Finishing Blithedale and Beginning Joaquin Murieta

To start this post, I want to look one more time at the Blithedale Romance. To me, I saw the story as one of the self-destructive nature of secrets and holding back. What I mean by this is that it seems all harm to the characters could always be traced back to something they had hidden or refused to say. The more the characters hold back, the worse they end up. Again, this can be traced back to the veil imagery, I suppose. After all, the veil also represents what is hidden. We also see the move away from the natural world as destructive in Zenobia, as bested represented by her change in flower.

If we view truth as back of Hawthorne's idea of the natural world (something I believe a fair assumption), than it all ties back into how Blithedale was doomed to fail from the start, because the people involved refused to truly accept the natural world. It seems the majority of the time people are talking, it is talking about things outside nature. In this case, then, it makes me wonder if Silas Foster could be considered an ideal. He is more accepting of his surrounding, and seems unphased by the superficial idea of rank. It is hard to say for sure, I suppose, exactly what Hawthorne intended exactly.


Now, onto our new reading, Joaquin Muirieta by John Rollin Ridge. I must confess, I am having great difficulty reading this one. They don't write 'em like this anymore, and for good reason in my opinion. It is not uncommon to see a three to four page paragraph. It's like asking someone to tell you a story and you see them taking that deep breath that says it's going to be a really long one and they don't intend to even pause. The details all blur, no pauses in between to give them contrast. I have read the first 30 or so pages twice, and all I really understand is that there is a bandit named Joaquin, he has a gang, and he has a grudge against Americans. I have a vague idea why, but beyond that I'm lost. I have a feeling that if such a book was submitted to an editor today, it would have to be thoroughly reworked before it would be even considered.

Maybe attention spans have changed. Maybe this style was acceptable back in its time. I don't know for sure. I just know it gives me a bit of a headache trying to read it, and I just end up all confused. Maybe its the style of writing. There is minimal dialogue, minimal specific detail. It feels a bit like a really energetic person showing me their vacation slides. I'm just getting snapshots, maybe just a detail or two, and just before I can settle we're onto the next slide without a breath to waste. Anyone else have this much trouble reading this thing?