulary alone makes it worth reading. Plus it's full of all that theme and symbolism that English teachers love to talk about.

Unfortunately, Nathaniel Hawthorne liked to talk about theme and symbolism too, which makes this book feel like one long treatise on theme and symbolism. I mean, seriously, Nathaniel Hawthorne goes on and on and on and then on some more about the stuff. He doesn't just tell you once that it is a degrada More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 30, 2010

Lisa rated it:

I read this book because I couldn't stand the thought of going to Salem and yet again walking by the structure that inspired "The House of the Seven Gables" without knowing the story. Having now read the book, I would describe it as "a Puritan 'ghost' story for people with lots of patience."

Although I liked the plot--a family is "haunted" by the sins of a patriarch--it could have been told as well or better in about three fifths the length. Even for an More...

2 comments like

Sep 03, 2010

Caiti rated it:

The plot revolves around the House of the Seven Gables and the ancestral curse said to plague all offspring of the builder thereof. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Despite the mysterious secrets lying undiscovered in the souls of certain characters, the house itself, dark and decaying, so like its cursed inhabitants, and the two young people, come to stay at the House, so unlike, yet "held united by the stiffened grasp of Death", I was not intrigued.

A good book pulls you in, More...

0 comments like

Oct 25, 2009

Michael rated it:

I picked this book up as part of my run-up to Halloween reading I try to do every year. In fact, I started to read this several years ago and stopped (I don’t remember why). This time I started and completed it.

First, the book’s language is a little tough to grasp at times; Hawthorne used phrase constructions that we would not use today, so it took some time to understand what he was saying. While that element requires some investment, I think it was worth it. I even learned a ne More...

0 comments like

Jul 19, 2009

Bruce rated it:

Hawthorne labels his work a Romance rather than a novel, thus giving himself permission to mix an element of the “Marvellous” into the narrative. The work itself begins with sprinkled oddities - a hint of witchcraft and necromancy, a mysterious and possibly supernatural death, the presence of a perpetual family curse, a puzzling mirror rumored to show unusual characteristics, a house itself that is personified. Hawthorne’s language is exquisite, very early 18th century-ish, almost courtly, cer More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2011

Alex rated it:

I was like halfway through this book before I bothered to look up what a gable is. I imagined it as something cool, like a parapet or a widow's walk. Nah, it's not; it's just this. It's just a thing houses have. So goes the novel.

Hey: Hawthorne is no Puritan conservative. He's a radical. Hawthorne insistently indicts Puritan culture; he once said, "Let us thank God for having given us such [Puritan] ancestors; and let each successive generation thank Him, not less fervently, for More...

19 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 09, 2010

Louize rated it:

Nathaniel Hawthorn’s novels were distinguished as dark romanticism; a historical romance interlaced with guilt and retribution. It is a spot on description of the House of Seven Gables. Born and raised in a Puritan family of Salem Massachusetts, I have to assume that Hawthorn was very superstitious. Therefore, choosing 7 was an appropriate number for the said gables in this novel.

From the beginning, I have to set in mind that this is a well-known classic and Hawthorn is a respect More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 26, 2009

Jonathan rated it:

The House of the Seven Gables

At times the story seems to drag on as Hawthorne slips into descriptions about Clifford that seem almost irrelevant. These laborious descriptions have an affect of lulling the reader to sleep, almost as if one was in that beaten down old house of seven gables; as if Hawthorne was attempting to convey in his seemingly decadent and extraneous descriptions concepts and feelings of old, overgrown, and lethargic despair. Pain long held and long forgotten by More...

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Oct 08, 2009

Stuart rated it:

Another "great American novel" that really is one of the Great American Novels, this book is a surprisingly quick read, by turns charming and creepy, with a small but excellently drawn cast of characters ranging from the comically tragic but dignified Hepzibah, to the gracefully mysterious Holgrave. An unexpected plot twist at the beginning of the book's final third leads to two chapters of excellent writing, one detailing Clifford and Hepzibah's flight on a train and the almost psycho More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2009

Bettie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 25, 2009

Frank rated it:

For years I think I confused this book with "Anne of Green Gables," and I thought this was kind of a proto-little house on the prairie. The word "gable" threw me off. It turns out it's a cool old haunted house story.

It took me a long while to get into it (I was stuck on page fifty for about a month), because Hawthorne can certainly ramble with the best of the Victorian writers. It is impressive in a sort of abstract way that he can spend three pages descr More...

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Jul 30, 2011

Paul rated it:

September 19, 2010--While in Boston this summer, I visited the house of seven gables, the home Nathaniel Hawthorne was supposed to have used as the setting for this novel. to be honest, I didn't even know what a gable was before that trip. My visit prompted me to read Hawthorne's novel. I suppose giving the novel 2.5 stars says more about me than it does about the great American author, but the book is really more of a mood piece than a story. Hawthorne took great pains in describing for us the More...

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Aug 01, 2011

Paul rated it:

Reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables" was a different and special experience this time, perhaps because I read it while on a trip to Salem, Massachusetts. Hawthorne is virtually a living presence in modern Salem. One can stay at the Hawthorne Hotel, a beautiful old historical hotel that is said to be haunted. (The closet door in our hotel room did have a way of opening and closing for no apparent reason.) A statue of Hawthorne is about a block from the hotel More...

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