Hybrid: A.M. Book Group

This week we will be reading The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The fragility-and the durability-of human life and art dominate this story of American expatriates in Italy in the mid-nineteenth century. Befriended by Donatello, a young Italian with the classical grace of the "Marble Faun," Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon find their pursuit of art taking a sinister turn as Miriam's unhappy past precipitates the present into tragedy.

Hawthorne's 'International Novel' dramatizes the confrontation of the Old World and the New and the uncertain relationship between the 'authentic' and the 'fake' in life as in art. The author's evocative descriptions of classic sites made The Marble Faun a favorite guidebook to Rome for Victorian tourists, but this richly ambiguous symbolic romance is also the story of a murder, and a parable of the Fall of Man. As the characters find their civilized existence disrupted by the awful consequences of impulse, Hawthorne leads his readers to question the value of Art and Culture and addresses the great evolutionary debate which was beginning to shake Victorian society.

The A.M. Book Group meets in person with an option to participate via Zoom on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 10:00 am. This book group does not meet in December. New readers are always welcome. Tom Madden is the facilitator.

*You may also choose to attend the program online. Everyone who registers below will receive the Zoom link.

Many of the book discussion titles can be downloaded via the Library's Hoopla or Libby accounts. Please reach out to the Adult Services Department if you need assistance with downloading the title. Personal copies can also be purchased at Books on the Common at a 15% discount.

If you are participating by Zoom and have not received your Zoom link by the day before the program please contact the Adult Services staff at 203.438.2282 ext. 201.