CANDY BOX: An Open Letter to Hester Prynne

An Open Letter to Hester Prynne, protagonist of The Scarlet Letter

Spoiler warning: various plot points of The Scarlet Letter

For a female character written in the 1840s and placed in the 1640s, I expected much less of you.  I would argue that the concept of a heroine hardly existed at the time, and yet you proved that you would not stoop to denial, dishonesty, or gaslighting, the way all of the men around you did.  Despite being the most objectified woman in all of literature, you continued to exercise courage and give love to your neighbors.  For all this, I see you as a much greater hero than characters such as Harry Potter; anyone in any situation ought to view you as a role model.

An artist's interpretation of Hester

 I knew from early on in the story that you had a reserve of strength that few people possess.  In one day, you, along with your infant daughter, were paraded from the prison to the scaffold for the town to ridicule, and were then reunited with your husband, who, after having disappeared years earlier, showed up at the exact moment that the Deputy Governor asked you to reveal to the town who you had slept with.  In the face of public humiliation, you protected Arthur’s identity, electing instead to bear the scarlet letter.

Before the day had even ended, your husband Roger had the gall to visit you in prison under the guise of examining your health.  He again pestered you to confess the identity of your daughter’s father, over a thinly-veiled threat to the man’s life.  Exhausted and frightened, you protected Arthur’s identity.

Your caring behavior continues and, if anything, increases throughout the novel.  All your selflessness does, however, prompt me to ask this: why, Hester, is your choice in men so misguided?  Arthur clearly lacks guts; he stands up for you only when it is convenient, and he only attempts to help himself through physical self-torture rather than practicing what he literally preaches and confessing to his sin in order to move on and contribute to society.  I assume you embraced his kind heart, and I appreciate that, but still.  Woman, you deserve more.

From left to right: Arthur Dimmesdale, Pearl Prynne,
Hester Prynne, and Roger Chillingworth

Your husband is an even worse match.  Consider: you refused to let the scarlet letter ruin you, instead continuing to help the less fortunate and giving Pearl all of your love.  You took a social device that should have crippled you and instead shrugged it off until eventually everyone saw the letter and you as an emblem of hope.  Alternatively, Roger was gifted a second chance at life, returning to civilized America from his native American kidnappers, and he completely blew it.  Rather than rekindle his relationship with you or use his talents as a physician to keep the town thriving, he spent his new life in a single-minded, self-destructive mission to torture Arthur.  By the end of the book, we are left to see your husband as the Devil; he has been so consumed by hatred that there is no man left underneath the monstrous shell.

Hester Prynne, you are a hero against patriarchy and prejudice, but, for God’s sake, I hope Pearl didn’t consult you when choosing her husband.

Sincerely,

Jonah

Book Review (Canon): Kane and Abel

Kane and Abel

Written by Jeffrey Archer in 1979

The Raccoon: Kane and Abel traces the entire lives of William Kane, the son of a wealthy banker, and Abel Rosnovski, an impoverished Polish refugee. Their stories intertwine and lead to the two men developing a bitter rivalry as they struggle to build corporate empires in 20th century America.

UNMASKED: My favorite genre, if it can be called that, is a contest between two minds; for example, Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, Light and L (Death Note), Walter White and Gustavo Fring (Breaking Bad), and Batman and the Joker.  Consequently, when William and Abel each exhibited remarkable cleverness and an ability to understand and control their environment from a young age, I fell in love with the novel.

While Archer catalogs his characters’ various academic achievements, they serve to explain the characters’ mindsets and goals rather than prove their intelligence. The reader discovers that William and Abel are gifted through their actions.  Moreover, the two men are equal only in their intelligence, and I was captivated watching them use a completely different set of tools and alliances to rise to comparable levels of power.  

Thankfully, there is more to Kane and Abel than just, well, Kane and Abel.  Archer skillfully shows other characters’ reactions to the titular men’s larger than life personalities and how they maneuver around and work with these giants, similar to the “Sherlock Holmes” stories’ Watson and Ender’s Game’s Valentine.

Kane and Abel is a tour de force that will challenge your manliness or the manliness of your closest man.  It is no less than the story of the American dream and the consequences, both positive and negative, of determination.

Strengths:

• The two main characters are ingenious, making their adventures shocking and fun to read.
• The substitution of a concrete villain for two misguided heroes who saw each other as the villain kept every chapter exciting and inspiring.
• While certain parallels between William and Abel’s lives are necessary and welcome to carry the novel, the protagonists’ stories operate in unique spheres with distinct cultures, relationships, and trials.

Weaknesses:

• One character’s grievance against the other seems underwhelming for the extremity of his following hatred.  While I came to understand the rationale by the end of the novel, it greatly disappointed me at the time.
• Similarly, an arc with a “Romeo and Juliet” flavor felt unnecessary and theatrical.

Rating: 19/20 hotels

Ideal Setting: Read this when a political event makes you lose faith in the American dream.  Archer proves that dedication and intelligence can carry you further than inherited wealth, so long as you do try to take revenge on someone who is not even entirely responsible for the act that angered you.

Book Review (Rucksack): The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter

Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850

The Raccoon: Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman, struggles as a single mother in a society that has physically branded her for adultery.  Her daughter, former lover, and ex-husband torment her and each other until everyone has the courage to face their sins.

UNMASKED: There are many levels on which a reader can process The Scarlet Letter.  Perhaps, even I read too far into the characters and plot. Nonetheless, Hawthorne’s novel is a surprisingly engaging tale regardless of how you perceive it.  

The Scarlet Letter combines the complex psychological machinations of Edgar Allen Poe’s writings, the forbidden, yet sweet and uncomplicated romance of The Giver, and the unique social complications of The Crucible.  Its length is the perfect balance of deep, intellectual content and succinct narrative.  The novel does not require much time for reflection in order to comprehend what is happening, but the chapters stayed with me during all hours, and I am still finding new lenses to view the story from.

Similar to any well-written poem, it takes some participation on the reader’s part to get the full “Scarlet Letter” experience.  If you choose to embrace it, every page will gift you a new perspective on some aspect of life.

Strengths:

• Hester is an inspiring character who takes ownership of the novel. (See this weekend’s Candy Box post for elaboration)
• Hawthorne explores the human psyche through characters placed in a cleverly confined environment.
• The ending is very satisfying and leaves just the right questions to the imagination.

Weaknesses:

• Hawthorne seems to worry that his metaphors will be overlooked if he does not make them exhaustively clear.  While many people dislike when their English teachers ask them to analyze seemingly insignificant concepts, this force-feeding of meaning is much worse.
• One fifth of the book is an introduction involving politics and characters that have no bearing on the following story, as well as a far-fetched tale of Hawthorne encountering the scarlet letter and discovering records of Hester.  I genuinely regret reading this section.

Rating: 17/20 needles, and by needles, I mean overly explicit metaphors.  The word needle is used because Hester knits for her physical and spiritual livelihood, just as I write for mine.  But the needle also demonstrates that the metaphors were a constant prick in my side.  So, to wrap up, the needles are metaphors, for metaphors.  And there are seventeen of them, because that is the abstract quantity of positive associations I hold toward this book.

Ideal Setting: Read this when you are waiting in the forest to consult your ex-husband about your ex-lover, or are involved in any similarly harsh confrontation, to remind yourself that only you can decide what affects you.

Book Review (Canon): The Magicians

The Magicians

Written by Lev Grossman in 2009

The Raccoon: Quentin Coldwater, a gifted yet depressed high school student, is offered the chance to leave his dreary life behind and attend Brakebills, a university of magic.  However, his obsessive pursuit of adventure and meaning threatens to destroy everything he holds dear.

UNMASKED: Most books in which characters have supernatural abilities leave me disappointed with my regular life once I finish them.  The Magicians, however, left me content with the idea that I could learn magic, if only I wanted to spend five difficult years studying its intricacies.

The portrayal of magic in The Magicians is the most realistic yet fascinating to date.  Grossman’s world does not offer magic education to anyone younger than seventeen, and with good reason: there are countless variations to each spell based on the seasons and phases of the moon and several ancient languages needed to cast them.  Additionally, mastering magic allows one to achieve anything he/she desires; in fact, Quentin’s fifth-year project is to travel independently and without supplies to the moon and back, which he is more than capable of doing.

Grossman also acknowledges the complications that result from this power: the graduating twenty-somethings are released into the world spoiled by the knowledge that they do not need to work another day in their lives.  It was incredibly interesting watching Quentin and his friends struggle to actually be happy with the world at their fingertips.  However, this period in the story is also where I began to dislike Quentin.

Quentin’s friend-then-girlfriend Alice once chastises Quentin, “You actually still believe in magic.  You do realize, right, that nobody else does?  I mean, we all know magic is real.  But you really believe in it.”  Even after being recruited to Brakebills, even after a certain plot point that I do not want to ruin for you because it is a magnificently clever twist of epic proportions, Quentin continues to feel that something is missing, and he waits for an outside force to give his life meaning.  At a certain point, it became nearly impossible to relate to and support such an apathetic, immature protagonist.

While I remain on the fence about continuing the trilogy, The Magicians was a refreshing return of magic to my mind.  The novel captures all of the excitement of children’s fantasy stories along with the character development and disquieting moral controversies only possible in adult literature.

Strengths:

• Grossman’s idea of magic fits neatly into a world that is otherwise the same as our own, and it does not interfere with any existing belief system or other magic books.
• From a changing and random entrance exam, to a semester spent in Antarctica, to a graduation ceremony involving demons, Brakebills is an exciting and often hilarious place to read about.
• There are subtle roasts of Hogwarts as an inferior institution.

Weaknesses:

• There were times when Quentin seemed to be more of a vehicle for Grossman to display Brakebills than a character with his own thoughts and desires.
• Quentin’s best friends receive too much attention in the beginning chapters considering that they are absent throughout the rest of the novel.

Rating: 16/20 buttons

Ideal Setting: Read this when you are looking nostalgically at Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia.  There is still magic to be found!

Book Review (Rucksack): The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Written by Oscar Wilde in 1890

The Raccoon: Oscar Wilde’s philosophical novel follows the corruption of a young aristocrat after his wish to preserve his beauty eternally is granted.

UNMASKED:  The Picture of Dorian Gray has been adapted into film at least seventeen times, as well as converted into a handful of songs.  After reading the book, I am not surprised by its fame and legacy.  Wilde’s novel, although published at the end of the 19th century, is a cinematic masterpiece.

The main reason that the novel is as alluring as a movie is its characters.  Dorian Gray possesses a shockingly different mindset from other characters in parallel situations; Dorian is naive and carefree, and, rather than purposely sell his soul, he is influenced by another character, Lord Henry.  I could never hate Dorian because he was a victim to Henry’s predatory nature; his inability to age also robs him of the chance to outgrow Henry’s whimsical and hedonistic world view.

Henry’s hold over Dorian’s mind is one segment of the peculiar love triangle between Dorian, Henry, and Basil, the painter of the all-important portrait.  Wilde had to edit out much of the “homoeroticism” that contemporary critics detested, leaving an abstract, unspoken love between the three characters. However, this actually enhances the novel.  Basil worships Dorian as a muse, Henry feels a need to dominate and shape Dorian, and Dorian feels that Basil is the only one who understands him, while simultaneously craving Henry’s voice more than any music.  All of these occur without an underlying physical attraction, displaying a raw, Wuthering Heights-esque type of love that most authors shy away from.

Of course, the primary focus of the Picture of Dorian Gray is to grapple with the idea of the soul and what it means to live well.  Wilde doesn’t deny that Dorian’s lavish, pleasure-seeking lifestyle brings him unparalleled happiness and makes him the envy of society, but Dorian ruins the lives of everyone he spends time with, and his likeness in the painting slowly rots with his wickedness, for no pleasure is meant to last eternally.  The changes in the painting also function as a brilliant literary device, creating the feeling of a clock counting down to the moment where Dorian’s sins would finally turn around and crush him.

The Picture of Dorian Gray holds romance, action, suspense, humor, and horror, and manages to deliver this through scenes comprised mostly of conversation.  Wilde portrays immortality as not just a curse, but a sickness, which left me constantly on the edge of my seat, my eyes disturbingly transfixed to the crime scene.

Strengths:

• The story is founded on the idea of a person being able to view his own soul and have it rest outside of his body, and this alone is hauntingly beautiful.
• 99% of Henry’s dialogue are proverbs that the character appears to improvise on the spot.  Henry is the Barney Stinson of Victorian England, and his self-contradicting and controversial theories carry the book’s humor.

Weaknesses:

• Wilde writes with a magnifying glass, focusing on specific parts of the narrative and paying very little attention to others.  I often grew bored of tangents, and I wish the author had understood that only one or two examples are needed to explain a point, not twenty.
• This magnification also led to entire sections of Dorian’s life being glossed over.
• There is unresolved sexual tension between the three main characters.

Rating: 18/20 love triangles

Ideal Setting: Read this before your birthday to ensure that your next wish doesn’t slowly destroy your soul as you pursue a lifestyle based on sensual pleasure.