Story summary
Samenvatting van Afgoderij
- 8 min. leestijd
- 10 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
A foggy steamer, a diamond ring and a walled garden pull Balder Helwyse toward a woman named Gnulemah.
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Afgoderij in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 5 h 20 min4 h 15 min fast, 6 h 20 min slow
- Lengte
- 76.100 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Gemiddeld longer sentences, everyday words
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1874by Julian Hawthorne
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
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Afgoderij in short
Idolatry follows a proud young man who thinks he can make himself a god. Balder Helwyse arrives in America with grand systems in his head. A night of fog and a voice that flatters his ambition lead him into a deed that wrecks his philosophy.
What Afgoderij is about
What if two names written a line apart could decide a whole life? In a Boston hotel in late May 1853, Balder Helwyse signs the register at the top of page one hundred. The man in the next room, Doctor Hiero Glyphic, signed at the foot of page ninety-nine. Neither knows the other is there.
Idolatry is a gothic romance by Julian Hawthorne, the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He dresses ordinary truths in the colors of fantasy, so that pride, guilt and love show in a stronger light. A talkative narrator reads the past from a magic diamond ring. You get Egyptian relics, a walled garden, a steamer lost in fog and a young philosopher who wants to become a god.
Voor wie is het?. Readers who love gothic atmosphere, Egyptian relics and a narrator with a sly wink will find plenty here. It also suits anyone drawn to stories of pride, guilt and love.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
Two hotel rooms and one sleeping stranger
The book opens in a granite hotel in Boston. The narrator leads you into Room 27 at two in the morning. There lies Doctor Hiero Glyphic, asleep, with the door locked and a black violin case beside the bed. A diamond ring on his finger can tell its own history to anyone who looks closely. The narrator promises to keep to plain truth and avoid the supernatural, but his pledge is already half broken.
Next door, in Room 29, Balder Helwyse wakes at half past four on a bright May morning. He is tall, with yellow hair and a great beard, and he loves being alive. Through the wall he hears a violin played with a master's touch. He decides to invite the player to breakfast, but the fiddler leaves before Balder is dressed, and the two miss each other by minutes.
Small accidents in this book lead to large consequences.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
The ring remembers an Egyptian boy
The narrator reads the ring's central facet, which holds the history of the whole stone.
- 3Begin gratis met lezen
A banker mistakes the son for the father
Balder's first call in Boston is at the old Beacon Hill Bank, where he meets its president, Amos MacGentle.
- 4Begin gratis met lezen
A voice in the fog offers a secret
That night Balder boards the steamer Empire State for New York.
- 5Begin gratis met lezen
One struggle in the dark changes everything
A lantern flashes across the deck and lights Balder's face.
- 6Begin gratis met lezen
A ferryman, a wall, and a falling birch
Balder walks north up Manhattan and rests on a rock above the Hudson.
- 7Begin gratis met lezen
Gnulemah, who has never seen the world
The house is shaped like a capital H laid on its side, with a granite Egyptian wing that has no windows.
- 8Begin gratis met lezen
Nurse, a painted heaven, and a confession
Alone in the conservatory, Balder thinks he might hide his deed and stay with Gnulemah.
- 9Begin gratis met lezen
Three idols and one heavy ring
The title points at idols, and the book finds them everywhere.
- 10Begin gratis met lezen
A narrator, a mirror and a ring
Hawthorne tells his story through a playful narrator who speaks to the reader as a friend.
Read all 10 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Balder Helwyse A tall, yellow-bearded philosopher and eye doctor who dreams of godlike knowledge and goes searching for his uncle.
- Gnulemah A young woman raised behind a wall who knows only nature, believes her life is a lamp, and trusts without doubt.
- Manetho An Egyptian-born clergyman, adopted by Doctor Glyphic, gentle in manner and driven by an old hidden grudge.
- Hiero Glyphic An eccentric antiquarian who built an Egyptian temple in New Jersey and walled himself off from the world.
- Amos MacGentle The kind, dreamy old president of the Beacon Hill Bank, a friend of Balder's father.
- Mr. Dyke MacGentle's blunt, sharp-memoried clerk, a family man who guards the door and corrects the president's facts.
- Nurse A silent, scarred old woman who keeps the walled house and watches Balder with one bright eye.
How it ends (spoiler)
Manetho dies after his fall from the ladder, and the lightning that strikes during the wedding night leaves Gnulemah blind. Balder learns that she is Salome's daughter, and that Manetho is her father, not Balder's lost sister. He stays with Gnulemah and keeps her faith alive. Years later, a father of two children, he still greets her with a smile she will never see.
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Vragen over Afgoderij
What is Idolatry by Julian Hawthorne about?
It follows Balder Helwyse, a proud young philosopher who comes to Boston looking for his eccentric uncle. A fateful night on a steamer, a magic diamond ring and a walled house with a mysterious young woman draw him into a story of guilt and love.
What does the diamond ring with two serpents mean?
The gold and black iron serpents bite at the diamond from opposite sides, which the narrator calls a symbol of the human soul fought over by good and evil. The ring also records its own past, so it links the characters across the years.
Who is Gnulemah in Idolatry?
Gnulemah is a young woman who has grown up inside a brick wall, dressed in ancient Egyptian style. She believes her life is a lamp and that people beyond the wall are shadows, and she meets Balder with complete trust.
Is Idolatry a true story or a supernatural tale?
It is invented, a romance written by Julian Hawthorne in the nineteenth century. The narrator treats magic lightly, mixing fairy-tale touches with real places such as Boston and the Hudson River, and gives common-sense explanations for most strange events.
What is the main message of Idolatry?
The book says that people become slaves of whatever they raise above everything else, whether pride, revenge or another person. It suggests that humility, honest confession and love for others are the way to freedom.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Hawthorne, Julian. Idolatry. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/idolatry.
Hawthorne, J. (2026). Idolatry. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/idolatry (Original work published 1874)
Hawthorne, Julian. Idolatry. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/idolatry.
@book{hawthorne2026idolatry,
author = {Hawthorne, Julian},
title = {Idolatry},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/idolatry},
note = {First published 1874}
}
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