Not great literature

[Blagernashif]

It is funny you think that. Maybe it is just becuase you are stuck in the present, and some people are stuck in the past, myself included. I personaly can't find a real good book writen in the last 20, 30 years. It is a good book, a great book actually. You eather understand it, or you don't. And if you don't, well, it seems stupid and pointless. It is not a love stroy, or even a story about an event in history. It is this guys philosphies on life. Nothing else. The Hester/Dimmesdale thing is just a backdrop. And as a work of personal ideas, it is great. So stick to your Clive Cussler, or whatever you read, and leave the old books to themselves.

[Hawthorne fan]

Sorry you don't apprecaite the nuances of well a written and intricate allegory. Perhaps your English instructor(s) should have had you learn a little about Puritanism, Romanticism, and Transcendentalism. Do any of the "modern" novels you read have any meaning beyond the surface story? Do they challenge your intellect or do they serve merely as mind candy, rotting the brain cells with the decay of "simple" sugar surface "truths'?

[Unregistered]

Your review, Tom, reveals a very serious inability to engage with the text on its own terms. Though you claim now to have re-read the book some forty years after you first encountered it in h.s., your take on it today sounds strikingly like the immature, underdeveloped, solipsistic whining of an adolescent.<br><br>Stick with Stephen King, or perhaps comic books. You do not possess the requisite sophistication or cultivated taste to appreciate this classic work.

[Roxann]

Clearly you have a great misunderstanding of the time, history and language of the people (yes, even seven year olds) of the 17th century New England. It is a great fallacy to apply our time period to the writings of Hawthorne or any other author of his period. Try researching the history from reputable, original sources and attempt to reread the Novel after you have allowed a change in paradigm to take place in regards to the history, culture and language of the period in question.

[Unregistered]

I think part of what is interesting about the way this book it written is the fact that the reader can only have as much insight into the characters minds and feelings as the writer allows. the books is like a history. we are given all we need to know, in order for the meaning of the tale to come across. what is left out is just as valuable as what is included. <br><br>this book was written in the Victorian era, at a time where people were just beginning to question womens roles, and the meaning of the union of man and woman in a way they never eally had before. this book was looking at the past with MODERN perspectives. it is interesting when looked at in that way, i find.<br><br>if it wasn't for writers like Hawthorne, there would be no "modern" writers having interesting ideas - things would have just plodded along, and no one would have tried to say anything different!<br><br>

[jean]

You're quite wrong to call this novel rubbish. The point of it is not to entertain but to give a thorough view of the early Puritan days in New England. Allegory is the word to describe it as a whole, and symbolism does the trick! Why has a character got to be bathed in sunlight all the time?? Well, it is a matter of characterization. Developping an insight for yourself is not the point of this novel. In a way, it is all about discussing right and wrong, and whether there is not an alternative to christian values through nature. It has also many, many, many historical references, which by themselves make the reading worh it.

[Tom]

I must admit I hated this book, The Scarlet Letter, when I was in high school, I find it slightly less so now 40 years later. It is definitely not great literature.<br> First, the characterization is just awful, boring, and all drawn out by the narrator. He rarely allows the readers to develop insights for themselves. He tell you what they look like, what they think, what they do, and what they say. He doesn't allow the reader to draw an opinion. He hardly ever allows two characters to have a conversation or to show them doing an event. Here modern literature is much better.<br> Then when he attempts dialogue, he fails, take for example, the children (he decides they are urchins and lets them speak "gravely one to another" -- "Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter, and, of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlett letter running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them" -- Now this is Hawthorn attempting a few line of children probably younger than seven years old. Yeah - right!<br> And then there's the Pathetic Fallacy. I doubt anywhere in literature where Nature becomes personifies and shows her pleasure or displeasure towards the characters. Okay once or twice - all right if you're not a good writer, but does Pearl have to be constanly bathed in sunlight?<br>Yuk.<br> Perhaps I'm just comparing Hawthorne to modern good writers, and perhaps I shouldn't. What do you think?<br>