Marble Faun: Or the Romance of Monte Beni, Vol. 4 Book

I've just, finally, finished reading "The Marble Faun" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and I now have some conception of what it feels like to have run a marathon dressed in full deep-sea diving gear. Zeus, what a tedious, turgid, overblown book. I chose it because it was listed in a book called "1001 books to read before you die" - but perhaps I misread the title and it was actually "1001 books that are only marginally better than actually being dead".

The style is thick and clotted, the plot lacking in momentum, and the characters unreal and uncongenial. The most bizarre thing about the book, however, was the series of parallels with Donna Tartt's "The Secret History". In the first half of "The Secret History" a group of reclusive students studying Greek in New England, including one who is at the edge of the group and not quite accepted by them, commit a murder in a fit of Bacchanalian madness by throwing a man off a cliff; and in the second half the aftermath affects their relationships and their mental health. In the first half of "The Marble Faun", a group of New England artists practising their studies in Rome, along with a rural Italian count who appears half man and half faun, commit a murder of someone who has been following one of their number by throwing him off the Tarpeian Rock; and in the second half the aftermath affects their relationships and their mental health.

The book doesn't have a clear conclusion - so much so, in fact, that the author was compelled to add a four page postscript explaining some of the elements of the book that were left uncertain. It's all totally unsatisfying: and if it weren't for my dogged, never-say-die approach to reading books I'd never have completed it.

Still, as the Calvinist said after he'd fallen down the stairs, at least that's over.