Besides maybe two sentences describing something in nature and a couple of descriptions of physical beauty without judgmental commentary, the only thing I liked about The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was my own idea for me to enter the book as a character, meet the woman there, and say to her, “I am leaving here. Do you want to come too?” And then we go away from that awful place, go out for the night, and the next day, I ask if she wants me to watch her daughter while she has the day to herself. If it wasn’t for this pleasant alternate story of my own, and that I was reading it from an old book with soft paper, nice print, and pages that open easily, I don’t think I would’ve been able to make it through to the end. A college professor had said, “It’s okay to read a book that you don’t like sometimes; it shows you what you don’t want to do in your own writing.” I agree.
The messages and perspective in this book I personally found to be destructive to others and oneself and was tired of hearing about the scarlet letter over and over; I get it, the author probably thought this was a clever, important detail and was also impressed with himself, but I prefer something more subtle, and that I could meet this character in that place, and that she might use the scarlet letter as a coaster instead.
🎶
Blush of Dawn 