Difficult read. Not my style.

Heartwarming and sad, odballs all normal, all normals questioning your own view on normality and conformity.

Reads like a real classic. This novel has a vibe to it that is hard to describe. A bit surreal without really being surrealistic. A bit political without being political.

This has become a favourite!

It deals with five very different characters, though their stories correlate as it switches between their POVs. They are all somewhat outcasts within their society. It particularly pivots around one character who is a deaf-mute and for some reason those characters are drawn to him, finding a genuine connection, feeling comfortable and content enough to let him know all of their struggles, dreams, failures, and projecting their loneliness and need onto him and finding the solace they crave for.

Whilst reading this book, you realise how appropriate the title is: it perfectly echoes throughout the novel, all the way till the very end. The universal human need for companionship, to be understood and accepted. What loneliness and the emptiness of the heart can drive a person to do. It was written so powerfully, the prose beautiful, albeit harrowing.

To be honest, I'm finding it difficult to properly articulate how impactful this book was. It dealt with some very dark and bleak themes, and it just hits you how harsh life can be. It's incredible to think that the author was 23 years old when this novel was published.

I absolutely fell in love with the narrative and as the story progressed, that love became much deeper, etching itself into my heart. Those characters resonated with me so much. Overall, it was a stunning and insightful read that I couldn't get enough of and wished it was longer. It's one of those novels I know I'll revisit and each time I reread it, I know I'll gain a better insight and a different perspective than the last time.

Carson McCullers was only 22/23 when she wrote this; an amazing feat and a truly great novel. The plot centres around John Singer a man who is deaf and mute. Singer initially lives with his friend Spiros Antanopoulos. Their companionship comes to an end when Spiros's mental health deteriorates and he is admitted to an asylum. Singer then takes a room in the Kelly hpusehold. Here a group of people gravitate around him.
Mick Kelly, the daughter of the household has musical aspirations and feels out of place as she grows up. Biff Brannon, the owner of the local bar/diner who has recently lost his wife. Benedict Copeland, an African American doctor who has great hopes and ideals. Finally Jake Blount, a radical and labour agitator who is also an alcoholic.
They all gravitiate towards Singer and his room; each with their own different angsts and stories. Singer is like a mirror who reflects their concerns. He is attentive and can read lips. He writes down what he wishes to say. They all believe him to be taking in their concerns and feel better for talking to him. The fortunes of most of them are in a downward spiral (this is the depression). Copeland is ill and has family problems; he is also increasingly affected by the oppression and racism he experiences and sees around him. Mick Kelly is watching her family descend into poverty following a shocking occurence. Blount is being overtaken by his drinking and is frustrated by the society he lives in.
Events spiral towards a tragedy that is unexpected.
Isolation and loneliness run throughout as a theme in the novel, as does the ache ofunachieved hope and ambition. Things do not always work out for the good and endings are seldom happy; people take more than they give and don't see what is in front of them.
Singer reminded me of the religious symbol of the animal (goat) onto which all the sins of the community are placed and is then sent out into the wilderness carrying the sin with it. He is a holy, almost religious figure for the other characters. Singer is treated by the others as a tabula rasa, but a knowing one who agrees with them.
The writing is simple and poetic and the whole thing will tear your heart out. Oppression and injustice have bee with us for so long and continue to be with us. This book is a poignant reminder that they happen to real people with real hopes and dreams. It is also a reminder that the person opposite you has their own feelings and aspirations too. The title is perfect and poetic.

I am not able to find words to express how beautifully the author captured the depths of human isolation.

It’s like when one can look for hours at a painting but may fall short of adequately expressing the plethora of emotions it evokes.

The profound emotional impact of this book lies in its ability to elicit a poignant exploration of Loneliness.

Through meticulously crafted characters, an adolescent girl with heart set in music, Mick Kelly, a mechanic and social radical, Jake Blount, a black doctor and social activist, Doctor Copeland, a café owner, Biff Brannon, and the central thread interweaving their lives, a deaf-mute man, John Singer, the author delves into their desires, their vulnerabilities, and a search for meaning amidst a world marked by despair.

The author wonderfully captures the universal longing for connection inherent in each person and delves into the struggles of daily human existence. How we all need someone to “listen”, an empathizer.tMaybe not necessarily to “talk-to” but to listen and understand. In this book this role is played by John Singer.

He walked with his shoulders very straight and kept his hands always stuffed down into his pockets. His grey eyes seemed to take in everything around him, and in his face there was still the look of peace that is seen most often in those who are very wise or very sorrowful. He was always glad to stop with anyone who wished his company. For after all he was only walking and going nowhere.

Mick Kelly, Jake Blount, Doctor Copeland, and Biff Brannon are lonely people. There is something which is a key to their despair, a personal reason, or a social issue. But they all find a haven in John Singer. His silence and calm draws each of them to him and he becomes their confidant, their sole friend, their refuge. But he has troubles of his own. What about his thoughts and loneliness?

The fellow was downright uncanny. People felt themselves watching him even before they knew that there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things nobody else had ever heard, that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did not seem quite human.

She whispered some words out loud: 'Lord forgiveth me, for I knoweth not what I do. Why did she think of that? Everybody in the past few years knew there wasn't any real God. When she thought of what she used to imagine was God she could only see Mister Singer with a long, white sheet around him. God was silent - maybe that was why she was reminded. She said the words again, just as she would speak them to Mister Singer: ‘Lord forgiveth me, for I knoweth not what I do’.

He made half a dozen calls, and in the middle of the morning he went to Mr Singer's room. The visit blunted the feeling of loneliness in him so that when he said good-bye he was at peace with himself once more.

In a novel with multiple characters, the author marvelously highlights the complexities of the emotional journeys of each of those.

The novel deepens its emotional resonance by also tackling social issues such as racial inequality, economic hardship, and the erosion of dreams, all of which amplify the isolation of each character. It also has a wonderful and sympathetic coming of age angle with respect to Mick.

I loved this book, and this will now be my go-to recommendation to anyone.

Very highly recommended!!

“The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.”

5 ‘lonely hearts’ for a book that portrays the heavy theme of loneliness, much of which stems from prejudice, intolerance in some form, and the inability to communicate effectively. So, what better way to depict the sobering effects of this strong message than to create a voiceless mute at the centre of the story. Singer is a man who struggles to cope with his own loneliness, and whilst at hand to listen to the troubled lives of the other four main characters, there is an innate ability for them to recognise Singer’s personal wilderness.

Affecting, touching, evocative, and a little gem of a book that will take you through a symphony of emotions. A little book by a young author whose maturity and insight to have written this at the age of just 23 is just remarkable. An easy 5 stars.

The Plot

John Singer shares an apartment and a habitual silence with his friend Spiros Antonapoulos, until Spiros is committed to an asylum. Only able to communicate via slips of paper, Singer moves to a small apartment and frequents a café, owned by Biff Brannon and his wife Alice. After a period of time Biff begins to open up about the loneliness he feels in his marriage that has yet to bless the couple with children.

Soon the friendships extend to Dr Copeland, a black physician in a predominantly white town. We also have Jake Blunt who is a heavy drinker, and who’s self-loathing often sees him fly into bouts of rage and anger, which only perpetuates the feeling of isolation as people distance themselves from his company. Thereafter he is caught up in this vicious circle of anger, rejection, and then isolation. Mike represents youth and the prejudices that come with age either being too old or too young to be taken seriously. A young girl who has ideas but often feels misunderstood by those around her.

The perfect cast to portray loneliness, solitude and the feelings engendered by isolation, like low self esteem. Loneliness ultimately caused by racism, ageism, alcoholism, infertility, politics, religion, social division, and disability. All packed into this literary gem.

Review and Comments

There is a haunting simplicity in the way this story is told. The reason I say ‘haunting’ is because you never shake off this ever-present sense that sorrow and fate will have their day, despite it not being a gloomy book. There is simplicity in the writing style too. The stripped back nature of the prose is incredibility effective in this very human portrayal of loneliness and rejection. Even the characters are deliberately uncomplicated or complex because the themes are.

The book title is perfect for a book that gets to the heart of loneliness that few books have achieved for me. It is a book that doesn’t shy away from strong evocative themes and prejudices to deliver this powerful message of loneliness, and the importance of communication. It is ironic that although Singer is there for his companions, when he reaches one of his lowest points, he feels more alone than ever despite amassing this unlikely band of friends because no one sees it.

The character development is also superb. It is a book that gives a voice to the voiceless, A book that offers company to the repressed, lonely, or even rejected people. A book that warns of how we can become so engrossed in our own worries and consumed by our need to be understood that we might fail to see the anguish felt by those around us.

Heart breaking – yes because Carson McCullers refuses to provide the utopian ending for all the characters, so we as readers are not distracted from the core themes she wanted to depict. Loneliness, self esteem, acceptance, love (including self love) and communication. Highly recommended.

I will leave you with two very important quotes on loneliness from two very different characters. One a cartoon character Shrek, and the other one of the most iconic female figures of all time, Mother Teresa.

They judge me before they even know me. That’s why I’m better off alone.” —Shrek

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.” — Mother Teresa

The heart is maybe a lonely hunter, but it is also a very boring hunter. This book is very (very very) slow, and while McCullers shows how each one of her five protagonists is lonely from very different reasons, the slowness of this book makes it very hard to enjoy. In addition, it is pretty much all over the place, almost no plot to be found. Seems like in the 1940s writers did not have editors (same problem with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which is a much much better book in my opinion, but could use massive editing and shortening).

So while the ideas are quite interesting, the execution is lacking. Each character is found in a state of isolated existence. Inability to speak, a spouse death, differences in intelligence or education level or political point of view. Each of these, and many more reasons can make a person feel lonely.

I know for a fact that some people around the 1940s found good editors (or were just much more talented writers to begin with). 1984 by George Orwell, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner), all of these are timeless books, that are just a treat to read. With outstanding plots, awesome writing and great portraying of characters. Those are books were every page counts, that stay in memory for a lifetime.

I am highly disappointed, 2 stars.

Let's get this out of the way. Garima, Dolors and Aubrey's gorgeously written tributes to the spirit of this American classic have pretty much made the task of composing additional paeans unnecessary. So my review is only going to be a shoddily-disguised justification for upgrading an initial 4-star rating to a deserving 5-star one. No I didn't choose to accord that previously withheld star bowing to a monster named 'peer pressure'.

The actual worth of a work of literature can be measured by the power it wields over a reader once the last page has been turned. And this is exactly that kind of narrative which refuses to let go even after you have managed to extricate yourself from its emotional chokehold. I had believed the specter of oppressive gloom to be well and truly exorcized once I closed the book a few days ago, comfortable in the certainty that other pending items on the to-read list will monopolize my attention soon. And yet that didn't happen. As much as I appreciated falling under the spell of Shirley Jackson's dark and disqueting 'Hill House' or revelled in Erica Jong's tongue-in-cheek brazenness, a sort of inexplicable wistfulness came over me last night. I longed for the tedium of that nameless, ramshackle town in the deep south and that familiar all-consuming sense of doom shared by its inhabitants. I craved once again to listen to the conflicted inner voices of the forlorn quartet who sought to purge the spiritual turmoil brewing within them through the companionable silence of a kindred spirit.
n  

"She wondered what kind of music he heard in his mind that his ears couldn't hear. Nobody knew. And what kind of things he would say if he could talk. Nobody knew that either."

n
The hauntingly plaintive notes of their emotional desolation reach me no more; the dirge has played itself over after all. But their untameable restlessness has seeped into my being unknowingly. I resent this inability to wrench myself away from the world of Mick Kelly, Biff Brannon, Jake Blount, Doctor Copeland and John Singer. I cherish it at the same time. And I want to live in exile in the company of these solitary outcasts, perpetually engaged in the futile quest of disentangling the mess of existence.

There are layers upon layers to this book that reveal themselves once the post-reading rumination phase begins. At the time of its publication, the deep south was carving out an existence around a kind of fragile status quo almost in the same manner as South Africa under Apartheid was. My mind still fresh from MLK's autobiography, thus, Doctor Copeland's unwavering faith in a 'strong, true purpose' appeared as a kind of foreshadowing of the rise of a Martin Luther King a decade and a half later, a veritable leader fated to help instill a fierce sense of self-esteem in the members of a disinherited community and consequently save an entire nation from a dangerous identity crisis. McCullers's depiction of race relations is imbued with a kind of subliminal prophetic certainty that the already tottering edifice of discrimination and injustice cannot possibly stand for long.

"For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice." - Virginia Woolf

And the above quote from A Room of One's Own is the final and most definitive reason for awarding this enduring classic 5 stars. It's not just McCullers's voice which rings out in mournful solidarity with the disaffection and thwarted aspirations of the central characters in this novel. Rather it's the imperfectly harmonized chorus of voices of an entire generation belting out a sombre refrain and asking for release, for freedom from countless indignities, for the assurance of a life worth living.

n  "...in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who-one word-love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him he felt a warning, a shaft of terror. Between two worlds he was suspended."n

The lonely hunters may have bid me farewell already but they have shared with me their wisdom and courage and taught me the language of their despair and feeble hope. Herefrom I draw my solace.

don't think I've ever read a more mature, clear-eyed depiction of loneliness--this condition we're in more often than not, how we spend our lives trying to to fix it, and how we fail most of the time

This debut novel from Carson McCullers blew me away. She was 23 — only 23!! — when it was published in 1940, and her book is incredibly gorgeous and moving.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter follows a deaf man, John Singer, in a Georgia mill town in the 1930s. Singer is lonely after his one good friend, Spiros, is taken away to a mental hospital. Gradually, other people in the town come to regard Singer as a confidante, and we get involved in the lives of four people: tomboy Mick Kelly, who loves music and hopes to someday escape the town; diner owner Biff, who is in an unhappy marriage; Dr. Copeland, a black man who wishes he could inspire more people to improve themselves; and Jake, a political protester who struggles with alcoholism.

My favorite character was Mick, an adolescent girl who seemed like a stand-in for Carson. I took this novel with me on a recent trip to Georgia, and it was perfect, because southern writers are meant to be read in the South. (Carson was born in Columbus, Georgia, and later escaped to New York.)

I was surprised at how modern and relevant this book felt. I admired how Carson wrote these characters to be so real and well-formed. This novel was an engrossing read, and when I finished I was sad to say goodbye to these folks. Highly recommended.

Favorite Quotes
"The fellow was downright uncanny. People felt themselves watching him even before they knew that there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things nobody else had ever heard, that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did not seem quite human."

"It was always funny how many people could crowd in from nowhere when anything out of the ordinary happened."

"Because in some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons — throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to."

"I doesn't see my Father much — maybe once a week — but I done a lot of thinking about him. I feels sorrier for him than anybody I knows. I expect he done read more books than any white man in this town. He done read more books and he done worried about more things. He full of books and worrying. He done lost God and turned his back to religion. All his troubles come down just to that."

"But you haven't never loved God nor even nair person. You hard and tough as cowhide. But just the same I knows you. This afternoon you going to roam all over the place without never being satisfied. You going to traipse all around like you haves to find something lost. You going to work yourself up with excitement. Your heart going to beat hard enough to kill you because you don't love and don't have peace. And then some day you going to bust loose and be ruined. Won't nothing help you then."

"What I'm trying to tell you is plain and simple. The bastards who own these mills are millionaires. While the doffers and carders and all the people behind the machines who spin and weave the cloth can't hardly make enough to keep their guts quiet. See? So when you walk around the streets and think about it and see hungry, worn-out people and ricket-legged younguns, don't it make you mad? Don't it?"

"You see, it's like I'm two people. One of me is an educated man. I been in some of the biggest libraries in the country. I read. I read all the time. I read books that tell the pure honest truth. Over there in my suitcase I have books by Karl Marx and Thorstein Veblen and such writers as them. I read them over and over, and the more I study the madder I get. I know every word printed on every page ... But what I'm getting at is this. When a person knows and can't make the others understand, what does he do?"

"It don't take words to make a quarrel ... It look to me like us is always arguing even when we sitting perfectly quiet like this."

"Doctor Copeland did not know how to begin. Sometimes he thought that he had talked so much in the years before to his children and they had understood so little that now there was nothing at all to say."

"Wonderful music lik this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen."

"Being mad is no good. Nothing we can do is any good. That's the way it seems to me. All we can do is go around telling the truth. And as soon as enough of the don't-knows have learned the truth then there won't be any use for fighting. The only thing for us to do is let them know. All that's needed. But how?"

"But we are forced to sell our strength, our time, our souls during almost every hour that we live. We have been freed from one kind of slavery only to be delivered into another. Is this freedom? Are we yet free men?"

"All I can say is this: The world is full of meanness and evil. Huh! Three fourths of this globe is in a state of war or oppression. The liars and fiends are united and the men who know are isolated and without defense."

"How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?"

Weer zo'n auteur en zo'n roman die al jaren op mijn te ontdekken-radar staat. Ik denk dat het via een interview met Bart Moeyaert was dat ik er ooit voor het eerst iets over hoorde en vervolgens keerde die tip nog een paar keer terug hier op Goodreads. Terecht, want deze roman behoort voor mij - net als o.a. het afgelopen zomer gelezen Midnight's Children - tot de reeks 'overdonderende debuutromans'.

Er valt op geen enkel vlak ook maar iets af te dingen op 'The heart is a lonely hunter'. Alleen al de titel is o zo geslaagd en gelaagd. Dat laatste geldt zeker ook voor de inhoud. De persoonlijke strijd van de personages in hun dagdagelijkse leven, dromen en ambities krijgt meer perspectief doordat sommigen ook hun politieke en maatschappelijke overtuigingen delen, mijmeren over de nakende W.O. II in Europa of over hun diepste zielenroerselen, over liefde, genegenheid en muziek reflecteren. Bovendien zijn Carson McCullers' personages buitenstaanders (want homo, zwart, jongensachtig meisje mét ambities) die ze met een voor die tijd heel inlevende, openlijke, maar onderdrukte gevoelswereld beschrijft. Het voelt zowaar hedendaags aan op dat vlak, alsof ze haar tijd ver vooruit was.

Dat alles wordt vloeiend door elkaar geweven en is compositorisch perfect uitgedacht en gedoseerd, met telkens van perspectief wisselende hoofdstukken rond de vier belangrijkste personages én dat van John Singer, de ongrijpbare, doofstomme man die hen verbindt en aan wie ze al hun besognes kwijt kunnen, omdat ze geloven dat hij hen helemaal begrijpt. Allemaal evolueren ze doorheen het boek, maken ze heftige, bloedstollend knap beschreven zaken mee en is er ondanks veel 'helaasheid' toch ruimte voor loutering aan het einde.

Dus ja, dit is terecht een klassieker, die me qua locatie en thematiek natuurlijk aan Faulkner deed denken (zijn Light In August blijft een van mijn favoriete romans), maar met een andere, eigen stem en toon sprekend. En die stem klinkt ongelooflijk rijp, zelfzeker en krachtig voor de jonge auteur die Carson McCullers was toen ze dit schreef. Een pakkende leeservaring!