Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Publisher: Recorded books
Rating: WARTY!
I didn't have to read this - I had it read to me by Flo Gibson on CD. Flo reads it appropriately. For a while, I thought it was Prynne, in her old age, recording her true confession, but it isn't. It's really Flo.
Nathanial Hathorne was born July 4th. He later changed his name to the commonly used spelling, because he didn't want to be associated with John Hathorne, a relative who was the only judge at the Salem witch trials to never acknowledge his murderous guilt in condemning so many innocent women to death in the name of the supposedly Holy Bible. The novel is an historical romance by two means: it was written going on for two hundred years ago, but it's set some two hundred years prior to that, in Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Most people think of The Scarlet Letter as being a novel about one woman's dignity in the aftermath of what was then (and still is by all-too-many) believed to be a grave sin: adultery (by extension, sex between two children is infantry…). This novel isn’t about that at all. It’s about the complete and utter failure of organized religion. This novel is fiction, but it illustrates all-too-starkly how religion has failed: failed in and of itself, and predictably failed the people who invented it out of their blind ignorance and weak desperation.
It shows how Christians are hypocritical to their roots, and while you may rail at that, claiming that this is fiction, not a documentary, the fact remains that there isn’t a single thing depicted in this novel which has not actually happened in real life - and which continues to happen even today. Indeed, Hawthorne based this story on what he knew of several people from the era in which his novel is set. Prynne seems to have been named after Hester Craford and William Prynne.
Salem resident Hester Craford was convicted of adultery in 1668 by Judge William Hathorne, who was the very ancestor from whom Hawthorne sought to distance himself by adding a 'w' to his name! Another source for Hawthorne was undoubtedly Boston resident Elizabeth_Pain, who was buried in the same graveyard in which Hawthorne depicts Prynne being buried. All three of these people lived during the same period (early to mid-17th century) in New England.
One of the central tenets of Christianity is forgiveness, yet we rarely see it, so it's hardly surprising that no one was willing to forgive or forget in this novel! Why is Christianity so lasciviously in bed with hypocrisy? This is a religion which claims to follow Jesus Christ. Not that Jesus or Christ were ever his name. There's no evidence that there ever really was such as person as is depicted in the New Testament: a miracle-working son of a god. But Yeshua (Joshua - the real name we should be dealing with), was a very common name at that time (as were Mary - Miriam - and Joseph - Yusef), and it would be foolish to assert that there were no rabbis ever carrying that name. But while one or more such rabbis may have had an influence upon their followers and kick-started the delusion, I promise you that not a one of them was crucified, died and then came back from the dead two or three days later.
But even if we grant the Christians all of that: everything they claim for their founder, they're still hypocrites, because their founder was not a Christian! He was a Jew who practiced Judaism, not Christianity. Any so-called Christian who is not practicing Judaism is not a follower of this Yeshua, and even those westerners (or easterners) who might be such practitioners are still clueless, because the 'Jesus' they worship specifically stated that he had not come for the Gentiles, but only for the 'House of Israel' - so if your mother isn’t Jewish, you're not eligible! Modern Christians are not followers of Jesus anyway; they're followers of Saul, the snake in the tree who very effectively derailed this fledgling religion (as was his purpose all along!). Jesus lost, Paul won, and all his followers are hypocrites. Those self-same "puritans" who fled persecution in England, then turned right around and persecuted others!
The novel begins in 1642 when Hester Prynne is publicly condemned and humiliated as one of the original scarlet woman, for an adulterous relationship she had after her husband, who intended upon following her to Boston, was lost at sea, and presumed dead. In reality he was living amongst the natives where he no doubt learned his alternative medicine. Why Prynne was condemned so strenuously whilst no effort at all was expended upon seeking out her deflowerer is at the feet, again, of the Christian church, which has been down on women ever since Miriam the Magdalene was fictitiously turned into a prostitute at the behest of a dumb-ass pope (and you know the Pope is infallible right? Ri-ight!
Prynne is condemned to wear a scarlet letter 'A' visible on her person at all times. Any woman with the virtues with which Prynne is typically invested would have worn it on her ass. Prynne wears it on her breast as if to say, "Thanks for the mammaries". For reasons which are never revealed, she refuses to name her despoiler. It turns out, no surprises here, to be one of the local clergy, Arthur Dimmesdale, who only 'fesses up when he's dying.
By amazing coincidence, when Prynne is up on the scaffold, doing the first part of her penance, her husband shows up, but such a lowlife is he that he pretends to be an itinerant physician, takes the name of Roger Chillingworth, and never acknowledges that Prynne is his wife. He takes up residence in the town, obsessed in finding out who the father of Prynne's child is, rather than striving to support his wife.
At one point, the local governor tells Prynne that he's considering taking her child away from her to have young Pearl raised in a home which has a mom who is not a 'loose woman', but Prynne swears that she will never give up her child. Dimmesdale at least, sides with her on this and talks the governor out of taking Pearl away; then he toddles off home to flagellate himself and re-ink the scarlet 'A' which he has tattooed secretly on his own chest. Way to man up!
Prynne settles in a cottage upon her release from jail, although how she affords it, and even makes a living selling her needle-point is a mystery. At that time, the population of Boston was minuscule. The city had been founded only a decade before this novel is set. It's a bigger mystery why no god came through for her with his long-suffering forgiveness and helped her out by asking everyone "Who wants to throw the first stone?" So now Prynne has paid three penalties for this same 'crime': confessing and standing for three hours on the town scaffold, time in jail, and the permanent wearing o' the A. Wanna go for triple jeopardy?!
Eventually, Dimmesdale (no explanation is offered as to why he never married Prynne) dies in her arms after finally 'fessing up; then Chillingworth magically dies. Prynne and Pearl travel to Europe, where Pearl stays and marries, but Prynne for reasons unknown, returns to her cottage in Boston and lives out her years still wearing the 'A' instead of creating a new life for herself in Europe. What a moron!
I honestly can't recommend this novel at all. The first part (the 'Introductory') is the most tedious, monotonously dissipated pile of crap you will ever hear (or read). Some parts of what followed got almost interesting, but there was way too much of Hawthorne's endless rambling, self-congratulatory diversions to hold actual interest. I can, however, see why this is considered a classic: it's a classic pile of crap and is one of the very few books that I would actually support being banned from schools! Reading this did, however, give me an idea for a novel of my own, so it wasn't a complete loss for me!
