New American Library (Penguin Group), 2015
Five Stars
Often, prologues (and in this case, “interludes”) can interfere with my enjoyment of the storyline because they drop hints and give too much away. This is not as problematic in historical fiction, where there are few surprises. Regardless, Robuck manages to write a fresh and new perspective on the nineteenth century literary figure, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her prologue is intriguing, but vague enough to keep me guessing, and it sets the tone for the rest of the novel.
Robuck has written several novels that revolve around historical literary figures, yet she takes their story so much farther than a simple biographical retelling as fiction. While Hawthorne is the entry point into this novel, it is his wife Sophia that expands it into a story worth reading. In this case, Sophy did in fact publish their common journals and write about their life together after Nathaniel’s death. Nathaniel repeatedly asserts that words are unreliable and he doesn’t trust them, so Sophy becomes the obvious choice as narrator to his story.
Sophia is a painter and sculptor, and Robuck has a great talent for describing the world through the eyes of an artist. Before her marriage, she journeys to Cuba, and her interpretation of the world is so beautiful and evocative that her journal is published shortly after. Despite her travels, Sophy is extremely sheltered by her family, and naïve about the world – she is almost too sweet and innocent, yet still somehow likeable. Her recognition of her own flaws is her most redeeming quality. Every time Sophy was about to become a cliché, Robuck pulls her out of it by having her act out of character and thus becoming stronger. Sophy’s voice fits in with the Transcendentalists and other novels of this time period, yet she is distinct from the narrators of Robuck’s other novels. I love that even amongst well known historical figures, Robuck treats each of her characters as individuals with their own voice.
Several themes recurred throughout The House of Hawthorne, and one of them was the balance between solitude and community. Nathaniel shuns company, with the excuse that it negatively affects his writing, while Sophy attempts to find a balance between the two. Nathaniel also laments the increase of individuality in writing, as expressed by his female contemporaries, Margaret Fuller and Sophy’s sister Elizabeth Peabody. He felt that the expression of opinions lead to war and conflict (p. 264), which is the opposite of most modern philosophies of writing. In contrast, Sophy sees writers and artists as the “bearers of truth” (p. 394) which isolates them from the rest of the world, and specifically from their domestic partners.
Sophia begins the novel as one of these “bearers of truth” in her painting, yet she is eclipsed by her famous husband. Historical fact aside, I was extremely disappointed that she never returned to painting, even after Nathaniel’s death. She entered her marriage with the hope to create a perfect union of artist and author, yet she was condemned to tend to domestic life. As much as she asserts that her children were her works of art, she is ultimately unsatisfied with her creative process. Even in the artistic capital of Rome, Sophy faces the frustrations of trying to express herself: she holds a broken pencil, heavy with symbolism, and admits that she “must suffer with the blank page” (p. 351).
Finally, Sophia invokes “the final word” (p. 395) by publishing her life with Nathaniel; however, her final work of art was to chronicle her husband’s life, and not her own. Robuck once again does a beautiful job of showing her readers the women who propped up the famous literary men in their lives, and giving women such as Sophia Hawthorne just a little of the recognition they have always deserved.
I received this book for free through Penguin Books and Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review.
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