The House of the Seven Gables

My Review

Rejoice! For I take recompense for the gaunt form of time fallen under a needy purpose; while truer masters, from experiences and education partook by relatives of the past, have tamed the desolate hands of their forlorn clocks.

Seriously though, this book, while interesting, took me 3-4 months to complete, maybe longer. I can't even remember when I started it, except that it was right after Stephen King's Tommy Knockers, another long winded aprobation of one's verbalization abilities. Yikes, the complex language is still dripping from my thoughts.

For this entire book I looked up words every time I sat down to read. Most I've seen but few I could decipher a contextual meaning or their rare form. Luckily, my phone and Google were close at hand. I felt pretty stupid reading this book and it was a chore each time I picked it up. Jessica made fun of me every time she saw me with it asking "why are you still reading that".

Yet, I prevailed. And I picked up a few great quotes:

Regarding young men
"The effervescence of youth and passion, and the fresh gloss of the intellect and imagination, endow them with a false brilliancy, which makes fools of themselves and other people."

Loss of youthful innocence
"Our first youth is of no value; for we are never conscience of it until after it is gone. But sometimes - always, I suspect, unless one is exceedingly unfortunate - there comes a sense of second youth, gushing out of the heart's joy at being in love; or, possibly, it may come to crown some other grand festival in life, if any other such there be."

Ambition
"But ambition is a talisman more powerful than witchcraft"

Not sure I'm going to jump into The Scarlet Letter anytime soon, though. I need an 1850's literature break for a while. With the challenging nature of this novel, I am still happy that I read it and toughed it out.

I rated it a 6 mostly because of my own level of enjoyment. It was interesting, challenging, and educational, but not addictive, a page turner, or a book I would tell others they have to read. For literary value, however, I'll give it a 10.