Another gem by Hawthorne. I wasn't too excited to read this book but it seemed small and I figured I could use it as a filler inbetween books. I had seen the movie and figured I would know pretty much everything. Well I did know the main things but the book is so different. It all takes place after the adultery has occurred and the heartache that Hester Prynne has to go through to remain in her town and raise her illegitimate child.
This book was really moving and I love the way Hawthorne writes. I loved the dichotomy of seeing how one person deals with sin that is completely exposed to the world and how another deals with it where it is hidden. There is so much emotion in this book and I found myself relating to both characters, not their sin of course but to their agony when I have sinned. Really good book and definitely a classic.
Quotes:
This is when the minister is dealing with his pain in hiding his sin. "It is the unspeakable misery of a life so false as his, that it steals the pith and substance out of whatever realities there are around us, and which were meant by heaven to be the spirit's joy and nutriment. To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,--it is impalable,--it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed ceases to exist."
This is during the part where Hester and the Minister are expressing their love for each other after seven years of silence and the gloom of the forest is beginning to brighten by the sun. "Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world."
"Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!"
