Brain Pain discussion

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, was first published in 1850. Although well-received, it sold less than 8000 copies in his lifetime.


Wikipedia page for Nathaniel Hawthorne:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathani...


Wikipedia page for The Scarlet Letter:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sca...


Feel free to use this thread to ask questions and post links to resources for Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter.

Also, if you’ve written a review of the book, please post a link to share with the group.

I have a question about the first week of discussions. Does the first week of discussions also include prologue chapter The Custom House: Introductory to The Scarlet Letter?

Christopher wrote: "I have a question about the first week of discussions. Does the first week of discussions also include prologue chapter The Custom House: Introductory to The Scarlet Letter?"

Yes, absolutely!

Comment from Lily:


We used this as one of our first books when my f2f book club formed twenty-five years ago. One of the few things of detail I remember were Hawthorne's poignant and so observant comments on the child (not in these chapters, I am certain. sorry, but I doubt this is a spoiler.)

I haven't pulled it again for this discussion, but somewhere in Hawthorne I remember a discussion of the limitations of the character-driven human. A short time later, I had been reading Covey's Seven Habits, which treats "character-driven" as positive. I tried at the time to find the Hawthorne quotation again, but was never successful. As I recall, Hawthorne's point was that societal emphasis on character can lead to the creation of "false fronts" and failure to be honest about what is.

Since this discussion on TSL has been a little slow to start, I'm taking the risk of putting these recollections on the table as relevant. If a discussion results, I might even try to find the time to pull the book and read.

To finish the above comment, as I was still editing it, [g]:

Even though a key protagonist of TSL is a woman, I have always viewed TSL more as a commentary on the societal conventions, rules, and sanctions of men.