The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Rating:
Summary: Not Bad, But Not Great
Review: "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" didn't move me in any way, but I can acknowledge the allure it seems to exercise on many people. Carson McCullers' prose is a bit airless for me. There is a certain beauty to be had in simple, precise language, but sometimes authors abuse that quality until their writing becomes characterless, which is how I feel about McCullers. I wasn't struck by any of her images or turns of phrase. I felt the nature of the story deserved a more poetic writing style than McCullers uses.

That said, the book does have a certain impact based on the story alone. While reading it, I was only moderately involved, but the book lingered in my mind for a long time afterward, and even now I get a very distinct feeling when I think about it, which is not true of everything I read.

Definitely worth reading, but not one of my personal favorites.

Rating:
Summary: Prozac Defeated!
Review: In the 307 pages of this story there is not a single ray of hope or happiness, not one morsel of humor, but only the most extreme isolation and despair. So, why read it? Because it's a superb example of technical mastery of the writer's craft, and a penetrating study of the human condition a la Dostoevsky.
Labelling The Heart is a Lonely Hunter "a Southern novel" may be accurate by virtue of its setting, but it is certainly not adequate. The story could have been set almost anywhere, with minor textual changes, and it would have been just as applicable and powerful. Furthermore, the story has historical merit, delving into youthful perceptions of pre-WWII geo-politics, domestic politics, and exploring a few sexual subjects that were taboo in the author's day.
Don't read this story to find direct answers for the human condition. This is not a book of "what to do," but rather of "what not to do." Also, this is not an appropriate story for younger readers or those presently on a regimen of prescription antidepressants.
Guardedly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: this book changed how I view myself.
Review: I don't really know what to say first. I guess I'll say that I just finished reading it for a second time and there is only one other book I've read more than once and will read again. McCullers is an amazing writer. This novel is written so beautifully. It will start slow but in a chapter or two you'll find yourself pulled into a world that you can't leave. I recently gave this book to a cousin of mine as a gift and she had a similar reaction. I actually had to read this for an english class at my school and might never have picked it up otherwise. The characters' lives cross in such interesting ways and all of them deal with Singer, who is still a mystery I am trying to figure out. This book will pull you on an emotion rollercoaster and then leave you thinking about it for years after it ends, like a good movie does. I rarely cry in movies and almost never over a book but this one brought me to tears more than a few times. Just read it and maybe you'll understand.

Rating:
Summary: Good Characters
Review: At first I didn't know what to think when I finished this book. It was such a page turner and the end was like a train wreck for all of the characters. I almost felt like it was without hope. When I thought about it further, though, I reconsidered. The characters in the story don't emerge unscathed or exalted from tragic or mundane circumstances, but neither to most of us in the real world. It would have been great if Mick had been able to become a composer like she wanted, but don't most people who dream of greatness ultimately end up somewhere in between. That doesn't make life or people less valuable. The interesting characters were not at all what they appeared to be on the surface. Reading about them made the book worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: On Empathy
Review: Here's my own take. Every great book speaks to everybody. What makes "The Heart.. so very special, so very complex,is just that. These characters are us. We are these characters. Every one of them. Read the book and consider, that every single character symbolically died in this classic novel. This is a deeply profound book. Nobody gets through life without some kind of struggle. A nobel physicist told Naomi Judd to not go around the pain, but go through it. I am neither deaf nor mute, and yet I am exactly like John Singer. You are exactly like John Singer. We are Mick with a crisis. But life unfolds the most beautiful and brilliant multi-faceted spectrum. When we face those "death" struggles every day that seem like a tragedy in the moment, by passing through them, something of life issues forth. Courage issues in new found strength. For example, many a marine has strengths they never knew existed. Sacrifice issues in something else. At first, it seems that John Singer was almost angelic-like in his sharing and giving to everybody else, as the face of God guiding everybody else through their crises, but failed to resolve his own conflicts. On closer inspection, I realized that he may have represented a Godly Christ-like figure, who through the symbolic act of sacrifice, of even facing ultimate rejection and betrayal as part of the death experience, the sacrificial lamb brings life to others, brings the most unlikely of people together as with father and daughter, breaks down barriers as in the symbolic hand-shake at his own burial site, and brings in eternal hope and love as when she makes the promise. This wasn't a tragedy per se. This was a festive celebration of new-found life, as the biblical seed that grows into a monumental tree. Whatever, you're interpretation of any great book, let go your creative juices, run with it, listen to the music speak to you, read this beautiful classic novel as it were your own spectral jewel, or Mozart on phonograph. I will never forget this novel.

Rating:
Summary: A moving, sensitive book about loneliness
Review: I first remember reading this book in high school and ever since then, it has become one of my favorite books. Perhaps it Was because I was in high school -- a most vulnerable and lonely time for some teenagers -- that this book moved me.
Carson McCullers writes about the lonely lives in a small southern town. Whether through an awkward girl, a drunk, a sexually confused man, or a deaf mute, Ms. McCullers manages to convey the loneliness and beauty of these characters. I have never read a book that spoke so distinctly about those feelings we always feel, but can never put into words. This, along with the Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, Tell Me that You Love Me, Junie Moon by Majorie Kellog, and McCullers' Member of the Wedding, is one of those rare books that speaks to the human condition, that puts into words all those strange feelings you could never quite articulate. A truly beautiful, sensitive, and poetic book. Read it!

Rating:
Summary: Maybe it's not a wonderful life
Review: Imagine George Bailey plunging to his death as "It's a Wonderful Life" comes to a premature end. In a sense, that's what we see in this compelling novel by Carson McCullers. We see what one man means to others but he is never given his Clarence to find that out himself.

It's hard to say just who is the main character in this book but I go with the idea that it is John Singer, a deaf mute who becomes the conscience of the community's troubled souls. There are certainly other characters who take their repeated turns on the main stage. There is an alcoholic labor agitator who can't seem to understand that complex new ideas are best delivered in simple, small doses. There is a black doctor who has risen to to a height of respectability due his profession that is denied him due to his color. There is the owner of a diner who is an observer of his community but apparently not a participant. There is a young girl who becomes a woman way too soon. All these people gravitate to Mr. Singer who can't speak but does a great job of listening (he is able to read lips). While they unload their cares, they assume that their listener has no cares of his own. The reader gradually realizes otherwise although Mr. Singer's solution to his own problems still comes as a shock. In the end, the others move on and we are left with a glimpse of into life in a rural town in the Deep South circa 1939 (quite similar to "To Kill a Mockingbird").

There are ample coices of themes in this book. What I took away with me was the interdependence people have on each other. Certainly there was plenty of discord shown on these pages. However, each character needed to have someone to talk to in order to deal with their inner turmoils. Mr. Singer was the ideal listener and people kept coming back to him because of this tonic that he offered. In contrast, Singer had no one to talk to about his turmoils. He did originally but that contact was withdrawn from him and ultimately lost to him altogether. I'm sure others who read this book found other insights. This is a very readable novel with something for everyone. Read it and discover your own messages.

Rating:
Summary: For Anyone Who's Ever Felt Like an Outcast or Misfit
Review: Published during the second World War, this novel takes an in-depth look into the lives of unique characters who throughout American history have come to epitomize the label of "different", "outcast", "weird", "freak" or "misfit". There is a character in the book that everyone can identify with and come to understand their world from a more insightful perspective. McCullers makes a brilliant showcase of life not as it should be or how we hope it will some day become, but as it is, without artifice or evasion. She allows us to look at ourselves without pity or self-loathing and without rationalization or retribution. We can see ourselves simply as human. If the definition of a literary classic is a title that stands the test of time, this novel certainly deserves that distinction.

Rating:
Summary: Tugs at chord of isolation we all have. Excellent book!
Review: This 1940 novel by Carson McCullers is set in a small southern town. It's about five different people and their relationships to each other. There is surface structure inasmuch as the chapters move back and forth, focusing on one character and then another and moving the action forward. But there's an appealing off-center feeling to it all, as this study in what it means to be a human being reflects the human condition without having to tie it all up in a neat little package.

Driving the story is John Singer, a deaf mute. When his friend Sprios, a fellow deaf mute, goes insane, John Singer attracts other alienated people, who pour their hearts out to him, believing that he understands everything. There's Jake, who drinks hard, requires constant stimulation of his senses to feel alive, and views the world though a communist philosophy. There's Dr. Copeland, a black physician, who so wants to improve the condition of his race, that he has driven his wife and children away because they never fit the picture of the way he wanted them to be. There's Mick, the adolescent girl, introspective and intuitive, who dreams of a future filled with music and travel. And then there is Biff, the owner of the Café, who collects old newspapers and tries to make sense out of what is going on around him. Everyone feels that the deaf-mute has some sort of magical presence. But yet, he too, proves to be very human.

The town itself is important to the story, and Ms. McCullers' makes use of the rhythms of the seasons and of music to bring the reader right there. The coming-of-age of the adolescent made me sad and the realities of racism caused me to cringe in horror. The alienation is deeply frustrating. This is exemplified by one very moving scene where two men debate how to handle injustices. Both men want the same things, but yet they talk past each other, each demanding that the other must follow a certain prescribed ideology.

Each character is restricted by limitations. Each one has desires. And each one has his or her desires crushed. How each one reacts and how this interaction affects everyone else is the essence of the story. The author's skill pulls it all together masterfully. It's a disturbing book as it tugs at that chord of isolation that exists in all of us. And yet, it is a wonderful read. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing writer!
Review: McCullers' "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" was such an amazing reading experience. This was my second time reading this novel and i learned so much more from reading it a couple years later. The character are so intense and real. McCuller just did such an incredible job with character development. It's as if she knew all these people personally. I definitely recommend this to anyone that is into heavy thinking.