Let's Bust a Recap : The House of the Seven Gables

Ok, so The House of the Seven Gables was our book club book for the month of July, and I'm just going to say right off the bat that this is NOT a July book. I don't know how much importance you place on the seasons when you're reading, but atmosphere is huge for me, and Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Dark Romanticism is not a summertime author. 

But the book club decreed that this would be the book for July so at the end of July/beginning of August, there I was, struggling through Hawthorne's 1851 offering about this old haunted mansion in New England.

I actually wasn't dreading it. I knew July probably wasn't the best time to read The House of the Seven Gables, but The Scarlet Letter is one of my all-time favorite classics and I'd had Hawthorne's follow-up novel on my shelf for years waiting to be read. 

I'll just go ahead and tell you now: it wasn't great. It wasn't bad, and maybe if I had read it during the winter by a cozy fire, it might have garnered a more favorable review, but as it stands: I'll probably never revisit this one.

In The House of the Seven Gables, we're introduced to old Hepzibah Pyncheon who has been living alone in poverty in our titular House, and who—to her immense mortification—has finally resorted to opening a little shop in the House to support herself. Hawthorne opens his novel by giving us a never-ending brief history of the House and the Pyncheon family so by the time we meet Hepzibah, we know that the Pyncheons are cursed and the House of the Seven Gables is supposedly haunted. 

Throughout the course of this slow narrative, we meet the young and vibrant Phoebe Pyncheon (who comes to live with old Hepzibah and who breathes new life into the house), Clifford Pyncheon (Hepzibah's brother who also comes back to live with her after getting out of jail for murder—and who I legitimately thought was an actual ghost for a while), Holgrave (the boarder living in part of the House), and Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon (who we eventually learn set up Clifford for the murder he didn't commit). The main thrust of the plot is the reckoning between the three elder Pyncheons (Hepzibah, Clifford, and Judge Jaffrey) over Clifford's wrongful 30-year imprisonment, but man, we go through a lot of history to get to the point. 

And here's the thing: it really wasn't bad. Hawthorne is a masterful writer and one of my favorite aspects of The House of the Seven Gables in particular was the way he could paint a portrait of a character and without telling you how to feel about the character, he intrinsically made you feel a certain way about that character. His use of subtle sarcasm is absolutely superb, and his humor is biting. I'd recommend this book for the masterclass it is in writing alone.

But for all the good writing in the world, it was slow. I mean, good-luck-staying-awake, bless-you-if-you-can-finish-it, drink-all-the-coffee, thick-molasses-in-January SLOW. Getting through an entire chapter without falling asleep felt like a small victory, and it took me over three weeks to read it. (And it's not very long.) I think I was the only person in our book club who finished it. If you're going to pick this one up, adjust your expectations accordingly and settle in for the journey, because this one is a marathon—not a sprint. 

I saved a ton of quotes from The House of the Seven Gables and maybe one day when things settle down a bit, I'll share them here. All in all, this one is a take it or leave it. I wouldn't enthusiastically recommend it, but I wouldn't not recommend it either. I personally think The Scarlet Letter is loads better and would tell you to start there with Hawthorne, but The House of the Seven Gables was good too. Just not great. And don't try to read it in the middle of summer. 

Are you a seasonal reader? What's one of your favorite classics to read in the autumn?