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The Marble Faun (Dover Thrift Editions) Paperback – June 4, 2004

by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Author)

3.5 25 ratings

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Murder and romance, innocence and experience dominate this masterfully constructed novel set in Rome during the mid-19th century.
Three young American artists and their friend, an Italian count, find their lives irrevocably linked when one of them commits a murder. Nathaniel Hawthorne's final novel symbolizing the Fall of Man is a captivating tale concerned as much with the power and beauty of art as with the striking, intimate details of the historic sites visited by the travelers.
A provocative view at Americans abroad, this long-overlooked novel is "must reading" for anyone who relishes crimes of passion set against the picturesque details of Old World landmarks.

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About the Author

Born on the fourth of July in 1804, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the stories that lie at the heart of the American Romantic movement. His portraits of colonial life reflect his Puritan heritage and offer fascinating profiles of individuals who strive for freedom from social conventions.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dover Publications (June 4, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0486434117
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0486434117
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 14 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.3 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.75 x 8 inches

Customer Reviews:
3.5 25 ratings

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Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Born on the fourth of July in 1804, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the stories that lie at the heart of the American Romantic movement. His portraits of colonial life reflect his Puritan heritage and offer fascinating profiles of individuals who strive for freedom from social conventions.

Photo by Mathew Brady [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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3.5 out of 5

25 global ratings

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richard rifkind

Marnble gaun

Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2015

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Super book lentil bit strange. Hello to both of our time still Victoria know it's greatly to be enjoying through

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Barbara Frederick

Many say it is Hawthorne's best. I say second best.

Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2009

It seems a little padded with descriptions of Roman architecture and festivals and the like, but the story is a good one, and the mysteries involved kept me reading through the slower parts to the end. All in all, it is very much worth reading.

Miriam, a creative painter, Hilda, a talented copyist, and Kenyon, a gifted sculptor, are all Americans. Donatello is a young Italian count who has befriended them all, but is besotted with Miriam. The faun of the title is a sculpture known as the Faun of Praxiteles. Donatello so closely resembles the statue that the friends kiddingly decide they must see Donatello's ears (normally covered by his hair) to see if they are pointed like the faun's.

Most of the other mysteries in the story are resolved at the end of the book, but we never do get to see Donatello's ears.

5 people found this helpful

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John Martin

A disappointing and uninteresting book

Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2008

Since mine is the first review of this edition of The Marble Faun I would advise the reader to read reviews of other editions as well. I found the book to be uninteresting and difficult to read fully and tended to scan much of it. Hawthorne is one of the greatest American novelists and his place in fiction is well established with The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, but this work falls far short, in my view, of these works.

One problem is that much of the book is talky and descriptive rather than focusing on the story itself. The chapter titles give an indication of this circumstance: "Miriam's Studio," The Suburban Villa," "A Stroll on the Pincian, "A Scene on the Corso." The descriptions of ancient Rome and the events and culture of the city ("Market Day in Perugia" and the description of the Carnival) may be interesting to some readers. Furthermore the style of speaking is stilted, the characters talking as if they were part of a Shakespearean drama rather than Americans in the mid-nineteenth century. It is also unrealistic that the four characters keep running into each other by chance in a city as large as Rome.

The plot is very simple. Four young people are in Rome. Three are American artists; Miriam and Hilda are painters and Kenyon is a sculptor. The fourth person is a young Italian Count, Donatello. Donatello is a happy-go-lucky handsome fellow who the other three compare to a statue of a marble faun at the beginning of the book. The couples pair off with Miriam and Donatello forming one pair and Kenyon and Hilda the other. But then a terrible thing happens. The four friends go for a stroll and climb a lane leading to a palace with a parapet on the edge of a steep precipice. After a while Kenyon and Hilda leave, but Hilda turns back to wait for Miriam. Miriam and Donatello are standing by the parapet talking. Miriam talks about "Men whose lives were the bane of their fellow creatures. Men who poisoned the air...for their own selfish purposes. There was short work with such men on old Roman times." At this point a man came toward Miriam who became filled with despair and apparently falls to her knees. Donatello reacts quickly and hurls the figure over the parapet to his death below. The horror-stricken Miriam asks, "What have you done?" to which the now raging Donatello replies, " I did what ought to be done to a traitor. I did what your eyes bade me to do when I asked them with mine as I held the wretch over the precipice!" Hilda, who had just come back, witnesses the fatal act.

Why does Donatello commit this crime? Since he is strong enough to pick up the man and throw him over a wall, he surely could have taken him by the scruff of the neck and led him away from Miriam. The reason seems to be that Hawthorne is concerned with the idea of The Fall of Man. Miriam plays the part of the temptress, Eve with Donatello assaying the role of Adam. The book is infused with religion, particularly Hawthorne's take on Christianity so amply displayed in The Scarlet Letter. In fact, Hilda is described as a Puritan from New England. Miriam's fear of the man is not explained at the time, but is revealed later in the book that he is someone who loves her obsessively and whom she has rejected.

The murder changes the behavior of all four characters, especially Miriam, Donatello and Hilda. Miriam and Donatello go about in various disguises and with a general mood of sadness and depression. Hilda seeks consolation in a Catholic church where a priest refuses to hear her confession since she is not of that faith. Hawthorne's own take on religion may be found in the attitude of Kenyon. On page 286 he and Hilda are talking. Hilda asks if Donatello was really a faun--an innocent, carefree young man. Kenyon replies, "He perpetrated a great crime; and his remorse, gnawing into his soul has awakened it; developing a thousand high capabilities, moral and intellectual, which we never should have dreamed of asking for, within the scanty compass of the Donatello whom we knew. Sin has educated Donatello, and elevated him...Did Adam fall, that we might ultimately rise to a far loftier paradise than his?" Hilda is shocked by this rely: "Do not you perceive what a mockery your creed makes, not only of all religious sentiments, but of moral law--and how it annuls and obliterates whatever precepts of Heaven are written deepest within us? You have shocked me beyond words!"

The novel ends with an unusual postscript with the author entering the story and talking with Hilda and Kenyon, claiming that he does so only after many readers demanded further explanations of the mysteries of the story. Hawthorne supplies this explanation and a conclusion that is as unrealistic as much of the novel.

14 people found this helpful

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Sean

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2016

small but good

Why did Hawthorne waste so much ink and paper?

Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2021

Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” and “House of Seven Gables” are 19th century US treasures. The “Marble Faun” is perhaps the worst novel I ever read. I considered abandoning the effort after 20 chapters but decided to complete the effort to get a totally objective sense of the work. After all, we can’t leave our homes without masks due to the second year of the flu so there was little else to do.

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CAMay

Only fist 23 chapters

Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2020

Only the first 23 chapters of the book are included in the audiobook (about half), yet it is labeled as unabridged.

Also, the narrator's Italian and English accents are terrible.

One person found this helpful

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Euridice

Carattere troppo piccolo

Reviewed in Italy on December 26, 2020

Verified Purchase

Non lo comprate. Purtroppo il carattere stampato è piccolissimo, e si legge con una difficoltà disarmante. L'ho restituito, mi era impossibile studiarci sopra.

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Erich

Illeggibile

Reviewed in Italy on March 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

Caratteri minuscoli. Restituito

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