Let's discuss this guy. I love his Tales, they're peak short stories. They also feel very appropriate for Autumn. At least the ones about the Puritans do.
I like his short stories better than his novels. I had to read The Scarlet Letter for a class and just getting through the intro about working in The Customs House was sheer torture and had fuck all to do with the story and was mostly just him bitching about his coworkers.Young Goodman Brown was a great short story though.
I can't enjoy his prose no matter how I try. Can't stomach the stuff. Something about the frequency of commas, I'm really not sure.
I much prefer The House of the Seven Gables over The Scarlet Letter.
>>25514258I wish he wrote more essays. Far and away my favorite writing of his.>Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a sculptor would do well to copy, since Art has never invented anything more graceful. A hundred squashes in the garden were worth, in my eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble. If ever Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a superfluity of gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or most delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes for containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate.>>25514263That was the best part of the novel and you hated it?
His children's stories hold up quite well. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32242
Has anyone read The Marble Faun? How is it? It's the only Hawthorne novel I've yet to read.
>>25514362that bit in the customs house was the only bearable part of that text. where is THAT hawthorne elsewhere? I can't find him anywhere.
>>25516247I hear it's really good. People also say The Blithedale Romance is great.