The House of the Seven Gables (Great Illustrated Classics) Paperback – January 1, 2008

If you can read WALDEN and get excited, you can read THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES and enjoy it a lot, though it moves a little slower. There's a happy ending, a very happy ending, but the way to the ending is through The House of Death, because that's what The House of the Seven Gables is: The House of Death. A rich man's will has given it to a couple of his poor relatives, and it's dragging them down. The relatives are old; one of them has been in prison thirty years for murder; his sister is so poor she's having to open a penny-store on the ground floor (it would be a dollar store today) to keep herself alive.Having to work for the first time in her life will help save her. So will the cheerful young Phoebe, a cousin who comes to visit and stays to help with the store. So will the garden outside, which has hens, flowers, humming-birds ... a little bit of life. Hawthorne describes the garden to save us from the house, but he says, "The author needs great faith in his reader's sympathy; else he might hesitate to give details so minute, and incidents so trifling, as are essential to make up the idea of this garden life. It was ... Eden."But for all the slow time he spends in the garden, he spends five times as much slower time in the house. The most famous chapter in the book is a fifteen-page address the author makes to a corpse in the house's most important room. The point of the speech is that the corpse won't be going to dinner as night, as planned, won't become governor, as planned, won't double his money, as planned ...Meanwhile the ex-convict and the sister who has never left the house before are running away by train at a mile a minute. That was all described in the previous chapter, the one before the address to the corpse. Are they running from the law? No. They're running from the house. The house stops life. The house slows everything down to a crawl, and then down to absolute paralysis. That's Hawthorne's big point: such houses, and the ancestry they represent, must be escaped from. The sister, "by secluding herself from society, has lost all true relation with it, and is in fact dead," says a boarder, a Daguerrotypist, who ends up being the novel's hero.The hero looks on at the ex-convict and his sister. He tells the hard-working cheerful Phoebe, "It is not my impulse--as regards these two individuals--either to help or hinder; but to look on, to analyze, to explain matters to myself, and to comprehend the drama which, for almost two hundred years, has been dragging its slow length over the ground, where you and I now tread. If permitted to witness the close, I doubt not to derive a moral satisfaction from it, go matters how they may. There is a conviction within me, that the end draws nigh."Phoebe answers him, "I wish you would speak more plainly ... and above all, that you would feel more like a Christian and a human being! How is it possible to see people in distress, without desiring, more than anything else, to help and comfort them?" So, as it turns out, the heroine does more to save everyone from the house of the seven gables than the hero does.But what does she do? She is cheerful, she has faith, and she waits. The house has been waiting for two hundred years. She waits just a little longer.----- -----People who complain that this book is slow are missing its main point. It is as slow as death, and it is meant to be. Someone has pointed out that the mile-a-minute railroad trip isn't necessary to the plot. No. It's necessary to get away from the slowness of the house -- and there is no plot, because there is no movement, and there is no movement because lack of movement is death, and death is what the book is about.Somebody else has said that he knew right away that Hawthorne was addressing a corpse in Chapter XVIII, and figured Hawthorne was pretty stupid not to think that readers would guess the character was a corpse long before the chapter ended. But readers should have guessed that all the characters in the house were corpses from the very first paragraph of the book--and there, perhaps, Hawthorne was just a little bit ahead of them.Not that it's a sad book. It's slow, but it's never sad. The happy ending happens, but it's no spoiler to tell about it, because how it works that everything turns out so well is never explained, and readers have been arguing about exactly how everything got fixed from 1851, when the book was published, until today.There's a fair amount of scary Gothic action, too: corpses and curses and false convictions ... but they all happened something like five lifetimes ago. The nightmares turn out to be dreams, and the dreams turn out to be traps. People who like horror stories know how slow horror should be.This is not a fast-paced story. It is not even a slow-paced story. It is a story that doesn't move at all, and it took a genius to slow it so far down that it stopped -- and then keep telling it.

I didn't dislike the book when read long ago in high school but deciphering the prose was not easy. I suspect that I did not even try in some of the more difficult parts. I thought I would see if it was better now. It was. Taken slowly and deliberately it is easy to appreciate the talent of the author. The character motivations are well described and are convincing. The plot is tight with every detail logically and satisfactorily explained. The novel is a classic for good reason. I wonder what other classics I should revisit.

Oh how I detest Gothic novels and for the life of me I can't put them down whether I enjoy reading them or not. Who built this home, Who remodeled it? Who has legal title to it? Who just died? And will the rightful and intended owner ever step forward. All the New England families that lived in this home or passed through it during its first 100 years strains the mind. Hawthorne leads the reader to believe that this will be a romance novel. But the major theme deals with the wrong doings of family which continues to be passed on to the next generation and it doesn't get any better with passing years.end your evil doings. It becomes as part of the next generation's legacy. It's a mortgage that can never be satisfied. It's a reputation that passes on from generation to generation. And the lien will never be satisfied.This New England house exists today and reflects a very long and controversial history. The manner in which people dressed, what they ate, how they spent their time and expectations are all richly woven in the fabric of this story. A very enjoyable, entertaining and enlightening read of times gone by.

The House of Seven Gables is a literary classic that you probably haven't read and that's somewhat a shame and understandable .What you've read is The Scarlet Letter, probably in high school.The Scarlet Letter is the more interesting book but shares with House of Seven Gables Hawthorne's preoccupation with sin, inheritance and the burden of history.One of the things that makes Hawthorne worthwhile is his resolute refusal to engage in American boosterism. Not for Hawthorne the vision of America as an unsullied new land free from sin and history.There is a darkness out there and it's waiting for you.The novel focuses on a decayed New England family living in a decaying mansion.You can't help but be reminded of The Fall of the House of Usher.(and it is amusing to consider that Vincent Price played Roderick Usher and Clifford Pyncheon in movies).There is a pretty good , if at times , way out, plot here.That is a good thing because the characters aren't what I'd call fascinating.That's not a criticism.This isn't a book about heroes or villeins (although there are some).It's a social , historical novel that is, in a way, a novel of ideas.Although I'm not entirely clear on what the ideas are . Broadly, it's about the crippling nature of inheritance and how it may be possible to escape.It's great weakness is Hawthorne's obsessive need to comment on the thoughts and actions of his characters.In observing Clifford Pyncheon , one of the books lead characters,Hawthorne goes on at such great length ,it's almost scream inducing.A reader feels like saying but Mr.Hawthorne we get it and anyway Clifford isn't that interesting .There are those who think this would have made a better short story.I'd say a much shorter novel would have been appropriate.Hawthorne needed a good editor badly.With one an interesting , worthwhile novel might have been a great novel.I can't finish this review without commenting on what takes place near the end of the novel.It's so strange it reminds me of Un Chien Andalou( this is not a joke).There is a scene between Phoebe and Holgrove that if you consider the context ranks as one of literatures weirdest.Let's put it this way, it's very romantic !(and this after an adventure involving Clfford and his sister that is almost as weird).Anyone who imagines Hawthorne was Mr. Mainstream is deeply mistaken.I'm almost ready to suggest the man was a proto surrealist.

Satisfied with product

Buon libro

Really good storie

Hawthorne has written a classic that will be read for ages. This tale has everything in it. Be it a great storyline, relationships, family, curses, horror and hope. This is a story that you will remember for long and not just remember but revisit again and again. Hawthorne puts the plot and questions in your mind. Makes you think over these issues again and again and when you seem to come to a conclusion, the story takes you to a different place. More enthralling and exciting. This is what I look for in novels. A perfect book.

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As time goes by, 19th century novels acquire a special quality. They become strangely close as we struggle to understand the language and the unexplainable behaviour of characters with different moral values. However, Hawthorne was unusually modern in his views. Good novel.