Word: mellow
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...occasions when Mellow attempts a more penetrating analysis, his conclusions are disappointingly banal. In his discussion of Hawthorne's early tales, he paraphrases "Rappaccini's Daughter" at some length, only to prove that the author "was fascinated by the ambiquity and deceptiveness of evil"--an insight which any student would reach after 15 minutes of reading...
...Scarlet Letter, Mellow maintains, there is "something awesome about the manner in which Hawthorne fuses art and human sinfulness." Mellow even suggests, in an absurd simplification of Hawthorne's complex understanding of sin, that the sense of evil which pervades The Scarlet Letter resulted from Hawthorne's bitterness after failing to retain his appointment in the Salem Custom House. Mellow's analysis of The Blithedale Romance is similarly superficial, and makes the mistake of crediting Hawthorne with remarks that are made by his narrator. At the end of his discussion of Hawthorne's novels, Mellow concludes, somewhat simplistically, that "there...
...title of the biography seems to indicate that the book will place Hawthorne in his proper historical context. Hawthorne numbered among his acquaintances some of the most well-known literary and political figures of the mid-nineteenth century, English as well as American. But Mellow's treatment of the author's contemporaries is also disappointing. Throughout the book, he indulges in long asides describing the literary currents and political conflicts in Hawthorne's day, yet he rarely makes any attempt to place Hawthorne in their midst. He offers no interpretation of Hawthorne's relationship to the Transcendentalists, only observing that...
...greatest disappointments of the book, Mellow manages to reveal little about the curious friendship between Hawthorne and Herman Melville. He discusses Melville's fondness for Hawthorne at some length, and provides a useful glimpse of Melville's slightly odd attachment to the older writer; but Hawthorne's feelings about Melville remain a mystery...
...Nathaniel Hawthorne remains an elusive figure, difficult to describe and even harder to understand. Intensely private and somewhat reclusive from his earliest years, Hawthorne concealed his own personality as successfully as many of the veiled characters in his stories. He is a difficult subject for any biographer, and Mellow deserves credit for his prodigious research; but after all that labor, the enigma of Hawthorne remains just as impenetrable...