Reading Group #6 ('The Minister's Black Veil')

Hawthorne time.

ETA - SPOILER ALERT! - DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T YET READ THE STORY!

Oh dear! I'm afraid I'm rather unimpressed with this one.

It's not a difficult thing to trigger my suspension of disbelief - I think I'm generally a pretty 'author-friendly' reader - but this story failed to do it. I don't know if I really bought the idea of the minister taking to his veil or not, but things definitely started to unravel for me with his parishioners' reactions to it - I just didn't find them psychologically convincing.

Then, when the end came, I really didn't appreciate being sucker-punched with that moral homily. I actually felt a bit cheated: it's a bit disconcerting to suddenly find myself reading a different kind of tale to what I'd thought. Also, I don't like moral homilies at the best of times so that probably coloured my reaction (if Hawthorne was prone to that kind of thing - and the Wikipedia entry seems to suggest that he was - I don't think he's going to be a favourite of mine). Having said that, I could probably have tolerated the ending if I'd found the main story really convincing.

Having written all that, I'm quite intrigued as to what opposing viewpoints may be posted. I have a suspicion (I'm talking about the attitudes to the veil and whether they are psychologically convincing or not) that there might be something relevant here about subtly-differing attitudes towards religion in the US and the UK, or about the differing histories of religion in the two countries (this is only a vague, felt-rather-than-reasoned thing - I'm really not knowledgeable about this stuff).

I've really got to learn to be more sensitive to possible spoilers in my posts. I was at the bottom of the garden when it occurred to me that I'd put one in the last one.

I read it again. I have a new idea. I'm not sure that I really believe it, but I offer it for what it's worth.

Is it possibly a satire? Could he have been satirising the gullibility of the congregations he knew? In this scenario, the minister has simply gone loopy but his parishioners have failed to notice - and all his success and long career are down to the fevered imaginings of his congregation and quite divorced from the man himself - he simply a blank screen onto which they project stuff.

I'm going to give this a read this afternoon post-final (ach!), and I'll chime in with some thoughts.

#5 Oo-er! Fingers crossed for you.

Alright, finally read this!

I, too, was underwhelmed. The story is quite didactic, and although most of Hawthorne's darkest fictions have an underlying (generally, religious) moral to them, they are seldom as boring, unconvincing, and preachy as this one. Take 'Young Goodman Brown,' which we'll read soon, and compare it to this one and any similarities are vastly overshadowed by 'Minister's' failings, not only as a narrative, but as a moral argument.

Let's move on. I can't even think of much else to say about this one. The allegory explored here is reaching and any nuance that could be mined from what is, at first blush, a rather genius set-up for a more conventionally 'creepy' story, is watered down and neatly overscored by the kind of high-falutin', Puritanical crap that Hawthorne is usually such a scathing critic of.

Don't let this one put you off Hawthorne, rank. While he DOES explore moralistic themes in almost everything he writes, he usually does so with more drama, and, to be quite fair, more grace.

I'd give it, perhaps, two-and-a-half out of five stars. Despite its failings, it does deal out some good suspense; but its failure to climax this suspense with a real...well, climax...leaves it considerably light, in my oh-so humble opinion.

(The Gothic elements here, for anyone who wonders just why we picked such a lukewarm story, are the explorations of religion as a method of (self-)persecution, secret sins, and related motifs.)

I think you and I are the only ones apt to read this one, rank; I don't fancy after reading out reviews many people are going to want to pick it up! But rush to prove me wrong, folks! :D

In other words: 'Green Tea,' anyone?? I'll start a new thread...

I'm ready: I've got half a packet of Whittard of Chelsea's Chung Mee and half a packet of Postcard Teas' Mount Fuji Sencha. Oops ... wrong group ...

ETA - That was very silly - sorry!

HA. Yes, verrrry silly.

I've got some Trader Joe's generic green tea and some gunpowder from Chinatown.

New thread is up.

(Again: anyone who still wants to comment on this, pleasssse do. I feel I picked a bit of a clunker, but who knows, you might absolutely love 'The Minister's Black Veil'...)

Actually, I was hoping to hear some dissenting opinions. Especially on the main part, before that ending. I was wondering if it really didn't work or does it just not click with my particular cast of mind.

One thing I forgot to mention: when I first read it, on reading the first four or five paragraphs I thought it was going to be humorous; but I've lost that since. I've just read it through again and I now can't really see it. But it's what I had in mind when I made the suggestion in #4 about it possibly being a satire.

Haven't read it yet, but I'll take on the challenge of a dissenting opinion.

But from the comments I've read so far, is the narrative voice from the same setting as the story? If so, wouldn't it seem likely that the narrator's earnestness is ironic?

I do know this story was based on an actual event/person. The real story is a minister killed a friend by accident and wore a black veil for the rest of his life. I'd have to look up it up for more details. But, I would be severlely disciplined by my English professors for daring to talk about outside events as pertinent to any story!

Interesting piece, certainly dissenting, if a few years old.
http://www.fenwickfriars.com/174510716162846333/lib/174510716162846333/_files/3V...

Hey, Fra Salvatore! I'd been waiting for you to turn up! :)

(Here be spoilers, so read accordingly...)

I read the same thing about the actual event/person in my Library of America Hawthorne (I think we share that, incidentally).

I think your comment about the narrator's voice being ironic is half true, half not true: the narrator is narrating what Hawthorne deems a 'Parable,' so there is that didactic tone I referenced earlier, but he is also, possibly, unreliable, in that he never quite states just how much he agrees (and if he does, it's only nominally) with the ideas presented in his narrative. Also, the 'moral' facets of the story mostly occur in the dialogue of the characters themselves, and less so in the narrator's narration. For example, the 'crux' of the story's moral is in the second to last paragraph, in the minister's little speech about us all wearing our own 'black veils.'

I think it's an interesting idea (the subject of the story), but the techniques used here (suspense, suggestions of a more...'fantastic' reason for the wearing of the veil) just seem inappropriate for the telling of what is, in essence, a sort of moral fable; they never quite do justice to what is, at its simplest level, some fantastic writing. Hawthorne is a mixed-bag for me, as I usually either LOVE or greatly dislike his writing, depending---and this story, unfortunately, is the latter. Time may ease my distaste, but I don't think so: I love a great allegory, not just a 'good' one, and this one isn't even that...(at least for me)

But, like rankamateur, I encourage dissention! :)

Oh, and as for narrative voice, I'd say it IS from the same setting.

Just saw your link...I've bookmarked it for later. It looks promising!

By the by, it's kind of nice to have a story people may disagree on. That's always a more interesting discussion...at least, generally speaking.

#12 - I find this persuasive, but now I'm going to have to read the story yet again to think about it properly.

If I accept Stibitz' argument, it will leave me feeling a little foolish as his 'second level' broadly concurs with what I'd been thinking about the minister's actions - but it hadn't dawned on me that Hawthorne might have intended me to think that!

I've read the story and Stibitz again and I think I'm going to have to stick at 'I find this persuasive'. I'm not going any stronger than that.

Stibitz' interpretation does make a more satisfying sense of the story. At the same time, his 'second level' just seems a little too obscure - in my defence, here, he gives a long list of critics - including Poe - who didn't see it. Then again, given his time and location, Hawthorne was certainly writing for an audience more used to pondering on 'sin' in its various aspects than an irreligious type like me and so, presumably, more likely to pick up on the 'second level'. Stibitz also insists, right at the start, on the need to see this story in the context of Hawthorne's other work; so I'm possibly suffering for not having read more of his stuff.

Incidentally, repeated readings have done nothing to lessen my inability to believe in the various reactions to his veil (can you lessen an inability?) That's the elephant in the room for me.

I'm a fairly religious person, though Jewish and not a Puritan (and certainly more mystic than law-fearing), and I think this rumination on 'sin' is a little off-kilter. It just doesn't work for me. Far more compelling are Hawthorne's meditations on what sin is, how sin and societal judgement coexist, and what a private sin is versus a public one (and how just how 'private' a private sin's repentance should be). This story seems to be more concerned with...I don't know, but it's just not the same note for me....

A quick reread leaves me still little impressed, though I can't say I HATE the story. It's just not my thing, I suppose...

If you're going to give me religion, give me personal experience, not Sunday school stories. Give me blood. Give me drama. SHOW ME WHY a moral is necessary in a story---and Hawthorne can certainly do that. This form, perhaps, is more 'not my thing' than the subject matter; 'parable' is its own veil, and I'm not an ardent admirer.

#18 - It's just not my thing, I suppose...

That's pretty much my feeling, though I do feel I've been a little remiss in not mentioning that I found it very well-written - I found it no hardship to do multiple readings of it (though I'm still trying to work out 'Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms').

>27 frahealee: - Unsure what is meant by that final statement about being disciplined by English profs for using outside influences ...

It was quite true in some periods and universities. I'm currently, very slowly, working my way through Peter Barry's Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, which is a survey of the various fashions in literary theory over the years, and I can promise you that the ideas some of the top academics get into their heads should make any rational person want to kick them. Literary theory quite often doesn't seem to have much truck with intellectual rigour or plain common sense.