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Hardcover
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN13: 9780679424741
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
When she was only twenty-three, Carson McCullers's first novel created a literary sensation. She was very special, one of America's superlative writers who conjures up a vision of existence as terrible as it is real, who takes us on shattering voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition. This novel is the work of a supreme artist, Carson McCullers's enduring masterpiece. The heroine is the strange young girl, Mick Kelly. The setting is a small Southern town, the cosmos universal and eternal. The characters are the damned, the voiceless, the rejected. Some fight their loneliness with violence and depravity, Some with sex or drink, and some -- like Mick -- with a quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.
From the Paperback edition.
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| great |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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great product followed up with fast shipmentThe Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Oprah's Book Club)
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| Highly Recommended |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Written when the author was only 23 (paralyzed at 30, dead at 50) and an American masterpiece. The novel penetrates the deepest mysteries of the human heart, employs no sentimentality or romance, yet relentlessly floods the reader's soul with almost unbearable understanding and love.
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| Classic treatment of the alienated |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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`The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter', published in 1940 when Carson McCullers was just twenty-three, is set in a small Georgia town and tells the story of five isolated and spiritually-frustrated characters. There's Mick Kelly (based on McCullers herself), a young girl who is always writing music in her head and dreaming of travel to foreign lands. Dr. Benedict Copeland is an African-American doctor who struggles to make others of his race see the truth about their plight as he sees it. Jake Blount is a potentially violent drifter who rants about socialism and fruitlessly tries to inspire the working class to rise up and demand more from their employers. Biff Brannon is the sexually-ambiguous café owner who spends hours on end thinking through his muddled thoughts. And finally, there's John Singer, a deaf-mute who the other four befriend because, as an intelligent and kind man who cannot talk himself, he is a good listener.
The story revolves around Singer who, more than just serving as a symbol of their mutual incomprehension through his handicap, acts as an almost God-like figure to the other four. He is to each whatever they want him to be. They all go to him to tell him of their problems as a Christian goes to church to pray. Meanwhile, all he really cares about is his friend, also a deaf-mute, who sits miles away in a hospital bed. His whole existence revolves around periodic pilgrimages to see this friend. The other four pout when he's gone, as one might when God doesn't answer a prayer. I found myself wishing they could seek solace amongst themselves, especially Copeland and Blount who shared similar views. But even when they do intersect, they are unable to fully connect. It is only Singer who can bring them solace.
The characters are drawn in a mostly unsympathetic light, except for Singer and Mick who, because of what they are, could almost not be portrayed any other way but sympathetically. Brannon is just too odd; there were times I wondered if he were a pedophile. Blount is too angry to care about. I rooted for Copeland a little bit, but once he and Blount failed to reach a détente, I was left feeling that they weren't interested in compromising their views and thus were really just selfish people, unwilling to live in a world that didn't fit their specific ideas.
McCullers's writing is a cross between the Russian realists of the 19th century and Flannery O'Connor. Like the Russians, she writes to reflect real life. Like O'Connor, she writes about the edges of society. There isn't a traditional plot: the narrative just follows their struggles with isolation and need for self-expression. McCullers has said she based the format of the book on a fugue, which explores various themes through repetition and development. Thus in place of a plot is the examination of these themes to their fullest extent, at which point the book can resolve. The themes she examines are noble themes, some timely (racism, communism), others universal (the need for self-fulfillment, the feeling of isolation from society), which makes this a worthwhile book. Others have written reviews asking why such a `boring' book without a standard plot or happy ending would be considered a classic. It's the universal themes of the book and the beautiful prose that make it a classic. Life doesn't always end up the way we want it to, nor do the books we read.
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| A New Meaning for Loneliness |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Carson McCullers gradually develops a place where a deaf mute learns to adjust to a life without his life-long friend. The author cleverly allows her characters to reveal their own concerns, always turning a deaf ear to the listener, the one who really needs to tell his very own story so desperately. But he cannot, he must assume the burden of silence in the wake of those who spew noxious verbiage. He must endure others' happiness in deference to his own. These characters are vivid and colorful providing an entertaining background while the main problem builds. And finally, we are shocked in such a way so as to shake our inner core to what hides in each of us. What a book!
There are many aspects of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter that give it a status of a memorable book. It brings us back to a simpler time when writers told a story. I became impatient at first when I started to read the volume. It wasn't until halfway into the work that I realized that there was something much deeper going on in the plot and something very creepy loomed over John Singer.
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| A Classic |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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This is one really great movie. You won't be sorry that you took the time to watch it.
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