Worth, a thoroughly modern spiritual seeker who has become enamored of a Hindu mystic called the Arhat. The novel, a majestic allegory of faith and reason, ends also as a black comedy of revenge, for this is Roger’s version-Roger Chillingworth’s side of the triangle described by Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter-made new for a disbelieving age.įrom Hester Prynne’s point of view: S. (1988) The theological-scientific debate that ensues, and the wicked strategies that Roger employs to disembarrass Dale of his faith, form the substance of this novel-these and the current of erotic attraction that pulls Esther, Roger’s much younger wife, away from him and into Dale’s bed. A testament for our times.įrom Roger Chillingworth’s point of view: Roger’s Version (1986)Īs Roger Lambert tells it, he, a middle-aged professor of divinity, is buttonholed in his office by Dale Kohler, an earnest young computer scientist who believes that quantifiable evidence of God’s existence is irresistibly accumulating. In his wonderfully overwrought style he lays bare his soul and his past-his marriage to the daughter of his ethics professor, his affair with his organist, his antipathetic conversations with his senile father and his bisexual curate, his golf scores, his poker hands, his Biblical exegeses, and his smoldering desire for the directress of the retreat, the impregnable Ms.
At a desert retreat dedicated to rest, recreation, and spiritual renewal, this fortyish serial fornicator is required to keep a journal whose thirty-one weekly entries constitute the book you now hold in your hand. In this antic riff on Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, the Reverend Tom Marshfield, a latter-day Arthur Dimmesdale, is sent west from his Midwestern parish in sexual disgrace. Below are publisher descriptions of Updike’s trilogy.įrom Arthur Dimmesdale’s point of view: A Month of Sundays (1975) I was fascinated to learn that Hawthorne inspired acclaimed American writer John Updike to rewrite The Scarlet Letter by examining life in mid-to-late 20th century America through the lead characters of Hawthorne’s novel. But after returning to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850), which I have not read since high school, I am now prepared to declare it as my favorite, both for its elevated style and gravitational substance. For a long time I held off on naming my favorite novel.
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