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A review by jay_the_hippie
The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne
4.0
Two reasons I liked this book:
(1) Nathaniel Hawthorne creates suspense. He does a great job of stirring up a windstorm of "I want to know" mised with sharp bits of "I'm about to find out," and then follows through with only a little reveal... or when it is a bigger reveal (never *the* big reveal... we only get part of the answer), it's written so that we now have new questions needing answers.
(2) Nathaniel Hawthorne sets his story in a commune-type setting -- a big experiment in changing how people live -- that is based on a real place and event I didn't know existed. Seeing what idealists of all those years ago imagined... that adds a layer to what I know of that time in history.
Sure, I could go on to talk about the characters and his use of natural details and pseudo-magical sensations throughout the story, but the suspense and the history are what really drew me into this story.
(1) Nathaniel Hawthorne creates suspense. He does a great job of stirring up a windstorm of "I want to know" mised with sharp bits of "I'm about to find out," and then follows through with only a little reveal... or when it is a bigger reveal (never *the* big reveal... we only get part of the answer), it's written so that we now have new questions needing answers.
(2) Nathaniel Hawthorne sets his story in a commune-type setting -- a big experiment in changing how people live -- that is based on a real place and event I didn't know existed. Seeing what idealists of all those years ago imagined... that adds a layer to what I know of that time in history.
Sure, I could go on to talk about the characters and his use of natural details and pseudo-magical sensations throughout the story, but the suspense and the history are what really drew me into this story.