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1001 BOOKS GROUP READS LIST -- Everything We've Read and Everything Coming Up
By Charity · 18 posts · 3236 views
last updated Dec 26, 2024 06:04AM
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May (2025 Discussion) --Time's Arrow, by Martin Amis
By Karen · 4 posts · 34 views
By Karen · 4 posts · 34 views
last updated Jun 09, 2025 05:47AM
What Members Thought
I find Hawthorne tedious at the best of times. This was no exception.
So, there’s this utopian get together called Blithedale and it all starts off wonderfully with everyone pulling together in the fields in some kind of kibbutz by day and listening to stirring speeches by night. But the narrator, Coverdale, seems to have his doubts right from the start and, sure enough, the wheels begin to come off as the members discover that everything would be perfect if it wasn’t for one factor: them.
The res ...more
So, there’s this utopian get together called Blithedale and it all starts off wonderfully with everyone pulling together in the fields in some kind of kibbutz by day and listening to stirring speeches by night. But the narrator, Coverdale, seems to have his doubts right from the start and, sure enough, the wheels begin to come off as the members discover that everything would be perfect if it wasn’t for one factor: them.
The res ...more
Thanks, Reese. I could definitely identify a coherent narrative in this novel, and I am also very interested in both the experiments with communal living attempted in the 1900s, and in the dynamics of how "cultish" behavior develops. Zenobia represents a type of woman that I actively make sure not having to interact with, so I had some problems with her character, but that's not Hawthorne to blame for. "It's not Hawthorne, it's me..." He pretty much nailed the personality in his description of h
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This book is very much of it's time, though I think perhaps Hawthorne was being facetious.
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Material girl V ethereal girl. The conclusion's a refutation of romanticised demise. The anti-Ophelia. Oh, and tis about a commune.
*mocks with ice cream ala Witness*
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*mocks with ice cream ala Witness*
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This was an interesting mix. It is light, mysterious and tragic all in one. I plan to read more of Hawthorne, whom I have previously avoided. His use of words is beautiful.
Jun 08, 2008
Deanne
rated it
really liked it
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Aug 20, 2009
Vesra (When She Reads)
added it
Jul 26, 2010
Laura
marked it as to-read
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review of another edition
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Jan 04, 2013
Mirja
marked it as to-read
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Jun 14, 2013
M. A. Noeth
marked it as to-read
