The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1860 ★★

Mixing Life and Art in the Eternal City

The final novel by the first great American novelist has so much going for it in isolated moments that its undeniable dreadfulness as a whole winds up a thing of wonder.

Imagine a book so filled with magnificent vistas that one feels flush from the radiance of summer mornings that came and went 150 years ago. Imagine lengthy dialogues between a religious believer and a skeptic which genuinely respects the substance of both viewpoints. Imagine social and artistic discursions touching upon centuries of Western civilization.

Then imagine all this being secondary to a plot about whether a man has furry, pointy ears; how a glance can constitute complicity in a murder; and why two bland couples can somehow never find happiness together.

The Dangerous Summer – Ernest Hemingway, 1960 [1985] ★★

A Farewell to Death

Ernest Hemingway died in 1961 but that didn’t stop him pumping out product for the next 50 years. Only Jimi Hendrix’s estate was busier. In 1985-1986, Hemingway fans had three new books to choose from, a novel, a collection of early articles, and a late-in-life memoir.

Imagine how thrilling it must have been to learn the memoir detailed Hemingway’s rediscovery of bullfighting and the land which spawned it, Spain? Together, these are key ingredients in two of Papa’s most beloved works, The Sun Also Rises and Death In The Afternoon. What could possibly be wrong?

Nothing, so long as the reader doesn’t expect the same kind of transportive experience. The Dangerous Summer mostly delivers the goods, a summer highlighted by a pair of brilliant matadors. It manages to be straightforward, amusing, piquant, and somewhat dull.