The Blithedale Romance: (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

I fell in love with Hawthorne's books and short stories when I was in junior high school. Twenty years later he continues to be on my list of top ten favorites. His novels strike me as incredibly modern and relevant to modern day life. The Blithedale Romance has many elements in common with the much sillier novel Tommy's Tale by Alan Cumming. The events at Blithedale (a commune in the woods) are laid out in chronological order by Miles Coverdale who proves to be as unreliable a narrator as Tommy. Cloverdale's omissions are a result of Puritan embarrassment but the sexual tension is hovering just below the surface of his euphemisms. Like Tommy who lives in a flat with Sadie, Bobby and Charlie, Cloverdale moves into Blithedale to live with two women (Zenobia, Priscilla) and a man, Hollingsworth. Unlike Tommy's flat, the two men and women pair up in more conventional ways but Cloverdale hints that the four are more open with their adult desires than what Cloverdale feels is proper. ... Read more

I often go to the public library on Saturdays and select an armful of books to take home. I check out so many because I know that only one or two of them will strike my fancy. This particular time I went through my stack of novels, reading the first 50 or so pages, and found all of them wanting--except for the last one in the pile: The Blythedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's funny how some reviewers insisted that the first few chapters of this novel were "slow going." It's all in what you're looking for, I suppose. Like most 19th century novels, the plot is developed in its own time. Since this was before movies were around, more scene descriptions and character development was necessary. I was immediately enchanted with this tale of a group of intellectuals, or would-be intellectuals, who decided to give Utopia another chance. I found the narrator, Miles Coverdale, charming and witty and all the characters interesting and complex. This kind of surprised me, because I... Read more

The narrator, a poet, Miles Coverdale, describes Zenobia's bloom as health and vigor. It is determined that they, the community members, would not make good market gardeners and that they should look into the raising of pigs. Hollingsworth arrives with Priscilla who seeks shelter to be in Zenobia's company. She is a thin pale thing, and her origins are not known. Hollingsworth is not really interested in socialism, he is interested in the reformation of criminals. A committee is formed to name the community and Blithedale is the result. Hollingsworth joins the group because its members are estranging themselves from the world. Coverdale feels that the man, Hollingsworth, is fast going mad. May Day is to be a movable festival. Coverdale discovers that neither he nor Robert Burns is able to combine farming and poetry. A stranger, Westevelt, wants to meet with Zenobia privately. It seems that she has another name. Miles Coverdale dislikes the stranger who, among ot... Read more

Isolation and a refusal to see things straight-on are the main themes of this mildly successful novel by Hawthorne. Narrated by Miles Coverdale who comes to the Utopian community of Blithedale for his health (Hawthorne had spent some time at Brook Farm, a communal farm, on which Blithedale is based), we encounter Hollingsworth, who is interested in prison reform, and who uses the wealthy and exotic Zenobia for his own selfish purposes; she drowns herself when Hollingworth shows a romantic interest in Priscilla, Zenobia's half-sister. Priscilla is a true innocent, who is under the influence of the evil mesmerist, Westervelt. Coverdale is always on the fringe of what's going on, but never a direct participant. He eavesdrops and spies from windows (once even while hiding in a tree), and his inability to take part in the life around him is Hawthorne's central figure of isolation. Even at the end he declares his love for Priscilla - only after she has married Hollingsworth. Hollingswort... Read more

Lacking perhaps the ambitious design of other Hawthorne novels, Blithdale makes up for it in first-person freshness. It's witty and straight, take it as you will. And yes, somewhat wickedly tongue in cheek in its engagement with a 19th century American experiment in utopia on earth. Some reviews on this site are a sad testament to what a new generation has been subjected to by way of heavily idealized and politically ladened literary theory. The subtleties are all on the page but many students lately have apparently been prevented from seeing them by the standard goggles forced on their heads. "Depressing," "cynical" etc are odd ways to approach a text -- I take it the reviewers were disturbed by the Grand Canyon between what was on the page and what was in their teachers' heads and expectations. Taken as a sort of cry of pain (an honest emotional response anyway) I would urge these young readers to try again. Truth is, utopia has always been the lodestar of the American m... Read more