The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCuller's Portrait of the Faces Behind the MasksThanks to a good friend, Jeff Keeten, now residing with Dorothy and Toto,too, in Kansas, I've learned I am only gently mad. It was a relief to discover that. Because my self-analysis has been that I'm excessively obsessive when it comes to the love of books. After having taken his recommendation to read A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes, my soul is somewhat rested.However, there remains the fact I have, excuse me, had four copies of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. I absolve myself for the first, it was a Bantam paperback picked up at the now defunct college bookstore, Malones. That paperback cost me lunch that day, even though at the time Krystal Hamburgers were only 25 cents apiece. For those not familiar with Krystals, they are much akin to White Castle. They are little, square, and served on a steamed bun, grilled onions,smashed down onto the little thin patty, and given a squirt of cheap yellow mustard. There are still days when I've got to have a Krystal. But they're not a quarter any more.The paperback was read and re-read. Somewhere through the years, it vanished, perhaps the victim of a garage sale during a period I call my former life--BD, i.e. before divorce. I hope it least went for the cost of a Krystal, but I doubt it.Lonely Hunter was not the first McCullers I read. Professor O.B. Emerson, Professor Emeritus, Department of English, The University of Alabama introduced me to Ms. McCullers through The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories. That one cost me a sack of Krystals, too. That's all right. From my current waist line, it doesn't appear I missed too many meals.Dr. Emerson was a little banty rooster of a man, coal black hair, brilliantined to a shine that reflected the fluorescent lights of the class room. He considered McCullers essential to his curriculum in his Southern Literature course. From my first exposure to McCullers, I was hooked. The little man with the loud colored bow ties, outfitted in seersucker suits and a sporty straw hat made me a convert for life.After graduation, Professor Emerson and I would converse via telephone from time to time. He was gleeful to learn that The Execution of Private Slovikhad been made into a movie for television in 1974. I heard him click on his set and the ice cubes rattle in his Wild Turkey, his bourbon of choice. In my mind, I could see him with his books shelved floor to ceiling, all arranged, not alphabetically, but by coordinating colors of dust jackets. It was an aesthetic matter. I didn't understand it, and I took art. He was less impressed with the big screen adaptation of The Klansmanin 1974. Both were novels by Hartselle, Alabama author William Bradford Huie. Professor Emerson was a big Huie fan. He shared one thing in common with Huie. Both had received death threats from the Klan and had crosses burned in their yards--Huie, because of his novel, Emerson because he had Justice Thurgood Marshall over for dinner one night. It was Professor Emerson's proudest moment in life. He gloried in telling the tale.Since Professor Emerson introduced me to Carson McCullers, this review is for him. He died while I was out of town, some years ago. I missed his memorial service. I don't even know where he is buried. But I owe him much, because he imprinted me with a love of Southern literature. In some ways, I picture his life as one of loneliness, not unlike the characters you frequently encounter in the works of McCullers.But, I digress. I was supposed to be telling you about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I'm getting there. We Southerners are prone to digression. It's a manner of story telling in these parts.My next copy of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is the edition pictured. I bought it to read aloud to my wife, not the first one, the current and last one. I got it right this time.The second copy was justified by love. Love justifies a lot. I just gave that edition away out of love for two of whom I call my honorary children, William and Nancy Roane. William is the director of a short film called "Old Photograph." It should premiere this spring. I play a hard shell Baptist type preacher in charge of a home for wayward girls. The screenplay was a collaboration between William and his younger sister, Nancy. I think they are two of the most brilliant and engaging kids I've met. He's going through the Fulbright rounds, a senior at Oberlin, and she's in her first year at Oberlin.Nancy is a natural writer. Her story, "Everyone knew Ruby," has been published. I've read it. It's good. Everyone only thought they knew Ruby. They found out they didn't when she committed suicide. It is William's next film project.I asked if either of them had read McCullers. Neither had. The central theme in Nancy's story echoes that in McCuller's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. While celebrating Christmas and New Year's with them at a lunch, a few days ago, I presented them with my copy, inscribed with two quotes from the novel. “The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.” The other was, “All we can do is go around telling the truth.” Then I encouraged the Roane siblings to give the Coens a run for their money. I think they can.My third copy of Hunter is a beautiful slip-cased reproduction of the first edition from the former First Editions Library. I understand that Easton bought the company and that as copies in the series are sold, they will not be reprinted. Find this one, if you can. It's just a beautiful book to hold in your hands.Finally, I had to have the complete McCullers. I highly recommend Carson McCullers: Complete Novels: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter / Reflections in a Golden Eye / The Ballad of the Sad Cafe / The Member of the Wedding / Clock Without Hands Although biographical influence is often scorned as a means to literary criticism, I don't think it is possible to fully explore some works without some knowledge of the life of the author. That's definitely true of Hunter. Carson McCullerswas born February 19, 1917, in Columbus, Georgia, the daughter of Lamar and Marguerite Waters Smith. Her birth name was Lula Carson Smith. She dropped the Lula around 1930. Her life was relatively short. Having a bout of rheumatic fever during her high school years affected her health until her death caused by a cerebral hemorrhage on September 29, 1967. Her life was spent in fits of creativity marred by acute episodes of depression. A good portion of her life was spent in a wheel chair.It does not come as a surprise, when you become familiar with McCuller's life that her literary works were filled with the unloved, the outcasts, and misfits. Nor is it any surprise that her works revolve around desperate attempts to form loving relationships and those relationships in which the lover's pursuit is one that remains unrequited.Carson began taking piano lessons at an early age. Her original plan was to become a concert pianist. You can find this experience as the basis for her story, Wunderkind.McCullers was a wunderkind until struck with rheumatic fever at the age of fifteen. She gamely continued through school to graduate at age seventeen. She intended to go to Juliard. She never made it there. She began taking creative writing classes at Columbia while working menial jobs.While in New York she met Reese McCullers whom she fell in love with too quickly and they married. Divorced once. Married twice. He was an alcoholic, prone to depression and ultimately committed suicide, wanting Carson to die with him. She refused, although she had attempted to commit suicide on an earlier occasion, alone.Shortly after their first marriage, the McCullers traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina, where Reese found work. There, McCullers wrote Hunter. It was published in 1940. McCullers was twenty-three. She was a literary wunderkind. The book was an instant best seller, hitting the top of the market in sales. Critical reception was mixed.McCuller's title comes from Fiona MacLeodin her poem "The Lonely Hunter," found in From The Hills of Dream Threnodies Songs and Later Poems. MacLeod wrote:"O never a green leaf whispers, where the green-gold branches swing:O never a song I hear now, where one was wont to sing.Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill." It is 1931. The setting is a small mill town in Georgia.McCuller's initially entitled the novel, "The Mute," as the central character is John Singer, a deaf mute, who can truly only communicate with his room mate, a Greek named Spiros Anastopolous. They have been companions for ten years, Singer working as a silver engraver in a jewelry store, and Anastopolous working in his cousin's fruit stand. John and Spiros can communicate through signing. However, Spiros becomes sick, a changed man, engaging in irrational behavior. His cousin commits him to an insane asylum. Singer is left alone, unable to communicate with anyone.With his companion gone, Singer moves into the Kelly family's boarding house. Mick is a gawky adolescent, unable to recognize the changes occurring in her body, unable to recognize what adolescents haven't yet done, the initiation into sex. She wants to be a musician, she wants to play the piano. Essentially she wants anything that she doesn't believe she can achieve until she begins to compose her own songs. It is with Mick that McCullers addresses the universal awkwardness of the coming of age.Singer no longer makes his meals in his apartment. Now, he takes his meals at Biff's New York Cafe. Biff's wife Alice dies and he is now alone.Jake Blount is a customer at Biff's. He is a labor organizer, an agitator. He is a Marxist. Blount drinks to excess. After meeting Singer, he speaks to him at length, incapable of understanding that Singer can't talk back. After becoming too drunk to navigate his way home, Singer walks him back to his room for company and to give Blount a place to stay for the night.Dr. Copeland is a black physician, disappointed that his children have not become educated but have been satisfied to take the menial jobs available to blacks in the South at that time. He is angry at whites, with the exception of John Singer who had once offered him the kindness of lighting his cigarette. Singer is the only white man who has ever shown him courtesy of any kind.The novel shifts from point of view, character by character. But Singer is always the central figure in McCuller's novel. Biff, Jake, Copeland, and Mick, all begin to regularly come to Singer's room where they confide their deepest feelings to him. Each feels that he understands what they say and feel. But he does not, nor is he able to communicate his longing for his former companion.Each of the characters who rotate through Singer's room wear a mask, rarely disclosing what they feel to anyone. It is only to Singer that they reveal their true feelings. It is safe. Who can Singer tell? Singer is almost the priest in the confessional.While each of the four have found their confidant, Singer grows more alone as he visits Spiros in the asylum, only to find that his friend has become more seriously ill with each visit. Spiros' death will be Singer's unraveling.Oddly, as Singer unravels, the confessing quartet begin to turn to others and bring them into their lives. Biff turns to his wife's sister, Lucille. Blount and Copeland find a common cause in discussing issues of race, politics, and class struggle. Mick and a young Jewish boy, Harry Minowitz, find first love after a swim in a nearby pond.(view spoiler)[None understand that after Singer learns his friend Spiros has died in the asylum why Singer would ever commit suicide by shooting himself in the chest. Each thought they knew him so well and that he knew each of them. (hide spoiler)]
Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them. That's a Ray Bradbury quote, from Dandelion Wine , but I feel it is an apt description of this very young author who seems to carry the whole weight of the world on her shoulders. How is it possible to have so intimate a knowledge of pain and loss, loneliness, disillusionment, alienation when you are barely out of your school years? Empathy is more of a curse than a blessing. I thought I had it rough, but compared with Singer, Mitch, Copeland, Blount, Biff and the rest of the cast of this debut novel, my life has been a 'walk in the park', surrounded by more friends that I probably deserved and sheltered from the extremes of poverty and intransigence that mar the blazon of Southern culture. Humbled is the shortest way I can express the experience of living for about a year in this nameless Southern town, around 1939, in the aftermath of The Great Recession and shortly before the opening salvoes of WWII. Both events shape and define the scene on which the actors perform, through the economical woes most of the people are experiencing and through the fascist, anti-semite, racist ideologies prevailing. Even Marxism and religion come up short when it comes to offering practical solutions for social injustice: the vehement speeches of both Blount and of the street preacher are sterile, abstract, unrealistic.There is though a Christ-like, Messianic figure, like a bright star showing the way through the darkness, like a haven from the storm, gathering around him the lost children and taking their pain into him. Singer is a deaf-mute gentleman working as an engraver in a jeweler store. A victim of prejudice (one character refers to his disability as 'that dumb one', as if his difficulty to communicate is a sign of mental insufficiency), separated from his friend/lover in the opening scene of the novel (his relationship with the Greek Antonopoulos is never explicitly homosexual, probably due to censorship at the times, but the inferrence is strong), he is the loneliest of the whole bunch, but is nevertheless never bitter or angry, never closes his door to any of his friends in need, accepts them for what they are and patiently endures their bickering and their self-absorbtion. In the battling tumult of voices he alone was silent. I found Singer's inability to communicate more relevant than his amiable, self-effacing disposition. It illustrates the fact that we rarely listen to our conversation partners, that we only like to hear ourselves speak and little care to try to see the others point of view. Tellingly, not one of Singer's frequent visitors (Mick, Biff, Jake, Copeland), asks about his private life, about his problems, about his needs, his dreams, his plans for the future. All of them come only to unload their burden, to confess, to alleviate for a few hours their loneliness. For Singer, the only avenue of relief is to roam the streets of the city by himself, mostly at night, absorbing sights, smells, like a priest of solitude, accosted by strangers asking for his benediction, for a smile, for a gesture of kindness. There was no part of the town that Singer did not know. He watched the yellow squares of light reflected from a thousand windows. The winter nights were beautiful. The sky was a cold azure and the stars were bright. Of the other four main personages, Mick Kelly is a teenager and probably an alter-ego of the author, and three are mature men dealing both with personal loss and with larger social injustice. - Biff Brannon is probably the most balanced and socially integrated of them, a bar owner who sleeps during the day and keeps long and silent vigils during the night. He is enstranged from his wife, possibly in denial about his own sexuality (another subtle inferrence that dances around censure), circumspect, taciturn, cautious. He is probably a good guy, but I have the feeling he has given up trying to make something of his life, he no longer knows how to get out of his protective shell. Biff is content to just exist, without hope, easing his conscience with small gestures - a free meal, a free drink, a word of encouragement.- Jake Blount ( I'm a stranger in a strange land. ) is from out of town and a fighter, full of anger and self-destructive impulses. He is a radical Marxist, trying to agitate the underpaid cotton mill workers, the oppressed Negroes, the complacent middle classes. People laugh at his intensity, the revolutionary message falls on deaf ears, and only Singer puts up with his violent temper. Jake is also a nightbird, burning up excess energy in midnight ramblings through town. I felt less favourably disposed towards his plight, mostly due to his inability to listen instead of preaching.- Doctor Copeland's greatest disappointment is his failure to instill in his children a thirst for knowledge, for education, an ambition to get out of the ghetto and live a dignified life. His violent resentment and his habit on relieving it on his wife and children may have something to do with his present isolation. He is a pillar of society in the black community, tirelessly working in his clinic despite grave health issues of his own, but it gives him little satisfaction to know he has nobody to continue the work. Copeland believes in education and protest marches as the best way to emancipation, until yet another personal tragedy exposes the deep rooted racism of the world he lives in and pushes him back down in the gutter: Descent into the depths until at last there was no further chasm below. He touched the solid bottom of despair and there took ease. . A masterful scene between him and Jake Blount talking at cross purposes about social reform, illustrates the chasms still open and the lack of trust between black and white communities, even when they share the same economic troubles.- I left Mick Kelly last, because these three above are middle-aged, defeated, cynical but basically responsible for their own lives. There is something particularly heartbreaking , devastating about learning all about loneliness and pain at fifteen years of age. At the start of the story Mick is like a whirlywind, full of plans for the future, impulsive, enthusiastic, her imagination soaring like a kite high up into the blue sky: Always she was busy with thoughts and plans. Sometimes she would look up suddenly and they would be way off in some part of town she didn't even recognize. And once or twice they run into Bill on the streets and she was so busy thinking he had to grab her by the arm to make her see him. She's still in school, and an undiscovered musical prodigy, a fighter and a dreamer melded together, running where others are plodding along. Yet, she comes from a large family, almost destitute with an unemployed father, a mother running a boarding house in the poor part of town, older brothers and sisters forced to work to supplement the family income, younger ones left in her care. Everything she has, she has to share with somebody: Hell, next to a real piano I sure would rather have some place to myself than anything I know. To be on her own, she has to be another nightbird, hiding in the bushes to listen to neighbours radios, lifted to heaven on the chords of Beethoven's Third Symphony, brought down in despair and self-immolation by her insufficient musical training. I wish I could see and breathe music like Mick does, with the whole of her soul, but I'm cursed with a lack of musical ear: After a while the music came again, harder and loud. It didn't have anything to do with God. This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and feelings. The music was her - the real plain her. [...] Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen. I'm not going to discuss particular events and how they shape Mick's destiny. I'll just remember her thirst for life and for music, and hope others like her have more luck in escaping from that stifling, soul destroying Southern hell. I like to imagine at least one of her dreams came true, her wish to escape to somewhere pure and clean and beautiful: Snow! That's what I want to see. Cold, white drifts of snow like in pictures. Blizzards. White, cold snow that keeps falling soft and falls on and on and on through all the winter. Snow like in Alaska. The book is not flawless, impecably polished or subtly argumented. there are hesitations, and awkward, forced scenes, especially the political discourses. It is in this very imperfection that it convinced me it was written as a cry of despair and not as a trick to make some easy money. The characters are fallible, weak, defeated, yet believable - I recognized myself and the people around me in them. The novel doesn't offer magical solutions to world problems, doesn't give comfort to the weary soul ( There was neither beginning nor end, neither truth nor purpose in his thoughts. ), yet I find it, not uplifting because it has one of the bleakest endings ever, but comforting in the knowledge that loneliness, if nothing else, unites us in our journey through life, and that even sailing ships sometimes meet one another on the vast, empty ocean.Soundtrack listings:- Beethoven, Mozart - based on Mick references- The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby, The Fool On The Hill
What do You think about The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (2000)?
Denise Foster wrote: "this was a great read. a book of growing up and learning where you stand."Agreed. A wonderful way of exploring the value of a sense of place.
—Richard Reviles Censorship Always in All Ways
She went there, didn't she.As I read this novel, I could tell McCullers was setting the stage for something truly horrible to happen. And horrible things did happen. But they were never as bad as I thought they would be. Until...Oh yes, she waited until the very end to rip my heart from my chest, throw it on the floor, stomp on it with her pumps and then throw it into the ocean to be eaten by sharks. How does someone write a book this rich and wise and honest at 23? How does a young girl write such darkness, such tragedy? Like Flannery O'Connor, she suffered from illness from a young age. Maybe that is where her darkness came from?As you can probably glean from the title, all of the characters in this novel are haunted by the ghost of loneliness. Mick is a young girl on the brink of womanhood. Like many teenage girls, she feels isolated and misunderstood, but finds solace in two things: the company of a deaf mute boarder in her family home and her true passion, music. Let me share a passage with you describing Mick's experience of hearing Beethoven's 3rd symphony for the first time:How did it come? For a minute the opening balanced from one side to the other. Like a walk or a march. Like God strutting in the night. The outside of her was suddenly froze and only that first part of the music was hot inside her heart. She could not even hear what sounded after, but she sat there waiting and froze, with her fists tight. After awhile the music came again, harder and loud. It didn't have anything to do with God. This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all her plans and feelings.This music was her - the real plain her.I can't emphasize enough how much that passage resonated with me. The theme of loneliness, of isolation carries through each of the characters we meet as McCullers weaves her magical tale. John Singer is a deaf mute who has only one person in the world he calls a friend; a fellow deaf mute. When his friend goes mad and is institutionalized, Singer no longer has his best friend by his side, he feels lost. Yet all of the folks in this small town are drawn to him. It's as if his deafness gives him a wisdom and understanding that others are sorely missing. Ironically, it's as if for the first time in their lives they feel the are being truly heard. Dr. Copeland is a black physician in the south. He feels isolated from his family because they don't want to follow in his footsteps; his ambition has driven away his wife and children. He feels isolated because he's a black man in a predominately white town. The only white person he feels he can trust is Mr. Singer. Jake Blount is a drunk and a drifter. His rage and inability to relate to others exacerbates his feelings of loneliness. Yet the presence of Mr. Singer soothes him. Biff Brannon is a cafe owner; people come in and out of his restaurant all day, yet he is alone. He and his wife have drifted apart even though they live in the same home; he has no children and no real friends, except for Mr. Singer.As I made my way through this journey, I hoped and hoped that things would turn out alright for these broken individuals. But things don't always turn out okay, and what you're left with is the harsh reality of life. We all experience tragedy. We are, all of us, lonely hunters.
—Jenn(ifer)
I read this years ago -before being a member on Goodreads. (Just forgot to post any comments)--Thanks to 'Steve' for the inspiration of memory! "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" one those books that leaves a lasting tattoo on your heart forever! Not only does it take place during the Great Depression -during times of racial injustice --not only do we 'see-feel-touch-experience' loneliness through a character so profound deeper than most have ever been written----but it was 'THIS' novel where I learned the full beauty of 'feeling' music through sign language.A Classic Best!!! 5 +++++ stars!!!
—Elyse
