Walking the Wall

I finished the Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne) last night and I have to say that it was worth the wait. I had read bits and pieces and passages out of it, but never read it from cover to cover. I’m guessing it is normally required high school reading, but I can assure you that at my high school, the Scarlet Letter…a story about a woman intended to be broken by her punishment for her sin but who is instead transformed into a free thinking human being capable of living outside the boundaries of Puritan life…was not up there on the reading list with the Pilgrim’s Progress (which actually is a great book).

I know I have seen at least the Demi Moore movie version of this, but they must have taken some creative license with Dimmesdale’s character because I don’t remember him being such a puddle of guilt and pain and general…blech…I spent much of the book wanting to grab him by his shoulders, shake him, and tell him to get a grip and grow a spine! Hester must have been in love with the ideal of who he was, because I cannot imagine why, after becoming such a strong woman in the seven years, that she would want to run off with him. I suppose, though, that loneliness and isolation would make him more appealing. (I just had to get that off my chest)

I loved the concept of the scarlet letter "taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself," giving her a view of society that those in the middle of it could never have. Until "she cast away the fragments of a broken chain" and "assumed a freedom of speculation…which our forefathers, had they known of it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter" all ending in the realization that "The scarlet letter had not done its office"…it had not worked. They had meant to take a woman and break her as a punishment for her sin and as a moral lesson for the rest of them–and as a means of pointing a finger at one human in order to keep the attention of themselves–but in the end they just created a woman who understood that she had done wrong, but went on and changed the A from standing for adultery, to that of "able" or "angel" with her kindnesses.

I can imagine this was quite a ground breaking work at a time when American philosopher were exploring the idea of personal responsibility and the individual–Hawthorne even mentions Emerson in the Custom House sketch that leads into the novel and much of the themes in the book tie in well with Emerson’s Self Reliance.  

Whew, long babble, moving on to Moby Dick, which I did get started last night and I have to say that I just love Melville’s rhythm in this book (take "villanous green goggling glasses," for instance, love it). As I’ve said before, I always thought of Moby Dick as a book that you would slog through just because you had to, but then on reading parts of it last semester in my Cannibal class, I was surprised to find out that I really appreciated Melville’s writing style and really wanted to read the whole piece. While I’m sure I have part to come that will take some slogging through, for the moment I’m just enjoying his wonderful way with words. Up till now, two passages stand out: I love the section all about the beauty and draw of water, especially when talking about the story of Narcissus and the image he saw in the fountain, "But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life" (20). The other section is when he is talking about not particularly liking being ordered about, pushed around, and thumped by sea captains and even life itself, he notes:

I have the the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way–either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content. (21)

 It’s all right, everyone just rub each other’s shoulder-blades and be content!