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Product Description
The tale of a cursed house with a "mysterious and terrible past" and the generations linked to it. First published in 1851, The House of Seven Gables is Hawthorne's chronicle of the Maule and Pyncheon families over two centuries.
Customer Review: American Gothic
This is a thick, solid tale, build on century-old foundations of wizardry and betrayals, of greed and disintegration, many woes spread deep into the mortar of the crumbling mansion known as the House of the Seven Gables. Nathaniel Hawthorne puts the roots deep into the Earth, rendering an inescapable pollution that holds a withered family prisoner to its ancient curse.
A puritan novel, on the surface "House of the Seven Gables" is about an old spinster, her ruined brother, a young girl as bright as sunshine, and the wealthy, amiable cousin with a dark secret. These four members of the Pyncheon family have inherited the curse of their family line, brought about over 150 years ago when Colonel Pyncheon tried and executed the wizard Matthew Maule for witchcraft, then built his family dwelling on the good Earth where the wizard's house once stood. Maule's final words, a curse for the family, they would "Have blood to drink."
Deeper, and more correctly, the story is about the house itself. Hawthorne spends more time leading readers through its dark hallways, ruined garden, shadow-haunted rooms and the polluted stench of Maule's Well, then on the story of the relatives and their struggles. Several chapters are descriptive in nature, setting the stage and establishing the atmosphere on which the players take their turns. A complete, and fully realized setting emerges, one that captivates as much as the people themselves.
In some ways a ghost story, as ancient specters certainly haunt the fading homestead. Ghosts locked in a battle between Pyncheon and Maule. However, the spirits are not overt, and can neither be seen by nor affect the modern world. They are frustrated and handicapped by their dead state, only observers as the darkness drags deeper and deeper.
I completely loved "House of the Seven Gables." It can be an intimidating read, and commands your full attention for each loving word. An immense gothic tale, there always seems to be something waiting to be unearthed, something more secretive and influential hiding behind the cover story. And there is.
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