Buck Books

This 1970s scholarly book provides a lot of information about the history of Jinan between 1890 and 1949, much of it in English for the first time. As a source for facts and research ideas, it is very good. It has drawbacks in other areas, however.

First, the entire point of the book seems flawed. Buck wanted to take a Chinese city that had all the ingredients needed to turn itself into a modern Western-style city, and see whether such a transformation could have taken place, and if not, why not. The entire premise is that the Western-style city is the natural course for a city to take, and China is somehow lacking for failing to develop in the same way as the West. In reality, might it not be Western cities that are the anomalies?

In addition, Buck's conceptual framework, while dealing with Western ideas of the city, makes only a passing reference to the work of Skinner, as though Buck was rushed for time and could not fully incorporate Skinner's economic ideas into his thesis. Although the title of the book claims that the book goes through 1949, in reality it stops somewhere in the early 1930s, with a vague later section which merely repeats then-current Communist rhetoric about turning "consumer cities" into "producer cities." This rhetoric is not subjected to critical scrutiny.

I wished for more maps and other visual material, as well as for more stories, non-scholarly sources such as novels and plays, and other materials that would have given a more vivid sense of the city. If one compares this book to the later 2-volume work on the city of Hankow by Rowe, Buck's book does seem lacking; nevertheless, it remains a valuable resource for students of Shandong province.

This book has plenty of nice patterns but it is recommended for lacemakers who are familiar with the basic stitches. The colour code system makes it easy to understand, at a glance.

This book can be read in two ways: as an introduction to a more truly democratic way of organizing and governing organizations, or as a way to rethink how groups anywhere can improve dialogue and decision making to arrive at wiser outcomes. The way people talk together and the way they are organized are inextricably linked in organizations, and this book makes this linkage very clear.

We the People caused me to rethink how I view the roles of committees and teams from the perspective of how they could operate everyday as circles for dialogue and decision-making. The practices offered are simple and structural and easily fit within the way people work together day-day. The practices do not require people to change their behaviors, but only to follow a few process and organizational guidelines which can naturally help them work together more effectively. There are clear directions and good examples throughout. The section on the nature of consensus and consent as alternate approaches to decision-making is particularly helpful.

As I read the book I was reminded again and again of certain "democratically" run organizations, like town government and a church congregation, where these practices could be very helpful as an alternative to the practices (and side effects) of parliamentary procedure. I recommend this book to anyone interested in helping committees, teams and organizations run wiser, less polarizing meetings and organizations...or to those interested in rethinking the nature of democratic self-government.

This book is for young naturalists who are curious about the winter habits of north American wildlife. Each section of the manuscript was read and checked for accuracy by an authority on the subject.

Where do they go? When winter comes, what happens to all the wild creatures that we see in warm weather? Where are all the bugs, birds, and beasts?

In our temperate zone, where there are distinct seasons, we find a great change in the way that most creatures live during the warm and cold times of the year.

In summer we have green plants and insects that eat them, birds that eat the insects, other kinds of animals that eat plants and smaller animals. We are surrounded by living things.

In winter plants die back to the roots or go to seed and most of the creatures that feed on them disappear. Snow falls on a quiet world. However, when spring comes, plant and animal life returns. Where have the various kinds of animals been throughout the winter?

This book tells about many of our common insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, and what they do in winter.

When we speak of the north, we mean the southern part of Canada and that part of the United States that has a cold winter season. Northern Canada and the Arctic region, we call the far north, and our southern states, the south.

This workbook is a good compliment to the text. It is good review for the material.

Livingstone's 2000 report, The State of London, said, "the prosperity of every Londoner is completely tied up with the city's role in the international economy." But most London workers produce goods or provide services that are used locally: only 19% of London's turnover is exported. The authors conclude, "the global and European roles together are still clearly much less significant for London than its continuing role as a national centre."

London was Britain's largest single manufacturing centre, but since 1962 it has lost 1.6 million manufacturing jobs. Its unemployment has worsened recently.

The authors attack Blair's approach to local government: "Within each local authority the proliferation of government ordained partnerships and specially focused programmes (by service, group and/or locality) is making a coordinated approach and `joined up' governance harder than ever. ... our work has tended both to cast doubts on the efficacy of local programmes, and to underline the importance of a number of mainstream policy areas. ... Labour's pursuit of `joined-up' action seems quite perversely to have brought ever more complex arrays of `initiatives' which are short-term, unsustainable, uncoordinated and even contradictory. ... area-based approaches ... have been the staple of urban policy for the past 35 years, but rarely matched their promises with sustainable achievements. ... We are sceptical, however, about what has been achieved through the proliferation of health, education and other action zones."

Southwark, for example, has contracted out education and housing benefit administration, reducing its ability to coordinate policies. The council relies on private investment for regeneration, but most residents have not gained from the spectacular new South Bank. This kind of `regeneration' is just like the old discredited `trickle-down'.

The authors propose national programmes for "improving the supply of low- and moderate-income housing - and conditions in the existing stock of social housing - in ways that prevent this stock from being subsequently `captured' by other groups; improving public transport provision while restricting the costs of such travel, so as to enhance particularly the mobility of disadvantaged groups; and raising performance in those state schools at the bottom of current league tables ..."

I gave this story four stars. It would have gotten only two or three, but having gone back and re-read it, I think I can understand it a whole lot better now. Terry Goodkind had a lot to say about political and social change, and while not everyone's "cup of tea," it was a great background for this book. I hated and pitied Dalton Cambell for what he couldn't understand and loved Beata and Fitch for their innocence and because they reminded me of Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke from Bridge to Terabithia.

(Spoilers ahead)

My regrets about this book were that those two were destroyed. They seemed like Richard and Kahlan, in their youth. I would have liked to have seen them go with Richard and Kahlan and live in their mountain home.

In the sixth novel, Richard could have taught them both how to sword-fight properly, while he taught Kahlan to fight better and when everyone else leaves to fight the Order, Fitch and Beata could stay in their mountain home and be happy together.

That way the home could always have a family--even after Richard and Kahlan were gone.

I also hated the loss of Franca Gowenlock, a beautiful character addition.

I admired and reviled the ending of this story, as the tradegy of Franca and Fitch's deaths must have taken great courage. I can imagine Terry Goodkind and his wife weeping over the death of Fitch and Franca and the loss of Beata. To paraphrase Goodkind, he must have "grieved to undo what he had done." In spite of the pain, he knew what had to be done, for the good of the story and he didn't hesitate. For that, I loved him and I hated him.

There was so much tragedy in this story, I almost couldn't see its value.

I see it now.

The ending for Richard was wonderful in a way that I didn't fully appreciate when I was younger. I was only eighteen when I read this and I thought it wonderful that Richard would finally be returning to Westland, after all this time, but I didn't think he should give up the fight. I thought, like Ann thought, that he must fight. I was wrong.

About the ending being wonderful:

The ending of Soul of the Fire, where Richard sees Dalton Cambell and walks away with the Sword of Truth triggered in me a memory from my pre-school days as it reflected the writings of another great author: Doctor Seuss. Richard is the Lorax who "spoke for the trees (Hakens) as the trees had no tounges" and "was lifted and taken somewhere."
In the end, I see Dalton Cambell (aka. Mr. Once-ler) who comes to understand, only after everything is destoryed, the mistake he has made.

Although it didn't actually happen, I can still see him giving Fitch the last tree seed at the end and telling him: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing will change," and that if the trees come back, then maybe the Lorax will too.

Beautiful.

To bad Goodkind couldn't come up with hardly any new material.We are stuck reading 90 percent of the book as the characters rethink,or dwell on what the reader read in the first four books of the series.

Soul of the Fire is part of the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Following the story of Richard, it's written well enough that you can relate to the struggles of the people involved, even if the issue is other worldly. Soul of the Fire, the fifth book in the series, is my third favorite, only being surpassed by Wizards First Rule (Book 1) and Confessor (Book 11 and final). In all the books, Richard learns a little more about what he can do, but I think in this book, he really starts to grasp larger concepts and it makes for a really exciting ending. Really, a great book.

I had not read any books in this series previously, so I expected I was reading at my own risk, and could look up things I didn't understand in internet summaries. I didn't have to look a single thing up, and not because the book was particularly self-contained. Goodkind explained all the backstory in great detail-- which must have been excruciating for people who weren't new to the series.

None of the characters moved me. I was confused by Kahlan at first because she seemed to consider everything Richard said completely idiotic (even when he was obviously right,) and I wondered why she'd married him if she found him so pointless. I lost my slight sympathy for Richard, however, as the book wore on. It irritated me that he seemed to be the absolute best at everything, from fighting to magic; I realize there's some degree of wish-fulfillment for Goodkind there, but it makes the other characters pretty irrelevant, and Goodkind's personal fantasies are of limited interest to me.

I also found Richard's personal philosophy ambiguous at best, for all the time he spends harping on it. I couldn't help seeing irony in the fact that, much as he nattered on about individualism and free will, he was delivering hostile ultimatums to anyone who didn't go along with his agenda. What about THEIR free will? Or is individualism only for when people agree with you? If this inconsistency was an intentional flaw in the character I would actually welcome it as a change from Richard being portrayed as entirely perfect, but I didn't get the feeling it was on purpose or that the author recognized it as an imperfection.

I actually enjoy political stuff in novels (heck, I have a degree in a political science field,) but this novel grated. I found the Anderith sections heavy-handed and overdone. It was an obvious political allegory, and in my opinion a rather poor one. I wish he'd focused more on making his imagined culture believable than on trying to make a statement about his own views. The potential negative undertones about minorities made me very uncomfortable.

I was also pretty uncomfortable with how many times Goodkind described the culture of the Mud People as like the main characters' cultures, holding compatible views, having the same values, etc. and thus being worthy of Richard and Kahlan's presence. On the surface that seems positive, but the implication is that cultures must somehow justify themselves as being like the dominant culture in order to be worthy of mixing. Richard and Kahlan couldn't just stay with these people because they liked them? They couldn't just be friends without an agenda? The Mud People didn't have sufficient worth outside of their similarities to Richard and Kahlan? The political posturing seemed pretty demeaning to minority cultures and suspicious of diversity.

The reliance on sexual violence as a plot device also bothered me. Unfortunately rape is often part of war, and sometimes as an organized strategy, but people do also do other bad things to each other. Not everyone who commits harmful acts is automatically a rapist. I'm not saying sexual violence can't play a part in a story (heck, I LIKE George R. R. Martin) and it is realistic-- but the extent to which Goodkind takes it is much too extreme. It often seems to be played for thrills and shock value, and possibly misogynistic fantasy, not to be accurate in his portrayal of the horrors of war. The armies seem to be more interested in rape than in actually fighting, and the emotional impact of sexual assault is greatly reduced by making it seem commonplace. Whatever Goodkind's intentions, by the end I was starting to wonder what he had against women.

On a more personal-taste note, I was very irritated by the continued reliance on the plot device of easily solved problems being turned into complicated dilemmas because characters who supposedly liked and trusted each other suddenly deceiving, lying to each other, not talking about things, and hiding the truth. It made no logical sense-- why are these people even friends, lovers, etc. if they can't even be honest with each other?-- and it really lessened the impact of dramatic moments. During the ending, which I think was supposed to be emotional and tragic, though only peripherally related to the rest of the story, but I kept thinking, "You realize this wouldn't have happened if you'd just talked to each other like normal people, right?" Yes, real people do stupid things, but it seemed entirely contrived.

I did find the ending of the primary plot (if you could call it that) rather rushed, but since it's a continuing series, I assumed Goodkind had plans to elaborate more in the future-- though this particular installment would have been more satisfying if it had a more complete plot arc.

This book isn't unreadable, and I had moments of enjoying it, but overall it's not one I would recommend.

Final note, for those who suggested Goodkind shouldn't be criticized because writing a novel is hard: yes, it is. If a professional puts his or her craft in the public arena, though, that person subjects it to criticism, from ordinary people as well as from other professionals. Goodkind is a professional writer, and as such has opened himself up to both positive and negative reviews. Whether or not the writer of a review could produce a better novel is beside the point; I don't have to be a better baseball player to have a negative opinion on the pitch that lost a team the World Series, or be a better actor to criticize a wooden performance in a film. A professional writer has to be prepared to accept critiques, not just praise. Not only other authors are entitled to have opinions about what they read.

I purchased books 4-6 as a set. I read Temple of the Winds then mistakenly read Faith of the Fallen next. It's funny - aside from a couple minor references, you can skip Soul of the Fire without missing a beat.

In any event, I read the plot overview for SOTF. Richard's and Kahlan's marriage released some ancient curse/spell? Are you kidding me? I'm giving the book one star just for having such a contrived storyline.

I read part of this book for a Globalization class I was taking, plus a few chapters from a different book "Globalization and Its Discontents" by Joseph Stiglitz. I initially liked what I read from Friedman. It seemed positive and interesting in comparison to Stiglitz (which focused on IMF economic policies and was VERY angry). However, upon reading the whole Stiglitz book and then going back to Friedman, I found Friedman to be poorly educated in economics and a waste of my time. It is indeed a cheerleader book for Globalization and has so many holes in it you can drive a car through.

Friedman is a market fundamentalist with an agenda, which becomes very clear after reading a REAL book on economics. He embraces this "golden straightjacket" (or restrictions that globalization puts on an economy) as inevitable and advocates a rapid transition to free-market systems with abandonment of old systems. He also favors excessive deregulation of the economy and wants government to completely relinquish control. The success of this strategy isn't backed by any evidence. It's only Friedman's theory. For instance, he goes into great detail about the hardships that this golden straitjacket puts on government, the population and all the entrenched interests... but never proves with evidence that the countries that put it on are better off than countries that don't. The fact is, countries DON'T have to follow this golden straitjacket model. Southeast Asia in particular... with all the "crony" capitalism that Friedman complains lingered on for decades, was successful before the 1997 market crisis specifically because of this crony capitalism. They didn't follow the IMF, Wall Street, and the electronic herd who were all clamoring for them to immediately open up their markets and push down barriers and completely eliminate government interference in the economy. They kept those barriers up, built up their own businesses and industries, and when those industries were ready to compete in the global market, they slowly reduced trade barriers and integrated themselves into the global economy. This is the correct way to approach globalization, not the stupid way Friedman and the IMF and Wall Street lobbyists advocate (ensuring US companies dominate ALL competition in the developing world).

I'll give another example of why Friedman is wrong. Look at Russia. Russia's transition from communism to capitalism was guided by the IMF and the US Treasury Department. It was one of the most radical transformations of an economy in the history of mankind and under Friedman's theory, it should have been an enormous success because "the quicker you adopt the golden straitjacket, the better". WRONG. They transitioned to free markets so quick that it was devoid of competition. There was no regulatory structure to compete fairly. Banks didn't operate well. Businesses were sold to well-connected, corrupt bureaucrats for next to nothing (who proceeded to strip the businesses of their assets and put most of the profits in foreign bank accounts). Corrupt government leaders shared in these profits at the expense of the state's wealth. The leaders further raided funds by taking out massive loans from international banks, the IMF and the US government at high interest rates and diverted much of the money into their bank accounts. Inflation ran wild for awhile and many people lost their life savings and retirement as a result. Exchange rates were kept artificially high which prevented exports. Crime and mafia control spread everywhere. People in abject poverty become commonplace (from ~2% of the population living under $2 a day under communism....... to after the market failure ~25% of the population under $2 a day and ~40% of the population under $4 a day. GDP per Capita went DOWN so people were poorer with capitalism than they were under communism). It was altogether complete chaos and an economic disaster.

Compare this with China, who also moved from Communism to Capitalism but they started in the 70's and they did it much slower and much more carefully. Through protectionist barriers, they built up their own industries, significantly reduced poverty, became a major world economy and provided many of the amenities that first world economies have. While they aren't completely free-market yet, they are doing it very well and completely ignoring Thomas Friedman's "Golden Straitjacket".

With that said, there are some good things about Thomas Friedman's book. First off, he explains a very popular... but failed... ideology very well. There is significant support for it in IMF, Wall Street and the Treasury Department and its important to understand. Secondly, he explains Capital Markets (or what he calls "short horned cattle") far better than my other book does. Capital Markets, or investment in currency, is a hard concept to understand and Friedman makes a very good effort at explaining it.

Had some good ideas but pretty heavy reading. Not for the short attention span person.

This book provides a very good understanding of globilisation by integrating various issues and concepts with critical, illustrative and at times poignant examples. This helps appreciate what globilisation means currently and the historical summary helps explain how we got to where we are today. Consequently we are better able to forecast trends and determine meaningful business and social strategies that will enhance our lifestyles. It is an easy, informative and enjoyable read.

This is the first book I've read on the hot topic of globalization and I think it's fair to say I was disappointed, especially considering how popular this book is. What is most odd about this book is that it does not feel like it was written by a journalist at all: it rarely relies on facts or scenarios that actually happened. Much of the book contains dialogues (mostly among world leaders) that Friedman invented for literary effect. He also goes overboard on inventing his own terminology for the subject. But what is most annoying while reading the book is that while you would expect a book on globalization to be nuanced and subtle, Friedman comes off as arrogant and heavy-handed in his treatment of the subject. It occurred to me many times while reading the book that being a globetrotting journalist did not qualify Friedman to be the quasi-theorist that he thinks he is. Revealing, this book has aged very poorly, very quickly. Most of the companies he praises (Enron and Compaq for instance) have either gone completely defunct or been bought out by other companies. As if to further underscore his shallow understanding of the subject, his Golden Arches Theory was disproven soon after the publication of his book. Friedman is not without his insights but I imagine there must be much better books out there on the subject.

If you have a short attention span, then this book is not for you. I thought being a newspaper person would have made Friedman concise and to the point, but Friedman spends so much time talking about things that are not directly related to the point that I gave up on this book. I may have cheated myself (I thought the same of Ayn Rand but did make it through Atlas Shrugged which is one of my favorites.) but I don't have the time for his wanderings.

I think many people (like me) will buy this book thinking it is a continuation of a Bob Lee Swagger novel like Point of Impact. You will really be dissappointed unless you are studying Japanese swords or Japaneese terminology or culture. It takes way too long to get to the action. Sorry!

After reading this novel I can only surmise that the author was paid according to the number of words written. He managed to stretch a mediocre yarn to "yawn" lengths. We are even given page after page of the Japanese version of "The Karate KId" (remember that one?). Then there is the endless gushing about the behavior of men of honor, bravery, duty, ad nauseum. At times such filler makes one forget just where the storyline is headed.
Of course what REALLY annoys me is that I just kept on reading this thing long after I had given up hope for it.

I enjoyed this latest Swagger novel. It was fun and credible, but not the sort of book that you would like to red again and again. Still, it was worth buying. No regrets.

I am a big fan of Stephen Hunter and his Bob Lee Swagger series. I would give most of them 5 stars. I saw Shooter on TV last night and remembered how much I enjoyed that book and how quickly I read it.

This book took me over a month to finish. The premise is that Bob Lee (after a week of acquaintance) got so close to a Japanese family, that he sought revenge after they were all killed. I don't see Bob Lee that way. I see him as a tough guy who lets few people in but when he does he is loyal to the end. When this is explained it is too late to make the book believable.

The book talked endlessly about sword fighting and the Japanese expressions for all the cuts that I found myself skimming all those parts just to see who survived so I could continue with the book.

The plot was not engaging and I found that I did not "connect" with Bob Lee as I had in the rest of the series. I had read some reviews that were not flattering but I ignored them. Wish I had taken them to heart and at least waited for the paperback. I won't be buying his next one in hardcover.

February 1945. Iwo Jima island, Japan. Captain Hideki Yano was a captain of the 145th Regiment, Kuribayashi's 109th division, Japanese Imperial Army, defending a bunker on Suribachi's northwest slope. He was ready to die for the Emperor and for his country. Earl Swagger was a first sergeant, attached to Able Company, 28th Regiment, United States Marine Corps. It was the company's turn to lead an assault on Yano's well-designed and well-defended position. Able company was lead by captain Culpepper, a college boy, who didn't know what to do. He'd used family connections to get himself a combat command. So sergeant Swagger was sent from headquarter to support him. Swagger was a strange man. He was from nowhere. He had nothing to share with his comrades, no stories, no hometown, no families, nothing at all. But he was a great Marine. He led a group of Marines to get close to the blockhouse. They tried to flank and surprisingly attack it. However, they were ambushed by Yano and everybody but Swagger were killed. Swagger somehow survived and got a gun and continued his mission. He didn't hesitate for a second. He got into the blockhouse and killed everybody inside. Captain Yano could have killed him but for some unknown reasons he did not and accepted his death. Captain's Yano sword was given to captain Culpepper as a war trophy. After the war, Culppeper returned the sword to one of Earl's sisters.

Today. Crazy House, Idaho, United States. Earl's son, Bob Lee Swagger, nearing sixty, was a United States Marine Corps sniper. He was a loner and very tough guy, who'd served in Vietnam 3 times. He was retired and living in the American West with his wife and their daughter. But he usually spent his time alone. One day, a Japanese colonel named Philip Yano came to see him. Yano was a very good man. He was a retired paratrooper serving in the Japanese Self-Defense Force. He asked for the sword, which would have great meaning to him and his family. Bob also knew the sword should have been returned to its place of honour with the family of the man who had carried it and died with it. So he made a promise that he would do his best to find the sword.

Having found the sword from his aunt, Bob flew to Tokyo. He was warmly welcomed in Yano's family. Together they discovered that this sword had a great value. It was one of the greatest Japanese relics. It was actually the blade used by the great Oishi in the attack of Forty-Seven Ronin against Lord Kira.

Today. Tokyo, Japan. Miwa was the president of the AJVS, the All Japan Video Society, the biggest industrial group for dirty movies. He was in that position for sixteen consecutive years. However, his position was threaten and he needed something great to make him a hero. If he got that legendary sword, he would become the Great man of the People, who could not be replaced. So he demanded his greatest swordman, Kondo. And in just one day, the whole Yano family were wiped out.

So Bob returned to Tokyo again to seek revenge and justice...

The story is very interesting but unbelievable. How could a 60 year old guy with no prior experience master the art of sword fighting in a week? How could that guy defeat and kill many experienced Japanese swordmen, including the great Kondo, who'd won the All Japan Kendo championship (well Bob also fought 6 swordmen in the same time)? Why didn't Bob, a great sniper, use a rifle? The ending is surprising, albeit a bit weak. However, as I said, this book is very entertaining. And I believe that the author has done a good research in swords and Japanese culture. The sword fightings are vividly described. A good book.

This isn't exactly a page turner, for that you should check out Hawthorne's short stories. However, the writing here is very good and the story is interesting. What struck me most of all about this book, however, is how funny it is. Not funny in a joke-cracking way, knee-slapping kind of way, but Hawthorne has a very dark sense of humor, and in this book he deals with dark themes like death, curses, witchcraft, and old age in a surprisingly humorous and deadpan manner. He writes the best death scenes! I don't want to give away any details, but you need to look past the image of Hawthorne as a stuffy dead white guy in order to appreciate this book.

Purchased in anticipation of a trip to Salem, MA to visit the actual House of the Seven Gables, I have to admit that I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I was going to. Written in 1851, The House of the Seven Gables is at once both a period romance and history of the Pyncheon family, focusing on a several week period of the lives of the current owner, Hepzibah Pyncheon, her brother Clifford, cousin Phoebe and their lodger, Holgrave. Themes of guilt and retribution run throughout the novel, as the histories of both the house and the Pyncheon and Maule families are all brought to light.

Hawthorne relies heavily on not only his own family's history to help him build some of the plots in his novel, but also on the general history of the area, with aspects of the novel dating back to the Salem Witch Hysteria of 1692. The house has stood for centuries as a spectator to these happenings, and seems to be haunted by the ghosts of the suffering that has occurred within its halls.

While suffering from many of what I see as familiar plot devices for its time (family secrets, hidden identities, convenient deaths and sudden marriages that let everyone live "happily ever after"), Hawthorne was still able to craft and wonderful and imaginative novel. While some of the descriptions may seem extraordinarily long by todays standards, I felt as though this added to the books charm. Some may find it hard to read, but if you let yourself be picked up by the story and not try to think your way through the book, you'll soon find yourself completely engrossed in poor Hepzibah's trials and tribulations.

I've had a copy of the House of Seven Gables sitting on my bookshelf for a number of years. The poor little book is slightly out of place between a plethora of fantasy and science fiction novels. Every once in a while I try to venture into a different realm of subject. That's the reason I finally picked up this book to read. I would have read it sooner but I was forced to read "The Scarlet Letter" in high school and never had the heart to read another Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.

Not expecting much, I have to say I was very impressed with this book. The details got to be a bit much at times. I have to admit there were parts of the book that I scanned quit quickly because I just didn't need to know that much description about a certain thing.

That being said, Hawthorne was very good at clearly painting a picture in my head. I could smell the mustiness of the house, feel the joy when Phoebe entered a room, and feel Clifford's sadness and confusion. What took me by surprise was the sharp wit throughout the book and intellectualness of this wit. Quit often I found myself laughing out loud at some of the dry humor in this book. Also of course there was the mystery of the book which kept you hanging on until the end.

I don't know that I will read any additional Hawthorne novels but I would recommend this as a good example of his work. It is much more interesting and engaging than the Scarlet Letter.

Dusty classics of this type when assigned to poor high-school kids typically elicit a wave of one- and two-star reviews consisting mostly of complaints that the work was "boring", usually for the reasons of too much description or most commonly, "no plot". They have trouble simply getting through it, but their school deems the work edifying, or at least did the last time anybody bothered to review the reading lists, so it's off to SparkNotes and the sham continues.

I claim boredom for this work but not in that sense, having read it voluntarily after all. Two novels I have ploughed through in the last year, namely The Idiot and Tale of Two Cities were more "boring" in the sense of being hard to get through, though both were greater novels by far I thought. I had no trouble on the other hand getting through Seven Gables. The boredom for me rather arose from finding nothing particularly compelling about Hawthorne's observations. Only a ponderous "behold my pronouncements" style. Rendered the more dull read so soon after that marvel of deft wit and light touch, Gulliver's Travels. Hawthorne is the anti-Swift--no travels for him! His lumbering, self-important prose reflecting his stolid, adventure-free life.

An indiscriminate deployment of minute analysis unto every topic that wandered into his view--the chickens, the getting of Phoebe out of her bedroom and down the stairs (3 pages), as examples. And to what end? A dubious premise--that the sins of the ancestors are visited upon the descendants. By what mechanism--karma? The kind of God who keeps a ledger of credits and debits? Some mysterion he couldn't be bothered to elucidate, just woooo--ghosts! Then a banal and predictable outcome, in which all live happily. Half-baked trends such as "mesmerism" offered but not defended.

How the novel might have been improved by Hawthorne getting out the damn house and down the street. Wade into the hubbub down at the Salem wharfs five minutes away--plenty of real adventure and drama to be found there, no need to resort to spooks. Dickens walked miles and miles in London. Melville went whaling. But this recessive little piggie stayed home, and the book suffers for it. Humorless gasbag, I say.

"Half-way down a by-street of one of our New England towns, stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst." And this solid and antique house contains many things - memories of those who lived and died there, and the terrible secrets that haunted those long dead, and haunt the living to this very day. This is the story of Hepzibah Pyncheon, an old maid who carries the weight of the past like a millstone about here neck; Clifford Pyncheon, whose past has left him a broken and haunted old man; Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon, a veritable echo of all that is good and bad in the Pyncheons; Phoebe Pyncheon, an unspoiled country cousin who finds herself sucked into the mysteries contain in the dark and sinister house; and finally Holgrave, a daguerreotypist and an outsider, perhaps the only one who truly knows the secrets of the House of the Seven Gables.

This is a classic of American literature, written in 1851, when railway trains were still a novel and exciting invention, when spiritualism was the rage, and when mesmerism had everyone...well, mesmerized. It was also a time when books came out slowly from the presses, and people expected long, flowing books that gave them more for their money and kept them entertained through the long pre-TV days. As such, it must be admitted that the modern criticism that the book is ponderous or slow-moving, does have some justification.

But, in spite of that, if you can keep at this book, you will find yourself rewarded with an extremely interesting story, a mystery set in a strange setting that is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. I enjoyed reading the deep and winding plot, watching the mysteries unravel in a seemly inevitable manner, like doom itself. I really enjoyed this book, and don't hesitate to recommend it!