From the Bookshelf of EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club…

The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Start date: November 1, 2021

Finish date: November 30, 2021

Discussion: CLASSICS READS

Why we're reading this: Group Classics Read - November 2021
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CLASSICS READS

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What Members Thought

Dec 17, 2011 Stephen rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, z-read-in-2011, available-on-line

I'd never read this classic and ordered the unabridged audio book in hopes that this would make it less painful to fill one of the holes in my classical education.

It Didn't.

This author's prose is so complex and convoluted that having to listen to it means REALLY having to listen. I'm now convinced that the print version would have been more appropriate. Not only is it easier in print to mark one's place and set the work aside but it would be satisfying to throw this tome against the wall a tim I'd never read this classic and ordered the unabridged audio book in hopes that this would make it less painful to fill one of the holes in my classical education.

It Didn't.

This author's prose is so complex and convoluted that having to listen to it means REALLY having to listen. I'm now convinced that the print version would have been more appropriate. Not only is it easier in print to mark one's place and set the work aside but it would be satisfying to throw this tome against the wall a time or two.

The story has some redeeming aspects (it's probably one of America's earliest psychological thrillers) but the language is so dated (Thitherto?) that it's a chore to get through this and the poor reader of this audio version does an OK job but does ocassionally lose the meaning of the sub sub sub clauses.

Any high school or middle school English teacher that still assigns this as required should be brought up on charges of crimes against humanity. It would drive any reluctant reader to not only swear off reading altogether but might drive some to the Oedipal lengths of gouging one's eyes out with broaches.

As I listened to this and gazed at one of the Harry Potter novels on my shelf it occured to me... Why give Harry Potter a blood letting quill... just have him transcribe this swill!"

And a further trial in the audio version... all the world knows the heroine herein as Hester Prynne (rhymes with SIN.) However, the reader of this audiobook version insists on calling her Hester Prynne (rhymes with FINE.)

Though the setting is antique this was released only one year before Moby Dick and yet it reads as awkwardly as if it were written a century before.

I've heard it said that one of the main reasons that Franklin Pierce got elected President was that he was good buddies with Hawthorne and Hawthorne actually wrote his biography. If was anything like the prose here, one wonders "how could that have helped?"

Finally Hawthorne provides the best words to critique his work when he describes the book that sent poor Dimsdale to dreamland in one of the books crucial scenes... "A Work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature."

Pretty much wrote his own review there...
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Aug 20, 2014 Amanda rated it really liked it

Shelves: 5-stars

I told my son I'd read one of his school assigned summer books so he'd have someone to discuss it with and bounce ideas off. I hoped this wouldn't be the one he chose. I had never read it but had read The House of the Seven Gables, an experience that made me want to avoid any further contact with Hawthorne. However he chose this with no hesitation. I began it with dread. The first few pages were dense a difficult to get into but soon I got into the flow of the almost soap opera iah plot and foun ...more

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Mar 15, 2011 Bethany rated it really liked it

This was beautifully written, but it was hard to get through. The descriptions of crowds would take up pages and it was hard to not skip ahead. I get used to reading young adult stuff and forget that sometimes a book isn't written for the exciting story. This is about the intensity of heartbreak and loss. I can understand that better as an adult than I could when I first read it as a teenager. I wish I could write a paper on this now. It would be much better. :) ...more

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