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    The Scarlet Letter
    The Scarlet Letter
    The Scarlet Letter
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    The Scarlet Letter

    Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Narrated by Elizabeth McGovern

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    'Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.'

    A tale of sin, punishment and atonement, The Scarlet Letter exposes the moral rigidity of a 17th-Century Puritan New England community when faced with the illegitimate child of a young mother. Regarded as the first real heroine of American fiction, it is Hester Prynne's strength of character that resonates with the reader when her harsh sentence is cast. It is in her refusal to reveal the identity of the father in the face of her accusers that Hawthorne champions his heroine and berates the weakness of Society for attacking the innocent.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 15, 2005
    ISBN9780007218493
    Author

    Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Born in 1804, Nathaniel Hawthorne is known for his historical tales and novels about American colonial society. After publishing The Scarlet Letter in 1850, its status as an instant bestseller allowed him to earn a living as a novelist. Full of dark romanticism, psychological complexity, symbolism, and cautionary tales, his work is still popular today. He has earned a place in history as one of the most distinguished American writers of the nineteenth century.

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    Reviews for The Scarlet Letter

    3.5/5

    7,588 ratings160 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I read this as a teenager. The story is sad in more ways than one. Being ostracized and not only cast out but stigmatized. I felt this myself growing up in a politically, racial and religiously backward prejudiced part of the country and instantly connected with it. Our species is so terrible to each other. As brilliant as we are and as much as we are capable of we cling to things that continually separate us from each other.
    • 1/5
      I'm not sure if Hawthorne was trying to be ironic here, but he takes "your sin will find you out" all too literally, and though I understand he's only representing the hypocrisy of the time, I think it shows bad taste to be so obvious about it. I'm not convinced of the realism in this book at all, and I think the morals are misplaced and misconstrued; that's where this book suffers. Are we supposed to convict Hester or sympathize with her, because we seem to be getting mixed signals throughout? I particularly found the whole demon possession thing with Pearl a bit too much to swallow, where everything went all Exorcist (because I guess that's what happens when you're born a bastard). And Dimmesdale and Chillingworth's deaths are just too predictable and so convenient to wrap up the story. There aren't really any characters in this novel you can feel for, for nobody really has any feeling in them. Well, at least that's the way I felt about it.
    • 4/5
      For years, I have wanted to re-read this book. I remember reading it, the first time, during my sophomore English class. I only skimmed it, back then, enough to get by in the class. I knew the gist of the story. But it had been so long (I can't do the math for how long since I was a sophomore in high school! lol), I decided to listen to it this time around. I did remember that the Old English used in the novel is a bit difficult to comprehend. Listening to it really helped the flow, helped me get more context, and also allowed me to disregard things I didn't quite understand. That is, there were times when it was so wordy--pretty words, to be sure--that I just let it flow over me. Still, I'm glad I re-read it. It's really an amazing piece of work. It's amazing that things were actually like that, during Puritan times. As much as we complain about losing our rights as women (which is truly heinous and frustrating), I'm hopeful we'll never get back to THESE beliefs!
    • 1/5
      Ugh, this was really tough to get through, even in audiobook form. The only reason that I finished it is because it was one of those "classics" that I thought I should read. I wish that I wasn't regularly disappointed with these classic books/books on the 1001 books to read before you die list.

      I know that Hawthorne was trying to talk about guilt and sin but man, could it be a little more interesting? Please?
    • 5/5
      This was a re-read for me as I read this when I was in high school. I think I enjoyed it even more the second time around. Although a little outdated for today's teenagers, the book is a good look at what it was like living in the 1600's and having to adhere to their moral codes. It is a deeply emotional book with lots of symbolism and does show that bad decisions do have consequences. I do highly recommend the book as it is one story that is very hard to forget.
    • 5/5
      A classic tale. Hester Prynne, accused by her community for adultery. Bearing a child, is a pariah of her community.

      I really don't know if there is much I can add to this story that hasn't already been said about it. It is a must read. It should be on everyone's bookshelf. What amazes me most about this book is that even back then Nathaniel Hawthorne showed the injustic of the double standard. Where women are treated as the chattel they were and men literary got away with murder when it comes to women. I also love the fact how the author points out that some men are just scum above and beyond how they treat women.

      This book is and will always be a classic for me. It is one of my favorites. I highly recommend it to be on everyone's bookshelf!
    • 4/5
      A dark, gothic tale that seeps into the conscious, perhaps wordy for modern readers, but satisfying.
    • 3/5
      I had put off reading this book for a long time because the reviews for it were not always glowing. I finally decided that this is an American classic and I needed to read it. Besides, I teach about the time period, and spent a full day at the Old Manse where Hawthorne wrote it down in Concord two summers ago.

      I am glad I read this book but was not overly impressed. I got the feeling that Hawthorne was pretty darned impressed with himself and his writing ability. The story is famous so I won't spend time reviewing the plot or anything, but I have to say that a majority of the book was spent flushing out the thoughts and psyches of the main characters. I understand that the book was full of symbolism and was a criticism of society in many ways, but as a novel, it did not really keep me turning the pages.

      I would recommend this for serious readers or for students of early American history. It is not a light read, and I would suggest reading it in one or two sittings because it is tough to gear up and come back to day after day.
    • 3/5
      Glad to have read this book after all these years. But not greatly moved by it. I'll be curious to read more about it now, though.
    • 3/5
      Read about 1970 in high school. Very impressive.
    • 4/5
      The story of a woman who has an affair and chooses not to tell who the father of her child is. Pays the price by having to wear a scarlet A on her chest.nThings have not changed much from those times. A classic imho that in 2022 we deal with many of the same issues as in this book.
    • 4/5
      I read this as a teenager. The story is sad in more ways than one. Being ostracized and not only cast out but stigmatized. I felt this myself growing up in a politically, racial and religiously backward prejudiced part of the country and instantly connected with it. Our species is so terrible to each other. As brilliant as we are and as much as we are capable of we cling to things that continually separate us from each other.
    • 1/5
      Finally ploughed my way through this book. While this might have been a good story, the way the author would drone on about the smallest, least relevant thing was, to say the least, annoying. There were several places where I would read a paragraph and couldn't remember a single thing from it by the time I got to its end.
    • 5/5
      OH MY GOSH!!! I am loving this book. It is almost overtaking Persuasion as my all-time fave. I'm only on chapter 18, so my opinion may change, but oh how I love a love story with tortured souls...
    • 4/5
      The writing is a bit too flowery for my modern taste but, as I've said before, classics are classics for a reason. This is a well-told tale that captures the atmosphere of the early Massachusetts Bay Colony. I picked it up after reading Stacy Schiff's 'The Witches: Salem, 1692'. Having read that book helped me understand some of the allusions in Hawthorne's timeless story.
    • 2/5
      “Hawthorne is the most consummate literary artist in American literature, and The Scarlet Letter is the greatest book ever written in the Western Hemisphere. It is not relatively, but absolutely great; it holds its place among the fifteen best nevels of the world”

      - William Lyon Phelps, professor of English Literature at Yale and Methodist preacher, from the 1926 introduction to The Scarlet Letter.

      I can’t bring myself to offer praise as effusive as William Lyon Phelps does in the above quote. I find the book's overt moral judgement and tendency to “tell rather than show” to be detractions from its reputation for greatness.

      And, I suspect that even as the learned professor wrote his 1926 introduction, The Scarlet Letter was already firmly established as the bane of Literature classes. Its dense sentences and 17th century Puritan setting can work to make it remote and unwelcoming to readers. Yet it continues to be an established American classic, ranking high on many modern lists of great American novels, just as it is still taught in high schools and colleges even now.

      The story is a familiar one. In the Puritan settlement of Boston in the 1640s Hester Prynne is publicly shamed for her sin - conceiving and bearing a child outside of marriage. Hester refuses to identify the child’s father. For her sin and her obstinance she is publicly shamed and forced to forevermore wear a prominent mark to signify her shame - the scarlet letter A.

      In attendance at her shaming as the full story starts are the other three main characters. In her arms is her “sin born” daughter Pearl. Helping to preside over her sentence is the Puritan preacher Dimmesdale - Pearl’s father whose reputation Hester is shielding - who makes his own choice not to reveal himself. Lastly, there is a new arrival to town, recently escaped from bondage to the Indians, who is later revealed to be Hester’s husband Roger Chillingworth.

      As the book progresses, we see the impact of the repressive Puritan culture on Dimmesdale, Hester and Pearl, and the scheming designs of Chillingworth.

      Dimmesdale is riven with guilt and anguish at his sin. The Puritans were Calvinists and believed that only the “Select” will get to Heaven. Those who sin here on earth give evidence that they are not among the Select. Dimmesdale's sins, he is sure, have made him unworthy of his role as preacher, and marked him as bound for hell.

      Chillingworth, who no one knows is Hester’s husband, exacts his revenge by inveigling his way into Dimmesdale’s life, preying on his guilt.

      Pearl looks fated to grow up unhappily among a colony of people who will think the worst of her no matter what she may do, while Hester will surely die of shame.

      But instead, Dimmesdale and Chillingsworth wither away and pay the ultimate price for their sins. Pearl escapes the clutches of the colony with her mother and returns to Europe where she will be well wed. Hester, after seeing to Pearl’s future, returns to Boston to voluntarily take back up the wearing of the scarlet letter. Only now she wears it without the shame its sentence was meant to give.

      Hawthorne is considered a Romantic, and an anti-Puritan. His own family were early settlers in Salem and some of his anti-Puritanism was no doubt personal and familial. It’s no coincidence then, that the object of Puritan shaming should gain the strength to stand up for herself and her daughter. But the other sinners who were not ill-treated by the Puritans do not escape the consequences of their sins - Dimmesdale for his lack of purity and Chillingsworth for his acts of revenge.

      Hawthorne was also given to writing stories with strong moral metaphors, and that is certainly true with The Scarlet Letter. The metaphors basically hit you over the head in this novel.

      It has long been popular. On its publication in 1850 The Scarlet Letter became an instant hit. It was one of the first mass produced books in the US, and its initial print run of 2500 copies sold out in ten days. It has scarcely had a day out of print since.
    • 4/5
      I think I was assigned this book in two other classes before I actually READ it the third time it was assigned in yet another class. Thank goodness I finally had a great teacher who knew how to actually TEACH it, and I was able to find out how captivating this novel truly is.
    • 3/5
      I read this book in school. I wasn't crazy about it then, but it was a little better the second time. I honestly don't remember much about when I read it in school or the discussions about meanings that we probably had. I still got bored some, but Pearl kept me more interested this time. I like the way everyone else's crap doesn't seem to get Pearl down. She's a strong character.
    • 5/5
      I was always skeptical when teachers used the term "classic" when referring to a book. It always seemed to me to be a term to describe books I had to read that were going to suck. The Scarlet Letter was a happy exception.

      I really enjoy historical fiction. Hawthorne easily puts a reader into the time period by laying out the facts of puritan life and laws, the dress of the time, as well as with the old-fashioned dialog. Hestor's husband is "away" at sea and she has become pregnant. Normally, adultery would carry a very severe punishment, but the town can't prove her husband is alive. So, she is forced to wear a scarlet "A" (for adultery) on her chest whenever she's in public. This stigma will pass on to her daughter, despite her innocence in the matter. Hestor's stoic perseverence in the face of this humiliation is even more poignant when you learn who the father of her baby really is. This tale of a town forcing its morality on a person is still valid today. Women aren't forced to wear a scarlet A (at least in the US), but we still label people who are different or don't conform to our values.

      Unfortunately, at the time this was written, authors were paid by the number of pages in their books. Readers can easily guess this caused unnecessary bloating in stories and this book suffers the same. There is a lot of description and fluff that I found myself skimming over, but the heart of the story is still excellent. This tale is powerful and meaningful. Highly recommended!
    • 1/5
      Ok this book was just so obvious, so much it was painful to read. Yes I understand the point to be made, historically and what not. Even still, it was not enjoyable to me who this point did not need to be made to, I would have preferred it to be made in a different manner, maybe as a side plot or character in a work with actual characters that I can become invested in. No thinking, just yes, yes, are we done yet. Also why would I want to read a book about someone named Hester.
    • 1/5
      I have nightmares about this book. It was nearly impossible to read. I think I finished it? But I also think I may have skipped large sections of it because it's really bad. A for adultery. Something about a meteor?
    • 2/5
      So slow! I know it's a classic and I'm not sure how I got through school without reading it, but I found it very hard to get through. I know the basis of the plot but I expected there to be more going on.
    • 5/5
      I originally read this book in high school. I reread it now, with two more decades of life experience. I've lived among Christians who revere the Puritan era. I've experienced social shunning. I'm a male living in the #MeToo era where one sin of sexual harassment can lead to career demise.

      In all of these situations, however, I side with Hawthorne's sympathies towards those who bear the brunt of social shunning. Or at least, I try to side. If social order must be enforced (and social order in the case of a pregnancy is an extreme but common example), then it must be enforced loosely. That's what prohibition, abortion, and the rest of the culture wars have taught us. It is foolishness to fight human nature.

      At the same time, those who are persecuted are often ennobled by their suffering, as Hester Prynne and Pearl were by theirs. The Scarlet A became not a sign of Adultery but of Ability for Hester. Hawthorne holds her up as a model, and I follow her willingly against those (on whatever side of the left/right/center cultural battles) who hold that purity ought to be externally enforced all the time.

      It is a tenuous foundation that we sit upon as Americans. We are often blind to the purity-seekers who more-or-less agree with us. Although we are considered a free country, we often bind up our fellow citizens in our quest for purity. Indeed, in so doing, we act like our forebears. Hawthorne reminds us of this well. Puritan New England is not that far away from us today.
    • 5/5
      I admired this novel increasingly more as it went along. It is structurally fantastic, conservatively written, every chapter moving the story forward like perfectly wound clockwork. It is filled with careful analysis of the characters' inner lives and moral quandaries. A couple of standout chapters are especially admirable. It is only Hawthorne's ponderous style that is not my cup of tea. He is in love with words, as am I, but he presents them in immense blocks of exposition that can fill an entire page. He is very fond of telling rather than showing, so I was forced to view practically everything through his narrative voice. The stiffness might be intentional to fit the Puritanical setting, but I suspect it's just him. This alone has probably killed enthusiasm for the novel in more than one young scholar who has it pressed upon them.

      The plot outline creates a problem by what it withholds in order to provide a hook. Or I have a problem, in being unwilling to take what an author shows me at face value. Hester has admirable traits, but her entire character rests on the true circumstances of her affair, and those are the novel's primary mystery. I had to assume that her backstory would prove sympathetic. Her daughter Pearl is an even greater enigma, born as innocent as any child but portrayed as if oddly otherwise. I judged this was a realism story and I should not read too much into that; assuming, again. Dimmesdale's implied role looked like a red herring. Chillingworth was the one character I did take as given, probably from a reader's sympathy for his want of answers. The second half of the story clears all of these problems away. I wonder whether I would have enjoyed the first hundred pages more had I known the plot in advance, but I would have enjoyed the second half less. There's some good tension as Hawthorne's 19th century mores head towards playing out in a 17th century setting - or not. With the the entire picture before me, I'm giving this a higher rating than I expected.
    • 3/5
      This was required reading for English class. Now that I think about it--it does seem odd that a school would have us reading about a woman being punished for adultery--well, the adultery part in a school book seems odd--though if they were going to have us read about adultery, I don't find it so odd that they would have it be this book. I remember our teacher saying "if you're reading the Cliff Notes, you already know who the baby's father is"--and it was true! The Cliff Notes did reveal the baby's father long before the book did. (But I won't reveal who it was here to avoid any spoilers.)
    • 4/5
      This mid 19th century American classic novel is very much set within the ethos and mores of the Puritan community in New England in the mid 17th century. A young woman Hester Prynne with a baby (Pearl) is humiliated by the community and marked with the eponymous letter A for adultery (though the word is never used in the book). The story is about her relationship with her daughter, with an old doctor who is revealed to be her ex-husband, and with the clergyman who is Pearl's father. The story is told within a framework narrative, with an over-long introduction describing the author's personal experiences working in a custom house, where he purported to have found old documents describing Hester's story. Hawthorne is clearly sceptical of the grim joylessness of extreme Puritanism, when he describes one of their rare festive events thus: "Into this festal season of the year ............the Puritans compressed whatever mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity; thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general affliction." The novel is very well written and needs to be read in relatively small doses truly to appreciate the language, though it is short at only 138 pages.
    • 1/5
      No fan of this classic. I get why it's considered a masterpiece, but it also seems to me as if the biggest fans judge from a position where the moral of a story is more important than the story itself.

      Over the course of this novel, we sadly get to know nothing of the inner workings and conditions of the characters, nothing but what the few, very reduced and stilted lines of dialogue reveal of which each additionally gets commented on by the narrator. This narrator is so far detached from the events and the persons who were involved that the whole thing reads like a historical report, with the additional effect that the characters have no nuances or real personalities. Everyone, men and women alike (though apart from Hester, women don't play any important part anyway) are Puritans and nothing else - only concerned with their soul's salvation, their morals and most of all the morals of others, with nothing distinguishing them from each other or giving them individuality. Hester herself is obviously different, but even with her we get to know nothing about her motivations and development, the reasons why she acts like she acts. The only character who breaks the mould is Pearl, and only because she's consistently described as different and weird.

      These shortcomings are actually a real pity, because I really liked the story itself, as a thought experiment and insight into a society that is . The theme of shame, stigma and the way how a society is held together by common morals give the frame for a tale that is, with the view of a modern reader, unbelievably full of bigotry, mercilessness, sexism, self-pity and factitiousness. Unfortunately, the way Hawthorne handles it, it's more like a sermon to be preached from a pulpit than a story to be told at a campfire. Cautionary and lecturing instead of entertaining, and no effort was made to combine both.

      On the topic of style, I guess Hawthorne really loved to hear himself talk. The introductory "Custom House" sketch took 1,5 hours in the audio version and nearly caused a dnf tag. There was no substance, nothing with any tangible insight, just rambling and digressing and going off on tangents that ultimately went nowhere, preferrably in run-on sentences that put half a dozen ideas into a single paragraph.

      Yes, I know, it's the style of the time and I can't expect modern efficiency in storytelling in a novel from 1850. Actually, I don't even want to. And still, it's so far over the top that it becomes tedious very fast. Pride and Prejudice is from 1813, and stylistically it's so much more varied and interesting, with real dialogue where not every line gets a comment and real characters the reader can understand and relate to.
    • 3/5
      I'm not a big Classics fan but I do try to read a few each year. This time my Book Club chose A Scarlet Letter because of the Puritan connection and Thanksgiving time-frame. I had never read this book even in high school though I thought I knew the basics. There were aspects of the story to which I was unaware and it added a bit to the story IMO. However, the treatment of anyone - man, woman, or child - in manner, saddened me so I think that it did give me a greater reason to be thankful for the blessings I have.
    • 4/5
      I first read The Scarlet Letter in high school. I read it again about ten years later. After learning an ancestor's wife, although not the one from whom I descend, likely inspired Hawthorne's story, I became interested in the story again and read it about a dozen years ago. This summer AudioSync offered a free download of the version narrated by Donada Peters. I really enjoyed the listening experience. Although the narrator's voice was British, she did a great job narrating the colonial New England Puritan story featuring a woman forced to wear a scarlet A upon her breast. The father the Rev. Arthur Dimsdale suffered more than she because he failed to publicly confess his sin. The woman's husband, living under the assumed name of Roger Chillingsworth, was the clergyman's doctor and tormentor. The classic story reads differently than modern novels, but never fails to provide material for thought. It continues to be studied in schools because of its ability to be discussed. I enjoyed my revisit to Puritan New England through this audio production.
    • 3/5
      I first read this over thirty years ago in high school. I read it again this year because my daughter is now reading it in high school, and I enjoy discussing her assigned reading with her. I really love the plot and characters, but the pacing is slow and the prose is painful at times. For me, trudging through the book again was made worthwhile by the penultimate chapter, "The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter." The interaction between the four main characters reaches its peak in a most satisfying manner.

      Overall, I prefer the manga adaptation I read last year: [book:Manga Classics: The Scarlet Letter|23332877].
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