The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

I desired some light reading this afternoon, so I pulled The Scarlet Letter from my shelf. I picked it up over Christmas in a bookshop south of the border. Unfortunately, I'm more impressed with the binding of the book than with its contents. I've heard a lot of good things about Nathaniel Hawthorne's book and I'm well aware of its status as a thought-provoking classic, but after reading it, I don't see the value in it.

Of course I sympathized with Hester Prynne, a young mother forced to wear a scarlet "A" on the bosom of her dress because she had sex with a man who wasn't her husband and refused to divulge the name of the man, but I find it hard to believe that Hester's husband would appear in the town and cozy up to Hester's ex-secret lover just to seek revenge. Hester's daughter, Pearl, seemed to lack the facets of a normal little girl, although I suppose that was the point. It's not that I disliked the characters or couldn't stomach them. I found myself indifferent to the characters. 

Additionally, the intro to the book was long-winded and boring. I found myself skimming through parts of "Custom House" in order to get to "Chapter One" and the main story. Perhaps this flaw was not so much the author's fault, but the fault of literary styles in the time the book was written.

Ordinarily, I love so-called-classics, but I didn't see the draw in this one. I'll file it with other classics I've disliked. The Great Gatsby, for instance. Although, The Scarlet Letter was slightly better than that book.