The Celestial Railroad

[Joanna]

Discussion thread for The Celestial Railroad.

[Doreen]

I'm a little confused by this one but seeing as how I just started it maybe I should read more?

[Joanna]

Doreen wrote: "I'm a little confused by this one but seeing as how I just started it maybe I should read more?"

I haven't read it yet but I know my dad really likes it. I guess it's a sort of 19th century version of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress?

[Doreen]

Well now I have to go and make that fresh pot of tea before I delve into it further. lol

[Joanna]

Doreen wrote: "Well now I have to go and make that fresh pot of tea before I delve into it further. lol"

😄 Enjoy!

[Doreen]

Am I missing something? I don't believe I know the name of the character who is narrating this story.

[Doreen]

Well now this story gets me thinking was it really a dream or not?

[Emma | meadowroselibrary]

By the end it makes more sense. 😅❤️

[Joanna]

Once again, Mr. Hawthorne leaves me in awe! Reading this makes me want to read The Pilgrim's Progress again! According to his son Julian, Hawthorne was given this book when he was only 4 . He read and re-read it many times and it was the work of fiction that had the most profound influence on him.

[Joanna]

Wow, I wonder if Emerson read this?! 😅

At the end of the Valley, as John Bunyan mentions, is a cavern, where, in his days, dwelt two cruel giants, Pope and Pagan, who had strewn the ground about their residence with the bones of slaughtered pilgrims. These vile old troglodytes are no longer there; but in their deserted cave another terrible giant has thrust himself, and makes it his business to seize upon honest travellers, and fat them for his table with plentiful meals of smoke, mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and saw- dust. He is a giant by birth, and is called Giant Transcendentalist; but as to his form, his features, his substance, and his nature generally, it is the chief peculiarity of this huge miscreant, that neither he for himself, nor anybody for him, has ever been able to describe them. As we rushed by the cavern's mouth, we caught a hasty glimpse of him, looking somewhat like an ill- proportioned figure, but considerably more like a heap of fog and duskiness. He shouted after us, but in so strange a phraseology, that we knew not what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or affrighted.

[Werner]

This is probably one of the most (if not THE most) explicitly Christian of Hawthorne's short stories. It's also a rare example of actual allegory in English language literature (as was Bunyan's original The Pilgrim's Progress.

One of my pet peeves with Raymond A. St. John's book American Literature For Christian Schools (which I used as an American Literature textbook back when Barb and I were homeschooling our girls, because I couldn't find one that was any better :-( ) is the author's cavalier assertion that Hawthorne wasn't a Christian --despite the fact that he included "The Celestial Railroad" as an example of Hawthorne's work! (And despite the passage you quoted from this story, Meg, he also put his treatment of Hawthorne in a chapter on Transcendentalists. The background noise is my eyes rolling.) It's more or less to be expected that secularist scholars are apt to be tone-deaf to Christian content in any given author's work (if they're not actively hostile to it). But it's disappointing, to say the least, to encounter the same sort of tone-deafness from a scholar whose professed Christianity is very up front, who teaches in a Christian university, and whose book is published by a Christian press in the intention of providing an alternative to secularist textbooks.

[Joanna]

Werner wrote: "This is probably one of the most (if not THE most) explicitly Christian of Hawthorne's short stories. It's also a rare example of actual allegory in English language literature (as was Bunyan's ori..."

Yeah, it's amazing how many misconceptions about Hawthorne are out there. Have you ever read his American Notebooks? That was a big enlightener for me. Even though he wasn't a member of a particular denomination and wasn't a church-goer, I am convinced that his faith was strong and his heart was right with God. It is also obvious that he didn't consider himself a Transcendentalist even though he seemed to be on friendly terms with Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller.

[Werner]

No, Meg, I've never read the American Notebooks, nor his journals (maybe an idea for further reading there!). But I totally agree about the sincerity of his faith. (He chose not to identify with any denomination because he disliked and distrusted all denominational creeds that walled each sect's believers in and kept everybody else out.)

Yes, like Chesterton and C. S. Lewis later, he was able to share warm friendships with people whose views he disagreed with.

[Hannah]

This was such a good story - whoow, preach it, Hawthorne! I love the different perspective he takes with the story!! The narrator was one who...oh how would you describe it......I guess not a believer? Or was religious to a point but not very serious about it? instead of Bunyan's devout Christian. Through Hawthorne's story, one sees the world for what it is and all its traps.

If the carriage in the story would have been taken out and replaced with a car or taxi, you wouldn't have known that it wasn't written today. Things have not changed, have they?

So was Hawthorne NOT a Transcendentalist? For some reason I thought he was!

[Joanna]

Hannah wrote: "This was such a good story - whoow, preach it, Hawthorne! I love the different perspective he takes with the story!! The narrator was one who...oh how would you describe it......I guess not a belie..."

Isn't it, though?! This is a story I will be returning to again and again! There is so much truth in it.

I used to associate Hawthorne with the Transcendentalists too, but although he lived in Concord for a while and had lasting friendships with Emerson, Thoreau, and others, he clearly was not one of them.