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The House of the Seven Gables (Norton Critical Edition)

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Sometimes it seems a mistake to force high school students to read 19th century literature. It does take patience to adjust to the "old fashioned" prose, but it's worth the effort. House of Seven Gables is an eerie ghost story based upon actual historical events. Hawthorne knew Salem and its history inside and out, and he also knew how to create a haunting atmosphere and a story that stays in the mind forever. He's one of the few authors who conveys a sense of Puritan fatalism and repression without resorting to gothic romance cliches. This is an excellent piece of literature, and if you haven't given it a chance by rereading it as an adult, you're missing a great experience.

Besides being a classic Hawthorne this is an exceptional edition because of the wonderful annotation.

If you are not familiar with Nathaniel Hawthorne, it may help you to read chapter 13 first. The events in chapter 13 take place before anything else in the story. That said, this book is phenomenal. It would almost appear that Nathaniel Hawthorne was taking lessons from Charles Dickens at this time. Amongst other things, Hawthorne explores the theme that greed leads to one's downfall. (One of Dickens's favorite themes.) After setting the mood, Hawthorne introduces us to Hepzibah. (A down on her luck lady who realizes she needs to survive somehow and opens a cent shop. Yet another Dickens's element.) In her desperation, she carries dignity, but also places demands on our sympathy. The young Phoebe later comes to help Hepzibah, and she adds some hope to the picture. We also learn that Hepzibah's cousin Jaffrey is after Hepzibah's brother Clifford. Hepzibah is frightened of Jaffrey, and Hawthorne will later tell us why. Showing another Dickens's element, we meet the sympathetic and eccentric Clifford. (His room is actually concealed. He has habits that appear strange to many, and Hepzibah is frightened of him ending up in an asylum.) Phoebe remains in bliss in her ignorance, but this is not to last. Though her kindness has a nice effect on Clifford. Interestingly, when Holgrave tells Phoebe about Hepzibah and Clifford, Phoebe gets cold feet and needs to get away for awhile. Well, in comes Jaffrey. He is after a will over land, Clifford may know something about it, and Hepzibah is frightened. In a surprise burst of strength, Clifford confronts Jaffrey and leaves with Hepzibah. (Dickens enjoyed giving his eccentrics sudden bursts of strength or a sudden show of virtue.) In yet another Dickens's technique, Hawthorne himself taunts Jaffrey with a fierece and driving narration. And using a Dickens's technique of irony, the document Jaffrey was searching for was worthless. (Greed and irony. 2 of Dickens's famous trademarks.) Moving on, the good Holgrave, Pheobe, Hepzibah, and Clifford are happily reunited. And not only that, but Hepzibah and Clifford come into money and are rich again. But that is not the end of it. Alice from chapter 13 finds peace. While Hawthorne's previous "Fanshawe" and "Scarlet Letter" ended on a depressing note, the "House of the Seven Gables" ends on a happy note. SIDE NOTE: If you are ever in Salem Massachusetts, make sure you see the House of the Seven Gables.

With the success of The Scarlet Letter (1850), Nathaniel Hawthorne took his place alongside Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau as the leaders of New England's literary community; the book also made Hawthorne enough money so that he could turn all his energies to writing as a full time endeavor. The House of the Seven Gables was published a year after The Scarlet Letter came out, and although most of its themes had been considered in the earlier novel, Hawthorne's point of view in the newer work was as he put it, "a more natural and healthy product of my mind ... and a more natural book for me to write." The book is less severe and even charming in its own way, and it was even more popular than the Scarlet Letter. Whereas both works are still considered masterpieces of early American fiction, The House of the Seven Gables is now generally seen as being much the inferior work.

Hawthorne knew his reading public well and understood that the dark themes previouly developed in The Scarlet Letter could be counted on to sell a lot of books. The idea that "the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones" was not new, but Hawthorne was determined to give it his full attention; indeed maybe too much attention, resulting in a weakening of the book as a whole. In many ways, the book becomes an idea in search of a supporting cast and plot. It is too episodic (the train ride of Hepzibah and Clifford is not only irrelevant to the plot but could - if the names of the characters were changed - have been lifted from another book entirely); the ending is painfully contrived and all to easily ties up the missing links; and the characters are more like portraits than they are like real people - none of the characters are developed enough to compare to either Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth or Minister Dimmesdale.

And while the book may not succeed in its entirety, it is not void of some elements of literary genius. Hawthorne was a master of description and the chapter entitled "Governor Pyncheon" shows him at his best. Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon, a cousin of Hepzibah and Clifford, is the consummate hypocrite: a man, who while affable in society, is obsessed with power and greed and is a manifestation of his Puritan heritage. Having little sympathy left for this heritage, Hawthorne not only kills the Judge off, but spends an entire chapter detailing the dead Judge's vanities and ambitions, and tauts the deceased about the finality of death. And while the hours pass and rigor mortis sets in, Hawthorne takes pleasure in placing a common house fly on the dead man's nose. It is a wonderful touch and a startling demonstration of Hawthorne's literary talent.

In Hawthorne's times, wealth and power were vested in landownership.
In this book, a conflict about landownership is solved in favour of a member of the powerful by incriminating of witchcraft and executing the poor owner of a hut. `Clergymen, judges, statesmen stood in the inner circle round about the gallows loudest to applaud the work of blood.'
But the innocent victim utters a prophecy on the scaffold: `God would give them blood to drink.'
The wrongdoing becomes a curse for all generations to come. They will be `slaves of bygone times.'

The House of the Seven Gables, the expression of that odious Past, stands for `what we call real estate - the solid ground to build a house on it - is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of the world rests.'
One of the main characters, the Judge, represents the respectability of Puritanism. But he is in fact a selfish, iron-hearted hypocrite, greedy of wealth. He is a member of the schemers: `practiced politicians skilled to adjust those measures which steal the people the power of choosing its own rulers.'
As in `The Scarlet Letter', Nathaniel Hawthorne exposes in this book forcefully the Phariseism of the Puritans and the powerful. It culminates in a very surprising and highly dramatic end.

Not to be missed.

Hawthorne I believe is the best American writer of all time. Rather than romanticize the house for the purposes of story telling, he provides us with more of a lesson in community, law and history while putting the house of seven gables in such a perspective.

His style is magnificent and he never strays from his purpose of uplifting the human soul to indulge in sensationalism, or the like except in his the artist's story of Matthew Maule and the Pyncheon's which is quite a humorous exposition.

What impresses me most and distinguishes Hawthorne from most other American writers, is well beyond his excessive grace and knowledge is that his characters are all story tellers, and not just some stiffs spouting off one liners in the midst of some formulaic or contrived plot. His contrivance of plot the legal documents is funny and well put into perspective by his emphasis on the human condition in a new england town.

Its a very good book, although the Scarlet Letter was more gripping to me. I think he is a far better author than Twain and especially Faulkner who I believe is a total hack, and even Melville for Hawthorne's spareness, clarity and grace. And Hemingway - give me a break, that guy is not in the same league as Stephen King. Hawthorne is definitely the greatest writer in American literature, although of course he didn't turn out the same number of books as some of these other guys, you can only read so many books anyway.

Grace, style and exposition (with romance) of all manners of the human condition and sound advice are what makes Hawthorne the best. i highly recommend this book.

I found this to be much slower and generally more boring than the Scarlet Letter and many of the stories in Twice Told Tales. However, it's still Hawthorne and worth reading.

I'm not sure what makes this book a classic, other than the fact that it is old. It is a long difficult slog through florid prose, to find a story that has little, if any, plot. Nothing really happens throughout the entire book.

This book could have been written in one sentence: "Once upon a time, there were some people that I didn't really like, that lived around here, in a house that may or may not have been haunted, and after nothing much happened to them, they moved away.

The rest of the book is nothing but long-winded, overblown descriptions that make you feel like YOU are mouldering and decaying, rather than the house. There are many classics out there that inform, entertain and uplift the human spirit. This is not one of them. I hate every excruciating second of it.

And no, I wasn't forced to read this for a class, I read it of my own accord, much to my dismay.

I did not have to read Hawthorne in high-school, so my impressions were not based on some previous experience. I did not quite know what to expect when I picked it up. What I got was a moderately interesting book, which did not touch me on any serious emotional level. The problems faced by its characters are dated and don't translate well into modern world, the thoughts may have been original in 19th century, but by now are trivial, the characters are built through descriptions and not through actions. There are several paragraphs in the book that I thought were great and interesting, so the book is not a total waste of time. In a way, I can see why it became a classic of American literature, but it did not preserve well.
One thing that I'd like to point out is a complete lack of any moral or a point to the story. It's just a collection of events that happened to leave positive characters prospering and the bad guy dying. Random stuff. "S..t happens and sometimes it happens for good" seems to be the main idea of the book. It's an OK idea for a "vacation-book", but I usually expect more from a "classic".