![](https://image.librarything.com/pics/fugue21/magnifier-left.png)
![The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Carson…](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/P/0141185228.01._SX180_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Carson McCullers (Penguin Modern Classics) (original 1940; edition 2000)by Carson McCullers (Autor)
Work InformationThe Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940)
![]()
» 85 more 1940s (5) 501 Must-Read Books (142) Southern Fiction (21) Favorite Childhood Books (560) Unread books (63) Female Author (110) Favourite Books (444) 20th Century Literature (261) Carole's List (63) Top Five Books of 2022 (112) A Novel Cure (156) Best First Lines (33) Top Five Books of 2015 (657) Love and Marriage (21) Best Gothic Fiction (71) First Novels (28) Five star books (465) Books About Girls (34) Best Audiobooks (93) Books Read in 2021 (2,020) Books tagged favorites (137) Readable Classics (84) A's favorite novels (25) Books Read in 2023 (2,234) Books Read in 2010 (89) One Book, Many Authors (234) My Favourite Books (10) Books Read in 2022 (2,678) Read These Too (36) Ryan's Books (26) Overdue Podcast (428) To Read (5) Romans (35) Teens (13) Cooper (73)
I admit that I've never read Carson McCullers books and decided I needed to change that and try one. I'm not one for “classic” books (or my interpretation) either so another reason for me. I think it's one of the “oldest” books (year wise that I've read ever). I couldn't finish this book. I tried. It wasn't coming together for me enough I guess. The characters were interesting. As the title implies, this is a book about loneliness and people's various ways they attempt to cope. Each of the characters had a driving passion that they kept hidden except when they spewed out feelings to someone who did not or could not respond. In some ways it's a bleak book but it does reflect the human conditions
No matter what the age of its author, "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" would be a remarkable book. When one reads that Carson McCullers is a girl of 22 it becomes more than that. Maturity does not cover the quality of her work. It is something beyond that, somthing more akin to the vocation of pain to which a great poet is born. Reading her, one feels this girl is wrapped in knowledge which has roots beyond the span of her life and her experience. How else can she so surely plumb the hearts of characters as strange and, under the force of her creative shaping, as real as she presents—two deaf mutes, a ranting, rebellious drunkard, a Negro torn from his faith and lost in his frustrated dream of equality, a restaurant owner bewildered by his emotions, a girl of 13 caught between the world of people and the world of shadows. Carson McCullers is a full-fledged novelist whatever her age. She writes with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming. "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" is a first novel. One anticipates the second with something like fear. So high is the standard she has set. It doesn't seem possible that she can reach it again. Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inHas the adaptationHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Story centers around a deaf-mute in a southern town, who, because of his affliction, must "listen" and so receives the confidences of many. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.52Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1900-1944LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
|
He ends up in the boarding house run by the Kelly family, and it's here that he attracts one of what turns out to be a small but devoted group of...well, followers is the best way to describe it. Mick Kelly, the musically-inclined daughter of the not-well-off family, comes often to Singer's room to talk to him (he can read lips and will occasionally respond in writing) and listen to the radio. At the local cafe, Singer attracts the lonely owner, Biff, who has a bad marriage even before he's widowed, and Jake, a traveling labor organizer trying to inspire the locals to band together. And then he also manages to meet and attract the attention of Dr. Benedict Copeland, the only black doctor in town, whose children (including the maid for the Kelly family) have refused to follow in his footsteps. While he moves through all of these people's lives at the center of their obsession, though, he maintains his own obsession with his friend and former roommate, regularly visiting him and bringing him expensive gifts.
I'll be honest...when I first started reading this, I was concerned that it was going to be a "sad lonely people being sad and lonely" story. Unless they're particularly well-written, those types of stories don't tend to appeal to me. But what I actually found here was a beautifully realized tale of the desperate human need to connect and feel like someone understands you. Each of the people drawn to John is estranged from most social connections: Mick, because her sensitivity and love for music makes her an oddball among her family and most of her peers, Biff, because he and his wife, who he was estranged from, never had the family he craved, Jake, because he's an actual outsider to the community whose efforts to organize them only alienate them instead, and Dr. Copeland because his education and pride separate him from his children as well as his community. In John, who can only listen and doesn't talk and is kind-hearted, they find the acceptance they covet. For John, though, the only person in his life who can understand him and he can communicate with in sign is Antonopolous, and it therefore it is this bond that John prizes above all others.
It's such an insightful look into the human condition that it's hard to believe Carson McCullers was only 23 when she wrote it. We're a social species, humans. We want to be members of the group. Feeling outside of it, especially when we're teenagers like Mick, is difficult to bear. For the most part, the characters McCullers creates feel real and sympathetic...John himself is really the least plausible character, to so patiently bear the demands on his time and emotional energy that his acolytes demand from him. I found myself wondering why he didn't literally shut the door on them once in a while to get some time to recharge. This novel would be best for fans of character-driven rather than plot-driven stories, because quite little actually "happens" besides the emotional journeys of the people involved. But if you're down for a slower, quieter book, this is really very lovely. (