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In the final years of the seventeenth century in a small New England town, the venerable Colonel Pyncheon decides to erect a ponderously oak-framed and spacious family mansion. It occupies the spot where Matthew Maule, `an obscure man', had lived in a log hut, until his execution for witchcraft. From the scaffold, Maule points his finger at the presiding Colonel and cries `God will give him blood to drink!' The fate of Colonel Pyncheon exerts a heavy influence on his descendants in the crumbling mansion for the next century and a half. Hawthorne called his novel a `Romance', drawing on the Gothic tradition which embraced and exploited the thrills of the supernatural. Unlike The Scarlet Letter, with its unrelentingly dark view of human nature and guilt, Hawthorne sought to write `a more natural and healthy product of my mind', a story which would show guilt to be a trick of the imagination. The tension between fantasy and a new realism underpins the novel's descriptive virtuosity.
About the Author
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and made his ambition to be a writer while still a teenager. He graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine, where the poet Longfellow was also a student, and spent several years travelling in New England and writing short stories before his best-known novel The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850. His writing was not at first financially rewarding and he worked as measurer and surveyor in the Boston and Salem Custom Houses. In 1853 he was sent to Liverpool as American consul and then lived in Italy before returning to the US in 1860, where he died in his sleep four years later.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
"'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'
What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he toils under the sun?
One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever." -- Ecclesiastes 1:2-4 (NKJV)
Before commenting on the book, let me mention that I've always found it hard to get into. This time I listened to a reading by Donalda Peters and it made all the difference. Give it a try!
The Old Testament tells us that crimes can carry curses into future generations. Hawthorne examines that theme by having Colonel Pyncheon acquire the property of one Mathew Maule through Maule being found guilty of witchcraft in colonial Salem, Massachusetts. On the land was built the House of Seven Gables, and the consequences of the original action certainly seem to singe and tinge the current generation in a variety of ways. Rather than make this just a Biblical tale, Hawthorne beautifully investigates the questions of nature versus nurture in determining character and what choices are made.
Much of the story is told through the use of extended irony of the sort that's found in the book of Ecclesiastes. It's very well written and compelling.
Those who don't like dark stories should realize that there's a special beauty in certain kinds of darkness. And, too, weeping may endure for a night, but joy can come in the morning. Love can conquer quite a lot.
What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he toils under the sun?
One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever." -- Ecclesiastes 1:2-4 (NKJV)
Before commenting on the book, let me mention that I've always found it hard to get into. This time I listened to a reading by Donalda Peters and it made all the difference. Give it a try!
The Old Testament tells us that crimes can carry curses into future generations. Hawthorne examines that theme by having Colonel Pyncheon acquire the property of one Mathew Maule through Maule being found guilty of witchcraft in colonial Salem, Massachusetts. On the land was built the House of Seven Gables, and the consequences of the original action certainly seem to singe and tinge the current generation in a variety of ways. Rather than make this just a Biblical tale, Hawthorne beautifully investigates the questions of nature versus nurture in determining character and what choices are made.
Much of the story is told through the use of extended irony of the sort that's found in the book of Ecclesiastes. It's very well written and compelling.
Those who don't like dark stories should realize that there's a special beauty in certain kinds of darkness. And, too, weeping may endure for a night, but joy can come in the morning. Love can conquer quite a lot.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
150 years ago, on the site of the house of the old Pyncheon family in Providence, New England, lived one Mathew Maule in a log-built hut who was executed for the crime of witchcraft. Before dying, Maule uttered a prophecy to Colonel Pyncheon: "God will give him blood to drink."
Villagers could not understand that Pyncheon wanted to build his house over the unquiet grave of the dead wizard Maule and why he should prefer this site that had already been accursed in all the vastness of New England. At any rate the house was built in the grotesqueness of Gothic fancy with seven gables pointing sharply to the sky. On the day of the ceremony of consecration of the house, Colonel Pyncheon suddenly died and some said that Maule's prophecy could be heard throughout the house spoken in a loud voice...
From father to son, the family clung to the ancestral house with tenacity. Bu Mathew Maule's prophecy seems to have planted a heavy footstep on the conscience of the Pyncheons as though they committed again the guilt of their ancestor thus inheriting a great misfortune.
An impressive novel in which an old house itself is the major character. The story is filled with contrasts and oppositions between the dark and gloomy interior of the house and the bright and sunlit exterior. Shadow is the atmosphere of the invisible world of evil, of the past hidden in the recesses of the old mansion. As one follows the lives of Hepzibah, Phoebe and Clifford, one realises that the human fates of the present times are closely linked to the web of the past.
Villagers could not understand that Pyncheon wanted to build his house over the unquiet grave of the dead wizard Maule and why he should prefer this site that had already been accursed in all the vastness of New England. At any rate the house was built in the grotesqueness of Gothic fancy with seven gables pointing sharply to the sky. On the day of the ceremony of consecration of the house, Colonel Pyncheon suddenly died and some said that Maule's prophecy could be heard throughout the house spoken in a loud voice...
From father to son, the family clung to the ancestral house with tenacity. Bu Mathew Maule's prophecy seems to have planted a heavy footstep on the conscience of the Pyncheons as though they committed again the guilt of their ancestor thus inheriting a great misfortune.
An impressive novel in which an old house itself is the major character. The story is filled with contrasts and oppositions between the dark and gloomy interior of the house and the bright and sunlit exterior. Shadow is the atmosphere of the invisible world of evil, of the past hidden in the recesses of the old mansion. As one follows the lives of Hepzibah, Phoebe and Clifford, one realises that the human fates of the present times are closely linked to the web of the past.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
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