Hawthorne, Victor Hugo

Recently read Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables.  Not impressed.  Pedantic, some themes grossly over-worked, others completely neglected and confusing.  Who is this daguerrotypist, anyway?  Hawthorne failed to synthesize this anomalous character into the plot.  And the analysis of the released convict was horrifying – in that it was largely irrelevant and ponderously overdeveloped.  I remember appreciating The Scarlet Letter, as  period piece, if nothing else.  Seven Gables was a chore.

I also just read Lowell Bair’s translation of Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The book was wonderful.  The translation was awful.  I haven’t read anything else of Hugo’s, but I simply cannot believe that a storyteller of his caliber could possibly be such a clumsy writer.  No rhythm, no flow, insufficient punctuation.  In addition, I didn’t discover until I was finished with the book that the edition was abridged.  Thanks, Bantam Classics, for completely mangling my reading experience once again.

Anais Nin Interview

A friend sent me this the other day.  It’s an hour long interview with Anais Nin, recorded in 1966.  I credit her with my obsessive journaling habit, and also my interest in psychoanalysis.  The interview is fascinating.  I especially enjoyed the delicate tightrope she walked, as at the time of the recording,  all portions of the published diary excluded any accounts of her numerous love affairs.  She is forced to discuss these lovers from a platonic standpoint, but somehow she manages not to lose the core meaning – even though her sexual relationships with these men formed an integral part of her relationship to and understanding of them.

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