As a child of the hyper-information age, I am usually introduced to concepts in their rawest form possible. Concepts that are streamlined so that they can gracefully find their way into my understanding, like the union of shuttle and station in 2001: A Space Odyssey, backed by the sounds of the singing blue Danube[1] . Digesting Nathaniel Hawthorne's ultra-dense Scarlet Letter therefore seemed more appropriate compared to a surgeon's retrieval of his Rolex from the open chest cavity of a hapless patient, perhaps to a score of pounding, rapid, multi-layered baroque fugues. levels. Yes, the ideas and connections were there, fascinating and beautifully orchestrated. But I often had a headache as I worked through the mounds of flowery language and dated syntax under which they were so deeply buried, and I often found myself making estimates as to how many Word-A-calendars there were Day that Hawthorne must have owned [2]. This is truly tragic, because it is not Hawthorne's fault that his novel has become the bane of so many high school English students. Times have changed, and with them attention spans have diminished, and many systems for extracting and condensing information have been developed to accommodate them. Just as a surgeon presented the possibility of retrieving his lost wristwatch from A) a hinged jewelry box or B), the insides of a living human being would most likely check the box marked "A" with great enthusiasm and not so much. rumination, a student given the opportunity to avoid the pain of reading Hawthorn's masterpiece, choosing instead to receive the novel's concepts in the form of easily digestible Sparknotes information, would likely do so[3]. the novel has everything...... middle of paper ......f needs [12] and my ability to act accordingly and bear much lesser consequences. But the oppression is still there. However, the positive aspects also remain. The prolific nature of the American university system can be attributed in large part to the puritanical value of knowledge and education. Reading The Scarlet Letter was a chore. But it never seemed frivolous. The themes have become less innovative and heavy but still remain relevant, and the writing style has been greatly blunted by time, but not to the point of being impenetrable. If nothing else, it expanded my mental lexicon and gave me a new understanding of why anyone would ever be compelled to engage in such a torturous activity as running a marathon. At the end of the novel I felt a euphoria of relief similar to that described by sweat-soaked long-distance runners. And I lost 20 more kilos.