Hester: A Novel About the Early Hester Prynne - Hardcover

Bigsby, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067085588X ISBN 13: 9780670855889

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1994

Synopsis

A narrative extension of the lives of the characters from the classic The Scarlet Letter reintroduces us to Hester, Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, viewing them from a modern sensibility. A first novel. 20,000 first printing. $20,000 ad/promo.

About this title

About the Author

Christopher Bigsby is Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia in England.

Reviews

Bigsby is forthright about why he chose for his first novel to write a prequel to The Scarlet Letter; years ago, he explains in an afterword, he fell in love with Hester Prynne. Set largely during the two years preceding the opening of the Hawthorne novel, Bigsby's tale reveals details of Hester's unconsummated marriage to Roger Chillingworth and follows her as she flees him across the Atlantic. During the voyage, Hester meets the young minister Arthur Dimmesdale, and their liaison is portrayed as a victory of passion over convention, something that stands apart from the normal course of existence. Bigsby (David Mamet), a British professor of American Studies, tries to recreate Hawthorne's prose, but he's not entirely convincing. The narrative voice seems not quite of Hawthorne's time, nor of Hester's earlier century, nor of our own, leaving it curiously unanchored. Though somewhat successful in illuminating Dimmesdale's inner life, Bigsby seems almost timid about exploring Hester's motivations. Regrettably , none of his reconstituted characters have the force to impel events toward a climax that seems inevitable; the ending is especially weak. Nonetheless, if not up to its inspiration, Bigsby's labor of love offers a valiant and sometimes pleasurable attempt to complement an enduring classic.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This ``prequel'' to The Scarlet Letter imagines the early life of Hester Prynne and serves as a creative addendum to that classic, but it could not stand on its own. The most impressive facet of this debut novel is the skill with which Bigsby (American Studies/Univ. of East Anglia) imitates Hawthorne's authorial voice, but at the same time one can't help asking whether such mimicry is necessary. There is some fine writing wrapped in old-style layers of verbiage, but naturally there is little suspense with regard to plot as Hester enters into a marriage with Roger Chillingsworth, which at first seems agreeable to both parties but quickly turns loveless and oppressive. Hester nervously escapes across the Atlantic on a boat called the Hope, on which she meets Arthur Dimmesdale. After much digression on the part of the narrator (``Is the coming together of a man and a woman not a route to the spirit?''), the two sleep together. Once ashore, a repentant Dimmesdale insists that he has an obligation to the church and cannot involve himself with her, and pregnant Hester--apparently a pro-lifer, she rejects the idea of forcing a miscarriage and muses, ``Shall the soil refuse the seed?''--is ostracized. There is some imaginative rethinking of the original's behavioral codes as well. ``Proud, independent'' Hester's behavior is only occasionally anachronistic, but Bigsby practically apologizes for Dimmesdale: ``The `A' which he traced with his finger in the air meant not adulteress but first and only, the alpha of his being.'' Some of the freshest material here is the brief final section that deals with Hester's daughter, Pearl, who cannily tries to uncover her father's identity and wonders about her odd mother. An informative ``note'' about Hawthorne points up the book's problem: It tries to be both historical reconstruction and novel and doesn't fulfill either mission completely. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this prequel to The Scarlet Letter, literary historian Bigsby imagines the young Hester's courtship and failed marriage to Roger Chillingsworth, describes her flight to the New World on a perilous voyage where she and Dimmesdale meet and fall in love, and envisions the meeting that results in the consummation of their love. Bigsby unsuccessfully attempts to reproduce Hawthorne's language and literary style. In a section near the narrative's end, he allows Hawthorne to speak for himself, and the elegance of the original stands in shocking contrast to Bigsby's clunky prose. One of the author's avowed goals is to expose the wrongs done to women in the 17th century; he repeatedly bemoans the inability of the populace to deal with powerful or capable women. Yet as he rights one wrong he creates another by gratuitously making his villain Chillingsworth a secret Jew. In sum, Hester is an intellectual exercise that may appeal to some academics, but most libraries can pass.
Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hester Prynne is the woman condemned to wear the scarlet letter in the Hawthorne novel. This book, written very much in the Hawthorne tradition, explores her life prior to that dark event. Bigsby has captured the mood of The Scarlet Letter precisely. Like Hawthorne, Bigsby uses symbolism, foreshadowing, and several fierce inner battles to set the gothic tone of this story. The tale is told in the narrative style of Hawthorne, dwelling one moment in our time, the next in Hester's. We meet her as a young woman who marries the local eccentric. Because her husband's behavior becomes more secretive and macabre, Hester flees on a ship bound for the new world. The tale of that tumultuous ocean crossing is a magnificent passage in the book and strongly evocative of Melville. It is on this voyage that the first episode in the infamous tragic chain of events takes place. Hester is a mesmerizing book, leaving one with a taste for more. Many readers will want to read (or reread) The Scarlet Letter upon finishing this amazing work. Kathleen Hughes

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067085588X
• ISBN 13: 9780670855889
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208