Hawthorne, like Poe, uses graphic and surreal imagery, sometimes repetitively, to set a mood and draw a picture. His characters and scenes are alive and psychological consistent with his tales, and he manages to wring a moral out of nearly every page.

Heavy-handed? Yes, but he aims to state a message, and he states it clearly: The moral nature must never be sacrificed for intellectual pursuits (Ethan Brand). In a world of cheap commercialism and mindless brain fodder, at least Hawthorne has something to say.


Part of Americana   June 23, 2000
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

I read these short stories in a haphazard fashion rather than sequentially and unknowingly saved the worst two for last. A few days ago I was ready to give the collection five stars but the egregiously macabre "Ethan Brand" and "The Old White Maid" caused it a few points. These two tales are out of place among Hawthorne's other gems; they seem more suitable to Edgar Allen Poe on a night when he was feeling exceedingly gruesome.

Among the highlights is "Feathertop" an eccentric piece about a witch whose magic pipe gives life to her scarecrow. "The Prophetic Pictures," allegedly based on a true incident, is an intriguing yarn of a painter whose portrait accurately predicted his subject's forthcoming madness. "The Gray Champion," a patriotic tale, must have been a hit with Hawthorne's good friends President and Mrs. Franklin Pierce. A recurring theme through Hawthorne's works is the individual's perpetual battle with character flaws-a motif that makes them suitable to our modern age and indeed timeless. Many of the allegorical elements including the notorious "A," Hawthorne immortalized in "The Scarlet Letter" are scattered throughout these works.

The proem by Newton Arvin offers an interesting biographical summary of the author's life. Much has been written about Nathaniel Hawthorne-unquestionably one of America's finest and most beloved authors, and there is little I can add to voluminous evaluations. However, to anyone interested in building his or her vocabulary, Hawthorne's writing offers a cyclopean lagniappe to dulcify sesquipedalian pursuits. For me that aspect was as beneficial as the enjoyable vignettes.


Hawthorne must be read in his historical context   April 26, 2000
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

It's easy for our contemporaries to accuse Hawthorne of being formulaic or using timeworn themes. It must be remembered that in Hawthorne's own day, the many of the "timeworn" ideas represented a truly novel vision, and it was appropriate to use many different stories to convey its fullness. Just remember, if you think it's a "cliche," it's probably because you've read a lot of post-Hawthorne "wannabes"!


Nathaniel Hawthorne:Redundant, Dull, and Overrated   December 6, 1999
 5 out of 29 found this review helpful

Nathaniel Hawthorne is supposed to be an author that everybody likes. Well, guess what? I can't stand his writing style. I can see that is a decent writer, but why does he have to make his message so blatant? Zippy the Chimp could see the obvious symbolism in Hawthorne's stories. He (Hawthorne, not Zippy) is basically beating us over the head with symbolism. Why can't he let the reader find out the meaning on his own? Another thing I noticed is that a large majority of his stories have the same exact theme. The only differences between some of the stories is that the characters' names are different. It's like Hawthorne was playing adlibs when he wrote the stories. He just fills in the setting, and the characters names, and then the story unfolds the same way as any other one in the book. His stories are extremely redundant and boring: once you've read one, you've read them all. How many times can he use the "all mankind is bonded by original sin" theme? It just gets so old. I'm sorry if I'm being "un-American"or something by not liking this "great"author, but I just think he is completely overrated.