Mosses from an Old Manse (Modern Library Classics)
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Book Summary Information
Author: Nathaniel HawthorneIntroduction: Mary Oliver
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-03-11
ISBN: 0812966058
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Modern Library
Book Reviews of Mosses from an Old Manse (Modern Library Classics)
Book Review: Once More, With Soul
Summary: 5 Stars
Nathaniel Hawthorne had a leaning towards humility, phony or not. After calling his previous collection of short stories "Twice-Told Tales" (1837), he went the lichen route with his next installment, calling his 1846 collection "Mosses From An Old Manse". Get out that scraper? Not quite.
Unlike "Twice-Told Tales", a collection of somewhat hit-and-miss stories that owes some of its culture notoriety to its quaint title and much of the rest of it to one story ("The Minister's Black Veil"), "Mosses" catches Hawthorne's engaging genius at full flower. Right from the first of the Manse stories, the wonderful Poe-like "The Birthmark", about a scientist who risks losing his lovely bride in pursuit of perfection, Hawthorne shows himself in utter command: "In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul."
Actually, Hawthorne begins the demonstration earlier than in his first proper story, with his introductory sketch about the house where he composed his stories, "The Old Manse" in Concord, Massachusetts. It's the only piece here that didn't see prior publication, and has Hawthorne ruminating, lightly but memorably, about the perishability of human thought. It also establishes the strong ambiance of time and place, crusty New England in its post-Puritan period, that undergirds much of what follows.
"Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more ephemeral writer," he explains.
More false humility? Maybe. But Hawthorne gives the impression, here and elsewhere in "Manse", of being utterly sincere. It's his blessing and curse. Even when he writes a story where the allegory, the moral point of the matter, is developed clearly enough, he feels a need to underscore his points with narrative rumination. At least he doesn't capitalize key words as he did in "Twice-Told Tales".
Yet unlike the stories in "Tales", which are often quite beautiful but easier to reduce, there is greater ambiguity and depth in "Manse". You have to take Hawthorne's messaging here with a grain of salt. Sure, there's a point in "The Birthmark", about being content with nature's imperfections, but there's also sympathy for the erring, striving doctor that complicates the picture, and connects it up with Hawthorne's own vocation.
One of the last stories here, "The Artist Of The Beautiful", is a marvelous bookend in that regard, regarding the attainment of perfection, and as open-ended a story as Hawthorne ever wrote. It's a crushing tale, and yet quite positive, a miracle of creation by itself.
In between, Hawthorne's variety is on full display, as it was in "Twice-Told Tales", only the work is uniformly better. Not only do you have a stronger body of celebrated stories, like "Young Goodman Brown" and "Roger Malvin's Burial", but the less-heralded stories are nearly all brilliant. No dated bits of patriotic ephemera like "Gray Champion" or strained symbolism like "The Maypole Of Merry Mount" to be found here. You get instead inspired bursts of stirring melancholy ("The Christmas Banquet", "Feathertop") alleviated by clever gusts of humor ("Mrs. Bullfrog", "The Celestial Railroad"), and everywhere a modulated appreciation for the complexity of the human condition. "Earth's Holocaust" may be an ur-text for American conservativism, but then there's the transcendental strain that enlivens "Fire Worship".
A couple of stories here feel overwritten, but you will get that with such a large body of work, not to mention Hawthorne's anxiety to please. Overall, the tales and sketches of "Old Manse" is a stirring display of how much a great writer can capture of life, ironic given how many of the stories contemplate (and in a roundabout way, celebrate) the limitations of human imagination. A thing of joy, "Manse" holds its own alongside any of Hawthorne's great novels.
Summary of Mosses from an Old Manse (Modern Library Classics)
Mosses from an Old Manse is Nathaniel Hawthorne?s second story collection, first published in 1846 in two volumes and featuring sketches and tales written over a span of more than twenty years, including such classics as ?Young Goodman Brown,? ?The Birthmark,? and ?Rappaccini?s Daughter.? Herman Melville deemed Hawthorne the American Shakespeare, and Henry James wrote that his early tales possess ?the element of simple genius, the quality of imagination. That is the real charm of Hawthorne?s writing?this purity and spontaneity and naturalness of fancy.?Classics Books
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