I just read The House of the Seven Gables by Nathanial Hawthorne for my English class. I read The Scarlet Letter in high school, but found it much too heavy for my taste at that point in my life. Since Seven Gables was an independent read, I had to read it closely.
It was very intriguing.
You meet lots of interesting characters in this novel. It starts out with a story about the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600s and then moves to the present-day 1850s, talking about two specific families that have been hanging around since the trials.
You, as the reader, follow their lives. There are hints of ghosts that they see/hear in the house, but -- Hawthorne being Hawthorne -- he makes you think that things are there, and then tells you it must have been a trick of the light.
The book tells you a lot about the characters there, but -- Hawthorne being Hawthorne again -- DON’T take what he says at face value. For example, he will say that something symbolizes something else (I don’t mind this approach), but you always have to think: why is he telling me instead of letting me find out by myself?
The end is rather odd. Throughout the book, there is something (sinisterly) hanging around like a ghost or a bad memory or something, but nothing truly gets resolved. Everything ends happily (I won’t tell you how), but you can’t even take the ending at face value (I’m warning you now or else you’ll just get really confused). My advice: the closure that Hawthorne gives you is truly no closure at all.
I love Hawthorne’s prose. I think it’s very beautiful and stately. The best part is that although he’s EXTREMELY wordy, it ADDS rather than TAKES AWAY from the story itself.
This is definitely a thinking book. And it’s worth a second read.