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The House of the Seven Gables
David Copperfield

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The book being about the morality of acquisition of wealth by means which can be safely termed unscrupulous, unless there's a law that has defined scruples differently in the context to which one would apply these words, it is a study of the vice of man and judgement thereafter as administered upon generations of the family by virtue of an ancestor committing a moral crime. Rights can be legal and they can be otherwise; legally it is the Pyncheons who are duly entitled to the legendary house of the seven gables. But by all means the 'wizard' who has been unjustly wronged deserves, in terms of poetic justice, his due and Hawthorne makes sure his descendant 'the artist' receives it. He also receives a lot more; the question of introducing fresh blood into the line is brought up again and again.

Hawthorne is very moralistic and readers who prefer a style as in, say, The Catcher in the Rye will find it hard to keep reading it. The author takes his time to present his views on the incidents in the novel and thereby on the constants in human life. It must be borne in mind the being a 19th century novel this is not unexpected. If I take, say, a Dickens' novel or even any other Victorian English novel, I would expect, by virtue of the way novels were published during the time, them to have this redundancy, which is due to the simple material fact that novels were serialised and as a form of entertainment the novel was a leisurely pastime aimed at a select audience and with very specific principles as to their purpose.

However, it is best to avoid a comparison of the novel with the present-day 'soaps', or the happening 'binge-watch' on services provided on the internet. This is because, for one thing, the numbers do not work out the way the did with novels in the 19th century. The readership then and 'watchers' now are very different in the very first parameter: number. Then, of course, as statistical approaches would have it, there are other parameters to be included along which the popularity of a product would be measured.

It is true that companies use all the data they can and policy is affected by these factors; but so is the fact that an individual will peruse what it is in their ability to peruse. Of course even in the time past the novel was for the people as are the television or web series today. But then, this does gross injustice to the very idea of literariness of a 'product'.

In summary, if you think a framed convict's sedentary life and attempts to revive the life in this individual in an ages-old building with a murky past is worth your time, read The House of the Seven Gables. You could just...