The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I've always been intrigued by Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. First, I really loved The Scarlet Letter in high school (and still loved it when I reread it  in 2016). Second, I knew it was a creepy New England story, and I love that whole vibe. Third, the title is just so cool. I knew I wanted to read it one day, so I stuck it on my Classics Club list. When one of the Back to the Classics prompts this year was to "read a classic set in a place you've lived," this novel, set in Massachusetts, was one of the only classics I had that qualified. I was born in Massachusetts and lived there for a whopping two years before moving to Florida. With fall setting in and Halloween just around the corner, I decided that now was the time to finally pick this novel up.

The plot of The House of the Seven Gables starts with a history lesson. An unnamed narrator describes the history of the Pyncheons, a wealthy family living in Massachusetts for generations stretching back to the 1600s. He describes how the family obtained a piece of their vast property through deceitful means, and have suffered a series of misfortunes ever since. Mysterious deaths, thwarted ambitions, and dwindling fortunes have consistently plagued the Pyncheons, and it is widely believed that the whole family is cursed for the sins of their ancestors.

After this explanation, the story flashes forward to the present, which is sometime in the 1800s. The Pyncheon family only has four living members left, and three of them live in the crumbling, gloomy family home, the House of the Seven Gables. The trio in the house are an odd bunch. Hepzibah is a dour, elderly woman who hasn't left the property in years. Her brother, Clifford, who has been recently released from a lengthy prison sentence, has regressed to a child-like state. Phoebe, their young relative, helps the brighten up the house and takes care of both of them. They are getting along fine together until their fourth relative, the honorable Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon, begins to pressure Clifford to divulge a secret he believes he has been carrying in his head since his childhood: the location of a lost deed proving the ownership of a huge tract of land that would completely replenish the family's fortunes. He threatens to institutionalize him unless he reveals the secret, which throws the family into chaos. As the drama plays out, a story about family secrets and the power of sin to travel down through generations emerges.

This novel was quite different than I was expecting it to be, and not in a very good way. I was thinking that this might be a ghost story, or at least something with a lot of really creepy, bizarre things going on. Instead, I got a whole lot of long-winded, meandering descriptions of various people and places, and a plot that was equal parts confusing and boring. The pacing of the story was glacial, with tiny sections of plot advancement sandwiched in between long sections of descriptive imagery and philosophizing. I had a terrible time trying to stay awake while reading. I wanted to know how the story would end up, but I was not engaged in the journey at all. Hawthorne's writing, which is challenging to follow at the best of times, was not fun to decipher here, because nothing was happening on so many pages. It was a long, depressing slog.

Aside from the pacing, I was disappointed in the lack of anything truly scary in the story. The House of the Seven Gables is known for being a creepy book, so I was expecting a good amount of unsettling plot points. While I do acknowledge that Hawthorne did a good job creating a foreboding atmosphere, the plot of the story is surprisingly mundane. There are some slight hints of the supernatural, but most of the story deals with the all too human concepts of deception, blackmail, and greed. The end of the story is particularly toothless, as any interesting possible plot twists are passed up in favor of convenient coincidences and a hastily constructed romance.

Usually, when I don't particularly like a classic, I feel bad about it. Also, I can generally recognize why a work is considered to be great or important even when I didn't personally enjoy it. In the case of this novel, however, I'm at a loss. I'm not sure why The House of the Seven Gables has endured. It is vastly inferior to The Scarlet Letter, is quite tough to get through, and is unexpectedly boring. While I appreciated the oppressive, dark atmosphere Hawthorne created, the story itself wasn't enjoyable for me. That being said, the old house that he based this story on is about two and a half hours away from where I live now, and I fully intend on visiting it soon. What can I say? I'm a sucker for nerdy excursions to historical homes.   


Challenge Tally
Classics Club (#82 on my list): 54/100 
Back to the Classics 2019 (A Classic From a Place You've Lived) 11/12 Books Read 

Total Books Read in 2019: 62