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I agree. Scarlet Letter is an example on how not to write. It is steam of consciousness without a modicum of merit. I don't think I learned anything from it. I read half of the book and was completely lost on what the author was trying to say. Maybe that was the author's point. But the writing is god awful. Below is a passage where the dude who got Hester pregnant confessed? Or is it her husband who felt cheated? Uggh. Who cares. “Hester,” said he, “I ask not wherefore, nor how, thou hast fallen into the pit, or say rather, thou
hast ascended to the pedestal of infamy, on which I found thee. The reason is not far to seek. It
was my folly, and thy weakness. I,—a man of thought,—the book-worm of great libraries,—a
man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge,—
what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own! Misshapen from my birth-hour, how
could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a
young girl’s fantasy! Men call me wise. If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might
have foreseen all this. I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and
entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself,
Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people. Nay, from the moment when
we came down the old church-steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire of
that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!” |