The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: a review

I only read this book because it’s a set text for one of my class modules. I’ll have that a lot for the rest of the year, and that’s especially true for this particular module. I can’t complain though; class books allow me to read things I’d never normally pick up. They’re often books I know about, but haven’t ever bothered to read. I don’t tend to read classics just for the sake of it. I still need to have a reason to pick them up.

            The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne follows Hester Prynne after she has given birth to an illegitimate child. The story follows her through the years after the child’s birth, and the strange effects of the child’s unlawful conception.

            Hawthorne doesn’t often employ adjectives that got under my skin, but, unfortunately, the first one he uses is in the phrase “sad-coloured garments”. It’s used as if “sad” is a colour. Don’t get me wrong, I know what he’s getting at, but I find it rather off-putting to read, especially when he describes hats as “gray” in the very next sentence. Thankfully, this wasn’t a common occurrence.

            I am fully aware that some of my review might sound more like class notes than my usual style. I’m not sure how much this is true, but I just thought that I’d give fair warning.

            It’s interesting to me that a prison was a priority for the settlers. I don’t believe that this was a prison colony, so it says a lot about the settlers that persecution was a priority. It is, of course, true that this book is set in a time where the puritans were in the majority. Persecution was certainly a puritan priority. Later, he describes the people of the town as “people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical” and I think that sums my point up perfectly.

            Dick Hill, the narrator of the audiobook seemed somewhat monotone at first. He wasn’t dull, but I can’t say he was entirely exciting. Then, he started doing the voice for one of the village women, and I really fell for his narration after that. The gossips may have had voices like something out of the Jim Henson Workshop, but I can certainly say that it’s memorable. It might have been a little over the top, but each voice was perfectly distinct. It was only the gossips that had the overly dramatic voices, too. The rest were perfectly normal, but the gossips were a bit of light relief whenever one showed up.

            I used whisper-sync for this book. This is a feature on Kindle (at least on the phone app and Kindle tablet) where the audiobook syncs up with the e-book. I find this especially useful for books that I struggle to focus on. Class books are made so much easier for me with this feature. It helps me stay focussed so much better than either reading or listening.

            I know there are plenty of jokes about the ways that men write their female characters, but I have never called someone beautiful because of their “regularity of feature”. I know that symmetry is attractive, but that’s never something that you actually comment on.

            One of the gossips praising Hester’s needle work, and then immediately calling her a “hussy” reminds me of guys who pester a girl, get rejected, and then proceed to call her a slut.

            I’m glad there was a lot of annoyance that it was only Hester standing trial. They wanted her to stand alongside whoever the baby’s father is. I was expecting them to be alright with just persecuting the mother alone, but I was glad to see their anger.

            “He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons” is a line that gives such life to the character. Well, he doesn’t seem like he has much life left in him, but the description suits him really well.

            I wasn’t sure whether to mark certain parts as spoilers. I’m always a little hesitant with classics, because I’m never sure how much people are bothered, but, at the very least, people I know might be taking this module at some point, so scroll down to the bear stealing a jet-ski if you want to avoid spoilers for this book.

            I found myself fascinated with Arthur Dimmesdale pleading with Hester to say the name of the father of her child. At first, I was under the impression that he was pleading for her sake, and, in a way it was. However, the discovery that he is the father makes this scene so much more fascinating. He isn’t just pleading for her sake. If she names him, he can take penance, but he is not able to put his own name forward. He is in fear because he is supposed to be a man of God.

            I was under the impression, when they made eye contact in the town, that the physician was the father. It turns out he’s the husband that Hester had walked away from. I felt sorry for him at first, but his attitude later on meant that any pleasant feelings I had for him went out the window.

            I do love literature from this time, but I do get absolutely sick of run on sentences at times. They go on for half a page or more. I get lost. There are so many clauses that I can barely remember what the sentence was supposed to be about in the first place.

            The letter really does its work most of the time. Hester really goes through hell just trying to go about her everyday life. It really is a brand on her. The morals behind it are skewed, but within the time the book is set, it was perfectly normal. She hates the looks from both strange and familiar faces alike.

            One of the early descriptions of Pearl, Hester’s daughter, is one of the loveliest things I’ve read in such a long time. I know she isn’t pleasant for long, but I still adore it. She’s so perfect at first that she could have been “left in Eden to be the play-thing of angels”. There’s more to that description, but that line stuck with me. I’m not sure what it is about it.

            I can fully appreciate what Hawthorne did for the demon child trope. Pearl is one of the first characters that we see of this kind. However, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Pearl doesn’t actually appear all that demonic. There’s a difference between what is shown and what is told. Characters are always saying that she seems impish or demonic, but Pearl just acts like an over imaginative child.

            The strange visions of Dimmesdale are a really beautiful bit of prose, and is the closest that Hawthorne got to subtlety. When he sees his mother and she cannot look at him meaning that he then sees Hester and Pearl is a wonderful little bit. There aren’t many bits like that in the book at all.

            It feels a little odd talking about recommendations with books as old as this, but I always do this at the end of every review. I’m on the middle of the road with this book. It isn’t a book I dislike, but it certainly isn’t going to make it into the top ten. If you have a kindle, you can get this for free (I believe) so I’d certainly get it on there.