HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES

"In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point"--The House of the Seven Gables

On Friday I went to Barbara Frum Library and borrowed Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, which I'm reading for the second time for the Classic Book Club.  It's a mid-19th century novel about the then-contemporary descendants of a 17th century Massachusetts patriarch who accused a man of witchcraft to acquire his land and was seen to leave a curse on the family. (I've also read the Classics Illustrated comic book version, though this book isn't really suited to that treatment--too much talk.)

I liked the book the first time, and I'm liking it even more now.  It deals with profound themes of moral responsibility and class and family identity. The story is set in the context of changing times in a way that reminds me of our earlier novel Silas Marner, which was published around the same time.  I want to read some more of Hawthorne's short stories!

Saturday I went to the Ontario Science Centre to see the Imax movie about pandas with Bev. The bus got into a huge traffic snarl just before getting there, and the last mile took twenty minutes!  It turned out that the movie was sold out, but I did get to see the place for the first time since that big Titanic exhibit donkey's years ago. (It was a really cool place when I was twelve or thirteen.) I looked all over for Bev and finally found her at the Tim Horton's near the entrance.  

Bev is sensitive to noise and crowds--so am I, to a lesser extent--so I found a quiet place where we could converse in the area with the lockers where the school groups come in.  It was the first time we've met in months--she was in hip surgery--and her new hairdo makes her younger.  After a while we took the special TTC minibus to Lime restaurant and had dinner there with a friend of hers called Sandy. (I had curried rice.)

My blogs have a new reader! Nikki left Facebook for Google Plus and actually commented on one of my diary posts from 15 years ago. Thanks for the attention, Nikki.