The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Rating:
Summary: Waste of time
Review: "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" is simply a compilation of character sketches loosely strung together. If you are a student of literary characterization and the methods authors use to bring a character to life, you might enjoy this book. The charcters are indeed animated. However, if you are searching for a book that combines vivid characters with any sort of plot, this book is not for you. By the time I was half-way through the book I was seriously wondering when a coherant plot would develop. One never materialized. This book does not adhere to the standard beginning-middle-end, protagonist-antagonist-plot-resolution formula by which most novels abide.
As I was reading this book as a book club assignment, I trudged through to its completion. Now all I wish is that I could recapture the hours of life wasted on its pages.

Rating:
Summary: You won't forget it. Beautiful and engaging
Review: All of us have a variety of characters that we meet and encounter throughout our lives. Some of them odd, some of them funny, some of them dull, and I venture to say we have bumped into, on more than one occasion, those whom we might deem as a "social outcast." Never before had I read a novel that attempted to put into words what it might be like to be one of these lonely outcasts. Of course the characters in "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," are not viewed in a way we would think of most outcasts. They are viewed in the story with a sense of realism and awe that most novels can not generate. These characters and their lives and thoughts will become more and more real as the novel unfolds.

The novel is told in brilliant, almost poetic third person. Although I bet if down the road if someone were to ask you about this book, you would swear it was told in first person by each of the characters. The novel is essentially about a year in time of five very different, very vivid characters. The characters are all searching for something they can never seem to find. All of them are as different as night and day, but have so many things in common.

The story switches from one character to another with each passing section. We gain tremendous insight to their personal lives, oddities, and behavior in a writing style like no other. If I had to choose who the main character would be, it would have to be Mr. Singer. Mr. Singer is a mute. He can understand words that are spoken to him by the movements of others lips. The story opens beautifully, describing his friendship with another mute friend, Antropulous. The story describes the poignant feelings Mr. Singer has toward his friend. Soon into the story, Mr. Singer's friend is put a mental institution by his own brother. This turn of events wounds and scars the heart of Mr. Singer. Not soon after, Mr. Singer begins going to a café, which is owned by another one of the stories characters, Biff. Biff is very strange, and has become even stranger since the death of his wife. He has one redeeming quality, in that he takes good care of the customers who some into his café. One of these customers is Jake. Jake is another outcast. He is an alcoholic, with a mean streak in him. He rants and raves about how unequal the country is. Another character we encounter in the café is Mick. Mick might be the most fascinating character in the story. She is kind of a tomboy, who loves music, and exploring the streets at night. The final main character is Mr. Compton, a black doctor, who has hatred in his heart for white men.

McCullers does a superb job of bringing these characters all together. Mr. Singer finds a new place to stay after his best friend goes to the nut house. That new place is Mick's house. One by one, the main characters meet Mr. Singer and become magnetically drawn to them. They tell him of their frustration, their worries, and how they feel about life. Mr. Singer just smiles and listens because he can't speak. Occasionally, he will write down something on a piece of paper if he has something important to say.

Mr. Singer can't figure out why these people are drawn to him. The fascinating thing is that all the main characters know each other, yet none of them like anyone by Mr. Singer, who seems to be the thread holding all their lives together. Mick loves him more than her own father, Mr. Compton feels he is the only white man with any worth, Biff just finds him interesting, and Jake considers him the only one who understands. All along, Mr. Singer has loneliness in his own heart for his friend that has been sent away. Every so often he gets a chance to visit him, but it is not the same. These visits are some of the most breathtaking passages in the novel.

There is not time or room to explain all that happens in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I have just given some of the basics. There is so much more that happens, and so much more that I could say.

I don't know if I have ever enjoyed reading a novel as much as this one. The language was so alive, so fresh, so beautiful, and so heart wrenching. This book might have the most interesting characters I have ever read about. I can't get it out of my head. It is hard to put into words the reasons that make this book a masterpiece. One is that it evokes powerful emotions with you. McCullers is an absolute master at pointing out little observances, oddities, and other things in life that we might just forget about, or not take the time to notice. The book is filled with these precious little gems scattered throughout the masterful plot and style.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is also very entertaining. Yet it goes past the mediocrity of mindless entertainment, and takes us on a deep, emotional, and unsentimental journey through the lives of people that you will come to know so well. You will feel that if you met these characters in real life, you would know everything about them. McCullers puts in the time, and the reader is heavily rewarded. Even if the characters might not be extremely likable, but we care so much to find out what will happen next in their lives.

I loved this book. The story and mood has continued to linger on in my mind, compared to other books that fade so quickly. This story is more felt than read. I love it even more the way McCullers ends this book. The ending takes a turn no one could have expected, and makes the novel even more deep and thoughtful that it would have been otherwise. Why can't every book be this good? Why can't every book shake my soul to the core with such power as this one did? These questions, like many others posed by this masterpiece, are left unanswered.

Grade: A


Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: Simply a beautiful book which focusses on 4 main characters and how they lack the ability to share their life and desires with others. This is alleviated by the most unlikely character, whom the others are finally able to relate to. Set in the depression era south, a few of these characters have some radical political beliefs, but I think that is understandable given their economic situation. I listened to the unabridged audio version and it was extremely well done.

Rating:
Summary: Many shades of gray
Review: Besides this book, I have read "A Member of the Wedding" by Carson McCullers. It is very striking to me that when I read each of these books, my mental images of the characters and settings were in black and white. Well, really, I saw it all play out in shades of gray. Maybe this is because she wrote about a time period when all movies were in black and white, and I just translated it that way in my mind. However, I think it is more likely because everyone and everything in this book are dark, often dirty, lowly, depressed, depressing and teetering on the verge of hopelessness.

The characters never connect with one another - even when they are trying to do so. They don't have authentic relationships when they think that they have. Each of them wants to share his or her inner-most truths, and without exception they are impotent in their attempts. Also, they each have things that they want to do, talents that they want to express. There are barriers that they can't or don't overcome to reach their goals or achieve any sort of success. The title is very apt because the overriding feeling of the book is loneliness.

The book is very well written. Each chapter is written as a stream of consciousness of one of 4 main characters who each move the story forward a (very tiny) bit. This book is all about characters and setting. It is definitely NOT about plot. McCullers remains stylistically consistent throughout, which seems to be quite an accomplishment.

I feel that reading this book is a literary accomplishment rather than something that led to enjoyment. I would suggest that ambitious readers should definitely read this book. On the other hand, if you prefer having a plot, uplifting themes, happy endings, characters that overcome their limitations, or basically anything at all pleasant, you may not want to spend your reading efforts on this book.

Rating:
Summary: Regarding the Audio Version
Review: The story is tightly written and very insightful. The characters are well developed. If I were rating the book, I would give it five stars. However, I chose the audio edition, which does not do justice to the book. The reader makes all of the characters sound drunk. Her Southern and Black accents are terrible. Her voice is so shrill and jarring that I have to continually readjust the volume. If you can't manage the book version, skip it altogether.

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended book
Review: McCullers has an insight into person psychology that allows her to create great characters that everyone can relate to. This is my third time reading this book. It is a great piece of work, and beautifully written. It is a superb memoir, and the author's style is impressive. The characters are as rich as any who have ever been imagined, and the story is just breathtaking. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Gets under your skin
Review: I remember finding this book when I was about 12 on my mom's bookshelf, and stealing it (this strategy also yielded "The Godfather," which taught me more about sex than any health class, and Mary Renoult's books "The Bull from the Sea" and "The Persian Boy", among many others.) It was a strange little book that took a 12 year old a couple of attempts to penetrate.

When I finally "got it," I read and reread it many times.

Her writing style is odd, and for we Americans who are fed a daily diet of characters who are winners, the misfits that populate thist story consist mostly of those quirky, awkward parts of our adolescence that we'd rather forget.

But as you dig deeper into the story, McCuller's bittersweet Southern Gothic tale resonates with the force of a well-played, highly amplified bass guitar. The utterly unforgiving look at the suffering and transcendent overcoming of life's tragedies sweeps you away with its stark beauty.

Comparisons with Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" are unavoidable, and widely miss the mark. While both are stories of misfits in the American South of the 20s/30s/40s, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" pulls no punches as it looks into the despair and strength of people hanging on, on the edge of society, who look both beauty and heartache in the eye and flinch from neither.

Aside from McCullers' own "Ballad of the Sad Cafe," Annie Proulx is her spiritual and literary heir, particulary in "The Shipping News" and even more directly in "Close Range: Wyoming Stories." If you loved "Close Range," you'll also get "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," and vice versa.

Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A Real Classic
Review: Carson McCullers did a wonderful job with "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter". You can find all the descriptions of the story line elsewhere. I'll simply leave it that you should absolutely include this book on ANY reading list.