The House of the Seven Gables

Nathaniel Hawthorne gives the reader a lesson in descriptive writing in this 1851 American Gothic novel. The purpose of descriptive writing is to completely describe every person, place, and thing so that the reader clearly sees it in his mind. This is why the writers of the 1850s were accused of being paid by the word. How about his initial description of Judge Pyncheon: "It was the portly, and, had it possessed the advantage of a little more height, would have been the stately figure of a man considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black suit of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as closely as possible. A gold-headed cane, of rare oriental wood added materially..." Okay, no use continuing with the description; you get what I'm saying. This kind of writing along with the use of archaic words is the reason it is so tough to get through these classic novels. Try reading Herman Mellville's Moby Dick (1851). I'm not saying that I didn't like Hawthorne's book; I loved it as I loved The Scarlet Letter (1850), and I'm sure I will love The Marble Faun (1860) when I get around to reading it. In a preface by the author, he calls this book a Romance! But it really is what scholars now call a Dark Romance. Yes, I would agree that this book is very dark and gloomy!

Hawthorne takes the reader on a emotional ride. In the 1600s, the greedy puritan Colonel Pyncheon has Matthew Maule hanged for witchcraft so that he can obtain Matthew's land on which to build The House of the Seven Gables. Before Maule is hanged, he casts a curse upon the Pyncheon Family uttering, "God hath given him blood to drink!" Maule gets his revenge when the Colonel is found dead with blood on his beard. Two hundred years later, we meet the remaining Pyncheon family, most still living in the decaying mansion, destitute and alone. The reader will meet characters inclined to sin, self destruction, rapacity, a craving for wealth and one unpretentious lady. Lets meet the participants, shall we?

We have the spinster with a scowl, Hepzibah Pyncheon, who opens a penny store in front of the house in order to make ends meet. Her brother, Clifford, returns home after serving thirty years in prison for murder, a broken and imbecilic shell of a man. The only friendly neighbor is Uncle Venner, a old man on the decline. The mansion is falling apart, musty smelling and decrepit after nearly 200 years of neglect. Did I mention that it is currently haunted by the ghost of Alice Pyncheon? Sounds like a dark and dreary story, right? Well, yes it is! Enter Phoebe Pyncheon, a cousin that has come to live in The House of the Seven Gables. She brings joy and hope to Hepzibah and Clifford, who were decaying like the fungus of soft timber. Also enter the dishonest and deceitful cousin, Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon! The Judge says that he would like to help the family by bringing all the cousins to his estate. But is that the real reason? Hepzibah vehemently declines the Judge's offer. Enter the house's lone renter, Holgrave (no first name given), who is an daguerreotypist and writer. What's his real mission in the house? Is he looking for retribution? When Phoebe has to go home for awhile to clear up her affairs, it sends Clifford into a bed ridden state and depresses Hepzibah into a maddening state of mind. Then the avaricious Judge Pyncheon returns to the cursed house for, as we would say today, round two! Reader, if you can get through this gothic novel of the 1850's, you will have read a true American Classic.

I found this novel to be similar to a great painting with Hawthorne as the artist. The way he paints the mood shifts and the use of light and shadows gives the reader a feeling of good and evil depending on what character is about. Truly his descriptive writing is brilliant, whether it pertains to a person, the house (dark and damp), or his descriptions of the backyard garden where Phoebe has many talks at different times with Clifford and Holgrave separately. I also thought it was brilliant of Hawthorne to leave doubt in the readers mind at to whether the Maule family was actually in possession of mystical powers or not. I found myself re-reading the "Governor Pyncheon" chapter again and again. It was the most superb episode in this marvelous novel.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: This book is a Signet Classic that I bought for fifty cents in 1961. Fifty-one years later, I finally got around to reading it. Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, the setting for this book. He is a ancestor of John Hathorne, a Judge in the Salem witch trials. He was so embarrassed by this fact that he added a "W" to his name. Herman Melville dedicated Moby Dick to Hawthorne saying in part, "in token of my admiration for his genius..."A early Dark Romance author Mary Shelley of Frankenstein (1818) fame died the year The House of the Seven Gables was published. A Dark Romance is a tale suggesting that guilt, sin, and evil are the most inherent qualities of humanity. When Hawthorne passed away, authors Alcott, Emerson, Holmes and Longfellow were among the famous pallbearers. Emerson wrote of the funeral, "I thought there was a tragic element in the event, that might be more fully rendered,—in the painful solitude of the man, which, I suppose, could no longer be endured, & he died of it."