** spoiler alert ** This was not the best book. It’s not just dated, but the style is very annoying. The truly sad thing is that I can’t say that Hawthorne didn’t have potential. He would have made a fantastic contemporary poet. There were a lot of gems hidden in the mess of run-on sentences. There were really in-depth characterizations that, unfortunately, didn’t include the actual characters. “Poor Hepzibah” could been included in any drinking game, and Clifford was hardly examined more than (I paraphrase completely) “look at the idiot, who likes pretty, shiny things and Phoebe’s boobs”.

The plot was messy and he could barely keep everything together before it all spilled out in the end in one flood of sunshine and posies. So, the actual story: bad, bad. But it left me with a few things like the elephant cookie that was dropped and broke apart (“it ceased to be an elephant”), “a door that communicated with the shop”, “the most recondite specimens of ornamental needlework”, “Thus Uncle Venner was a miscellaneous old gentleman, partly himself, but, in good measure, somebody else; patched together, too, of different epochs”, “There is no greater bugbear than a strong-willed relative , in the circle of his own connections”, and how Hepzibah trouble Clifford when she was reading by her “innumerable sins of emphasis”.

As a side note, be prepared to flinch at Scipio (don’t let the bad-ass sounding name fool you). And all of Phoebe’s wonderful, awesomely gloriousness was a tad annoying.

Here’s two samples of ramblings (beware the second one for spoilers, but I don’t think you’ll care much):

“Alas, this dinner! Have you really forgotten its true object? Then let us whisper it, that you may start at once out of the oaken chair.” (pg 237)

(Here’s a confession)
“The world looked strange, wild, evil, hostile; - my past life, so lonesome and dreary; my future, a shapeless gloom, which I must mould into gloomy shapes! But, Pheobe, you crossed the threshold; and hope, warmth, and joy came in with you! The black moment became at once a blissful one. It must not pass without the spoken word. I love you!” (pg 265)

Imagine the whole book like that...

Bottomline: Not worth it. But that elephant image will stick with me.