The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Rating:
Summary: Love Could've Conquered All
Review: The book, "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" is a dark, yet very intelligent book about outcasts in the deep south during the 30s. The book has three parts that each focus on a part of the five main character's lives.
Part one introduces Singer, the very main character of the novel. Singer is a deaf mute who is depressed when his very best friend, Antonapoulous is sent to the nut house. Biff is a local restaurant owner of the New York Café. Biff has to deal with his wife, Alice and their unhappy marriage. Mick Kelly is a big tomboy in this part of the novel, who has a passion for music. She has to deal with raising her two younger siblings. Blount is a loud man who is faced with a drinking problem. Dr. Copeland is a black doctor and struggles with a communicating with his children.
Part Two starts the plot of the book. After each character is set up with his own disappointments and problems, Singer becomes the main character of the novel who listens to each of the other main characters and individually helps them with their own problems. Singer is still struggling with the loss of his friend and occasionally visits him in the hospital. During this part in the novel, Mick starts growing up, developing herself as a woman instead of a tomboy, and uses sex to get rid of her problems. Biff's wife dies, and he has to deal with all the good memories he now remembers of her after it's too late. Blount continues his drinking, but can't relate very well to Singer because he keeps accusing Singer of lying about being a deaf mute. Dr. Copeland regains strength with his family and daughter, Portia, but later on finds out he is dying himself.
At the end of the novel, a tragedy occurs, leaving the main characters to fend for themselves, remember the past, and move on with their lives.
I would recommend this novel to anyone. I enjoyed it and feel it really expresses how the human mind can sometimes feel left out of the world. The novel was easy to read, and although it was a little depressing it was a great book.

Rating:
Summary: Very sad, but the characters stay with you
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in a while. It is very sad; you can't decide which character is the worst off. Mick, the gangly tomboy who is tryign to find some beauty in a harsh world, while also trying to deal with the problems of her family and the trials of growing up. Dr. Copeland, the educated black doctor, bitter against the injustices shown his people. Biff Brannon, the hardened restaurant owner, who shows signs of being a homosexual in a time when being a homosexual was not acceptable. Jake Blount, the radical drifter, who talks and talks but no one listens. And Mr. Singer, the deaf mute with a longing for his best friend, the only person who understands him. All of these characters are fully drawn, and each one of them makes you care deeply for him/her, even though they are very hard to like. You read on, wanting to know what happens to these people, and whether anyone finds happiness at all. While the ending is not all that happy, the point is made. Everyone is searching for something, whether it be beauty, like Mick, or understanding, like Mr. Singer. And as the title says, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. My only regret is that I waited so long to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: This is one of the classic pieces of Southern literature. The unfortunate part is that it is quite often forgotten, lost among the GOND WITH THE WINDS, the BARK OF THE DOGWOODS, and the TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRDS. But make no mistake, HUNTER holds up to those books just as well and even carves its own niche among the "CLASSICS."

The story, even if told by someone less talented, is fascinating enough. "In the town there were two mutes." But what McCullers does with it is genius. Her pacing and character development are flawless and she carries off scenes that, in any other writer's hands, would turn sentimental and mushy.

Metaphors and symbols abound in this work, but it's easy to read and follow and quite frequently used in schools, along with MOCKINGBIRD and other Pieces of southern literature.

Also recommended: Carr's bio on McCullers

Rating:
Summary: The Heart is a Lonley Hunter
Review: This is a brilliant novel set in a Georgia milltown during the Great Depression.

Four people,struggling with their own identities, confide in a deaf mute. Dr. Copeland is a black physician suffering from TB who is estranged from his own family by his passionate devotion to protecting the rights of his race; Jake Blount, an alcoholic and border-line psychotic, who is tormented by his radical ideas of the rights of the working class, Biff Brannon a restaurant owner who is trying to come to terms with his own feelings following the death of his wife; and Mick Kelly, a sensitive teenage girl and daughter of the family who own the boarding house where the mute lives, .

The four feel a special kinship to the mute, Mr. Singer, because of the sensitivity that each one must sense in him. Singer listens to their stories and asks them questions yet he gives little advice. Singer himself is a depressed by the decline, both physically and mentally, and institutionalization of his constant companion, another deaf mute, whose fate ultimately has a profound affect on Singer and his four confidants.

The book deals subtly with several different social issues-racial strife in the South, a teenage girl coming to terms with her emerging sexuality, labor unrest, and the effect of the Great Depression on the middle class.

Rating:
Summary: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter~
Review: One of the most amazing things about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is that Carson McCullers was only 23 when she wrote this. The writing in this novel is incredible. I think the reader should be prepared for the fact that this story is melancholy and can be depressing at times, but at the same time is brilliant in its character depth and social understanding. I wish I would have read this novel in highschool as there is clearly a lot of symbolism and statement that would lead to great discussions. The center of this novel is John Singer a deaf-mute who is feeling abandoned after his life-long friend Antonapoulos is sent away to a distant hospital. The novel introduces us to 4 lives: a young girl named Mick who grows up in poverty; Dr. Copeland, an African-American doctor; Jake Blount a wandering alcoholic and Biff Brannon a cafe owner. We learn the loneliness and pain of each of these characters and watch as each one is drawn to the mute, John Singer. McCullers details her novel with many truths about the human spirit, as well as some political and social statements of her own. It is said that much of the novel is autobiographical as McCullers was raised in a small southern town, primarily by her African-American maid. I would suggest that the reading of this novel is coupled with a little research about McCullers and some background info on the novel for full appreciation. Upon completion I am glad that I read this and can appreciate it for all that it offers and is trying to say.

Rating:
Summary: Insight into the lonely heart
Review: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Highly recommended.

Only 23 when she wrote The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers captures the restless energy of adolescence and the loneliness and isolation of those who choose not to fit into their world-Mick Kelly, an artistic teenager whose titles and graffiti reveal a darker side to her personality; Jake Blount, an itinerant socialist; Benedict Mady Copeland, a consumptive black physician; and Biff Brannon, owner of the New York Café. Linking this disparate group of outsiders is the ironically named John Singer, a man who cannot talk (or sing). They are drawn to him, as lonely people are to someone they believe will listen and understand. They never step out of themselves to discover that Singer listens, but he doesn't understand, nor do they realise that he, too, is lonely and isolated-or why.

Just as these four impose their concept of Singer upon him, he has his own idol-his companion of 10 years, Spiros Antonapoulos. While Singer's lonely friends project upon him the character of a wise, knowing, understanding man, Singer in turn imposes a similar personality on Antonapoulos. His life revolves around his rare visits to the asylum to which Antonapoulos is eventually taken. As the reader's awareness of Antonapoulos as a childish, greedy, and lazy man grows, so grows Singer's faith in him as gentle and wise. As a fellow mute, Antonapoulos is all Singer has, so he both idealises and idolises him-in the same way that Mick, Blount, Copeland, and, to a lesser extent, Brannon idealise and idolise Singer.

Rarely do any of the four interact, except when Blount and Dr. Copeland engage in a circular argument about how best to help their peoples-victims of capitalism in Blount's case, blacks in Dr. Copeland's. These two groups have much in common, but just as Blount and Dr. Copeland remain in bitter conflict, so do their peoples-a conflict which is alluded to throughout and which culminates in a brawl at the carnival grounds where Jake works. Dr. Copeland and Jake never find common ground, nor do the poor white laborers and oppressed blacks they wish to enlighten. Dr. Copeland's self-sacrificing but hopeless dedication and Jake's self-destructive brutality could be seen as representing their time and place, the 1930s South.

Sexual ambiguity pervades the novel. It is never clear whether Singer and Antonapoulos are lovers, although it seems like that that is what lies behind Singer's uncritical devotion. Even when Antonapoulos's selfish, greedy, irrational behaviour drives away a third mute, Singer is merely disappointed at the loss of a potential friend-as long as he has Antonapoulos, he is content. After Antonapoulos leaves, ". . . in the spring a change came over Singer . . . his body was very restless . . . unable to work off a new feeling of energy."

This sexual energy is shared by Mick, who is always restless. This isolates her even more from the rest of her family: her father, a disabled carpenter trying half-heartedly to make a living; her mother, for whom Mick acts as a substitute parent for her younger brothers Bubber (George) and Ralph; her older brother Bill, once close to her and now distant; and her older sisters Hazel and Etta, who have been forced from adolescence into adulthood through work and their own conventional interest in celebrity. (One could speculate about the nature of the "diseased ovary" Etta develops.)

Mick lives in an "inside room," where she finds peace in music and in her perceptions of her friendship with Singer. Later, after her sexual initiation, she finds herself slyly manipulated into taking a job by her apparently solicitous family; at this point, she notices that, while the "inside room" is still important, she has less time and energy for it. McCullers exposition of Mick's transition from inventive childhood to dulling adulthood is subtle and is one of the best aspects of the novel.

Of the four, Brannon is the most enigmatic. After his wife dies, he redecorates in what seems a distinctly unmasculine way (in contrast to his heavy, black beard, the subject of many comments). Even more interesting, he begins to wear his late wife's perfume. While he observes, defends, and supports Jake, his sexual feelings are focused on Mick, to whom he seems distant and cold (in her naiveté, Mick attributes his attitude to the fact that she and Bubber shoplifted gum from the café). Not surprisingly, after Mick is sexually initiated, obtains a job, and begins to dress and behave more like a girl on the cusp of womanhood, Brannon loses interest and consequently warms up to her. She is now no more of a challenge to his impotence than his late wife was.

McCullers weaves a dense cloth of themes. First, there is the inward and selfish nature of loneliness. No one ever truly reaches out; in fact, Mick's Jewish neighbor Harry, appalled by fascism and Hitler, and Brannon are the only characters who are interested in the greater world. The conditions of the working poor and the black experience are eloquently portrayed without much narrative or focus on details. By the end, everything and nothing has changed. Mick is determined to escape fate through music, unlikely as it seems; a weakened Dr. Copeland becomes unable to carry on his "strong, true purpose." Blount leaves town to find someone who will finally accept the basket of ideas that haunts his nightmares; Brannon, "suspended between bitter irony and faith," faces the dawn exactly as he has for years.

McCullers' portrayal of these disparate characters are true to life and reveal a remarkable insight into people, no matter their age, gender, race, or background-an insight that is lacking in her self-absorbed characters. The heart is a lonely hunter, so it will find what it wishes to-love-in the most unlikely of places. It would take many re-readings to mine the richness here.

Diane L. Schirf, 31 May 2004.

Rating:
Summary: Not the ending i expected
Review: I decieded to read this book and join in on the hype. This book is not what i had expected. The writing is great and the character detail is great, but i must have missed something. The book bored me and the end...man, it left me with no deeper look at life.

Rating:
Summary: Life Situations Come Alive
Review: The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter is a great book! Most people can surely relate to many of the characters in the story. Each person has pretty much the same issues as most of us in every day life.

The story shows how it is for people of color in a town of racist white people, what it's like for the deaf to live in a world of silence, of a child's dream to have a passion for music. If you'd like to read a great story, this is your book!

Rating:
Summary: Slow and dull
Review: I personally found the book slow and dull. It could not keep me interested and that is unusual since I can normally read just about any book that is put before me. There isn't much more I can really say about this book.

Rating:
Summary: Old Classic
Review: This book was originally published in 1940 and has been considered a classic ever since. Unfortunately, as Mark Twain once said, "A classic is a book everybody praises but nobody reads." In this case, I am glad to see Oprah recommend it and thus restore its popularity. The characters are rough and sometimes ugly, but beneath all this the heroine manages to find beauty and happiness.

Great story for young women readers.