The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Kerr

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I picked this up somewhere and just got around to it. My copy was published in 2000 and has the Oprah Book Club stamp. The back tells that Carson McCullers was only 23 when she wrote this book. My hat is off.

On page one, I closed the book and went to bed. It reads something like a first grade primer. There are two deaf mutes. I'm not sure why I pressed on. It wasn't terrible writing, just quiet--two very simple people with a simple life. Chapter two begins with a married couple who own a pub/diner arguing over a drunken, rambling customer. Wonderful contrast! I felt the words like never before after that silent opening.

But that's only the beginning of all the simple declarations this author makes in slow explosive ways. I'm halfway through and cannot put the book down. The hard thing to believe is that she had such a thorough understanding of man's nature at such a young age. Or that she had such patience to sit silently at the keyboard allowing her characters to act out her thoughts on subjects such as southern religion, race and politics. I am in awe and will have to get everything she ever wrote.

Has anyone else read Carson McCullers?
 

KTC

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I absolutely love this book and I love her. If you like it, you will have to try Ballad of the Sad Cafe and my favourite; Clock Without Hands.


She is so understated...and her stuff really hits you profoundly.
 

CaroGirl

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I loved that book. It's the only one I've read of hers but I'll definitely put the others on my list. Thanks for the reminder about this wonderful author. I have my copy around here somewhere. It's really old and I think I picked it up at a used bookstore. Seems to suit the story that my book is worn and dog-eared.
 

gerrydodge

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I absolutely love this book and I love her. If you like it, you will have to try Ballad of the Sad Cafe and my favourite; Clock Without Hands.


She is so understated...and her stuff really hits you profoundly.

I totally agree! Carson McCullers is a splendid writer.
 

Will Lavender

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The opening three pages of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter are some of the most eloquent in all of American fiction. I don't think it reads like a first-grade primer; in fact, I think the language is spare, beautiful, and (yes, that's a good word) oddly "explosive."

Required reading for all aspiring novelists.
 

oneblindmouse

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I read "The heart is a lonely hunter" about a month ago and loved it! Like you, Kerr, I was stunned to think McCullers was so young when she wrote it! And just wait till you get to the end......!

I have her "Ballad of the Sad Café" waiting on the overloaded shelf of books-to-be-read, and plan to read it as soon as the Xmas season is over and some semblance of normality returns to my life.
 

Storyteller5

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Usually an endorsement from Oprah puts a book on my do-not-read list.
But I do like to hear from other writers what they think is a good read; your opinions hold more weight for me. :)
 

Kerr

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Usually an endorsement from Oprah puts a book on my do-not-read list.
But I do like to hear from other writers what they think is a good read; your opinions hold more weight for me. :)

Really? I've picked up only a few, but so far haven't been disappointed. Maybe I've just been lucky. But for the most part, I judge by the first paragraph or so. If the writing stinks, it starts to get too aggravating to try to plough through.

But do try this one. You won't be disappointed. First grade primer was a bad choice. The writing is simple and eloquent. She has stripped it clean of most of what we clutter our writing with trying to make things clear (If that explains it.) Instead, she relies almost entirely on vision, hearing and smell alone, and what goes on inside each main character's thoughts. As she goes on, you realize how great is the space between each human being, why we have so much trouble communicating.

I'm right at the end and dying to see how she closes it.
 

blacbird

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By any standard, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is a classic, one of the dozen or so finest novels in American literature of the 20th Century.

Carson McCullers was a splendid, careful writer, who paid more attention to quality than to quantity. And more attention to her work than to promoting her personal fame. She ranks with such writers as Katherine Anne Porter and Walter Van Tilburg Clark in that category. More prolific great writers, Hemingway and Faulkner prominent among them, laid some turds along the path of their Nobel-Prize careers. Not McCullers. No one interested in great literature written in the English language should be unfamiliar with her work.

caw
 

gerrydodge

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By any standard, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is a classic, one of the dozen or so finest novels in American literature of the 20th Century.

Carson McCullers was a splendid, careful writer, who paid more attention to quality than to quantity. And more attention to her work than to promoting her personal fame. She ranks with such writers as Katherine Anne Porter and Walter Van Tilburg Clark in that category. More prolific great writers, Hemingway and Faulkner prominent among them, laid some turds along the path of their Nobel-Prize careers. Not McCullers. No one interested in great literature written in the English language should be unfamiliar with her work.

caw

While I totally agree that Hemingway laid some turds along the way, I can't think of a single novel that wasn't better or as good as any novel written in American Literature by Faulkner. Even THE RIEVERS I think was very fine in many ways.
 

Kerr

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Well, I finished it this morning and found the end as real as life can be. I'm a little depressed now. LOL

I wanted to ask if anyone found themselves comparing this book to any others. There is one everyone should have knowledge of that crossed my mind a good deal, and another less popular that she almost quotes twice. I thought I'd wait to hear what you guys had to say before stating them.
 
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And all aspiring readers.

Never read it. And I'm the most widely-read person I know (in real life, I mean, as opposed to the people on here). About 100 books a year, at least, and I know of authors some of my friends have never even hear of.
 

KTC

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By any standard, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is a classic, one of the dozen or so finest novels in American literature of the 20th Century.

Carson McCullers was a splendid, careful writer, who paid more attention to quality than to quantity. And more attention to her work than to promoting her personal fame. She ranks with such writers as Katherine Anne Porter and Walter Van Tilburg Clark in that category. More prolific great writers, Hemingway and Faulkner prominent among them, laid some turds along the path of their Nobel-Prize careers. Not McCullers. No one interested in great literature written in the English language should be unfamiliar with her work.

caw


I could not agree more. She had this economy that not many writers ever achieve. A wonderful talent who left us beautiful books.
 

blacbird

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While I totally agree that Hemingway laid some turds along the way, I can't think of a single novel that wasn't better or as good as any novel written in American Literature by Faulkner. Even THE RIEVERS I think was very fine in many ways.

Faulkner's early work, prior to his discovery of Yoknapatawpha, was pedestrian with obvious flashes of ability. Rare later departures from Mississippi setting, notably A Fable, haven't stood up very well. But I'd agree that Hemingway wrote more real tripe than Faulkner. The Reivers is a very fine novel, and generally regarded as such by every critic I've read.

IMO nothing equals the totality of The Snopes Trilogy.

caw
 

blacbird

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Never read it. And I'm the most widely-read person I know (in real life, I mean, as opposed to the people on here). About 100 books a year, at least, and I know of authors some of my friends have never even hear of.

I suspect that Carson McCullers may not be as well known outside the U.S. Pity, that. I'll be interested to hear your opinion, from the perspective of someone whose cultural background must be considerably different from hers, if you give her work a go.

caw
 
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I bought the book today. :D

I shall hold forth with my judgement-to-end-all-judgements as soon as I finish reading it. (And the four others I bought at the same time...What can I say? Payday)!

Once I give my opinion, no contrary opinion may be expressed by any other persons here present, for thus I will have spoken.
 

Kerr

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What a great Christmas present to me. I'm sitting at my desk this morning looking at McCullers face on a hardback book that's been sitting in a pile since Summer. Somehow the pile got rearranged and she was on top. I'd completely forgotten I had this book. It's from the Library of America with all her books inside, AND a little Bible-like ribbon to mark your page. How cool is that.

Speaking of Bible, that was one of the books that kept crossing my mind as I read. I think you couldn't help relating Singer to Jesus. The other was Stranger In A Strange Land. I forget the author's name. But there were even two phrases in McCullers story which felt like they were taken from this book. For anyone not familiar with the story, it's an alien from Mars (I believe, it's been awhile.) born on Earth, but raised there, who returns, but understands little of humans and visa versa. Even so, people begin to listen to everything he says as though he's the second-coming.

This was always one of my favorites; I'll have to read it again. Anyhow, you can see the parallels.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas.
 

oneblindmouse

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The author of "Stranger in a strange land" is Robert Heinlein, and it's one the great SF classics!!! Probably the first SF story I ever read.
 

Kerr

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Thanks. Yes, another I'd recommend to anyone. A great read.
 

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Carson McCullers' genius

So I read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter a few years ago and thought McCullers couldn't do much better---it was one of the best books I'd ever read. However, I recently finished The Member of the Wedding, which I think might have eclipsed the first book. I think it's one of the most accurate representations of human interaction and emotional turmoil that I've ever read. Barely anything actually happens in the book, but I found the characters so compelling and vivid I had to constantly remind myself they weren't real. And the descriptions of Frankie's feelings are extraordinary in that they capture things that I previously thought indescribable. Things like those strange moments when you feel like the world has suddenly changed and you don't know who or where you are. I read most of the book thinking, "Oh! I know exactly how you feel!"

Has anyone read McCullers? Any thoughts? Love her? Hate her?
 

KTC

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I love her. My favourites are Clock Without Hands and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. Every time I re-read one of her works I'm amazed by the scope of her talent.
 

alleycat

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Back when I was in my late teens I think I read just about everything McCullers had written. It's been a while since I've went back and read any of her work.
 

blacbird

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One of the greatest American fiction writers ever. Period. McCullers suffered from bad health all her adult life, which doubtless curtailed her output, much to our lasting regret.

caw