Prior to the pandemic they met in person in Northern California where most of them are based. Except for the group leader, I know the group only by their postage stamp images on the computer screen and by their comments - always thoughtful, often impassioned. My job last week was to help facilitate our discussion of this classic story, said to be one of Hawthorne’s best. I’ve just reread “Young Goodman Brown” with a short story study group I joined via Zoom back in March 2020 right after the COVID-19 lockdown. Instead of Native Americans and colonists raiding each others’ encampments, there were bear raids on our food caches. From my summers backpacking in the High Sierras I shared this view.
I loved the author’s lush depiction of the woods - alive with movement and evil intent. He made a copy for me and, feeling obligated, I read it. Many years later, a colleague at the Peabody Essex Museum stopped by my office and said he had reread “Young Goodman Brown” the night before and that the story, one of his favorites by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was just as outstanding as it was the first times he read it.
The novel was a cautionary tale for seventh-graders. My class read “The Scarlet Letter” in 7th grade in Santa Barbara, California. Until recently, the only time I read anything by Nathaniel Hawthorne was when I had to.
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