My relationship with this book and with Carson McCullers will make it impossible to write a proper review without veering into an emotional blog post, so you have been warned. This novel has sat in my heart for over five years now, and still, every time someone asks me to recommend a book or asks me what my favourite book is, I become giddy at the opportunity to talk about it. I buy up every copy I find in second-hand bookstores, and I gift these copies to anyone who feels special to me. If someone were to ask me how I felt about life, I could give them this book and say nothing of myself.
It puts so perfectly into words how it feels to be lonely and the impossibility of being understood. Every individual passes through a lifetime of experiences, tragedies and accomplishments. Even if a person sat with you for hours, days, and weeks to hear your life story, it would be impossible to recount every event while keeping true to reality and without having words fail. How could a person ever fully understand what you've been through? And in return, your audience has its own lifetime of suffering and hidden tragedies that you will never understand.
At its core, the novel follows four characters who each have this intense desire to be understood, and all become obsessed with a deaf-mute who they believe can understand them. The mute, of course, only listens without speaking, and, mistakenly and out of tragic desperation, the four characters fill his silence with their imaginations, seeing love and understanding where there is really nothing at all. As a reader, you are implicated in this funny love affair yourself; you sit in silence and allow Miss McCullers to tell you about her pains and worries, while your own loves, desires, and pains are ignored.
This is what I found so heartbreaking about the book. The realisation that you will never be understood. That you will always feel lonely. No one will ever say "I love all of you" because all of you is locked behind the frailty of language and the years of complicated emotions that you likely don't understand yourself.
McCullers, writing elsewhere about her idea of love, does reconcile this view of life somewhat. She talks about how when a person engages with art, they can be gifted a moment of recognition in which, even if only a glimpse, you can see yourself.
This novel is very limited in a way. It does ramble about, and McCullers hadn't fully matured her style compared to her later work. She never really deviates from this theme at all in her other books, actually. However, despite all its flaws, the feeling of understanding I got from this book will make me forever love it.
I love this novel, and I think you've done an excellent job describing what makes it so great. I might have to re-read it because of this review.
How does McCullers' other work compare to this ? I feel like I never see it discussed as much.
I think The Member of the Wedding is her best novel. It largely has the same themes of loneliness, love, and isolation, and even an almost identical main character, but she has trimmed down all the fluff. It doesn't have the preachy tone THIALH sometimes has, and the symbolism isn't quite so on the nose.
Reflections in a Golden Eye is a really bizarre novel. You can still detect her style and the usual theme of loneliness, but it's nothing like her other work. If I remember correctly, it was just an offhand novella she wrote that wasn't originally meant to be published. It's really brilliant though. I think it's the Southern Gothic style perfected. It's really uncomfortable and gross and weird, but McCullers does it in such a perfect way you hardly notice. You feel like you've stagnated around this filth your entire life.
Ballad of the Sad Cafe was a return to usual stuff. More in a folky style, hence the name. One criticism you can make of her is that, other than Reflections in a Golden Eye, she can be quite one-note as an author. She does focus on the pain involved in love and unrequited love, and of course being a freak.
Clock Without Hands, I would ignore entirely. She wrote that later in life, after all of her strokes, and it really shouldn't have been published, to be honest. Apparently it arrived with heavy, heavy editing from the publisher.
If you do really love her books I would recommend her biographies as well. She had a very sweet soul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY7TQVCSFL8
And a lovely voice too of course. You can really hear the pain in her words.
I love this novel, and I think you've done an excellent job describing what makes it so great. I might have to re-read it because of this review. How does McCullers' other work compare to this ? I feel like I never see it discussed as much.
I think The Member of the Wedding is her best novel. It largely has the same themes of loneliness, love, and isolation, and even an almost identical main character, but she has trimmed down all the fluff. It doesn't have the preachy tone THIALH sometimes has, and the symbolism isn't quite so on the nose. Reflections in a Golden Eye is a really bizarre novel. You can still detect her style and the usual theme of loneliness, but it's nothing like her other work. If I remember correctly, it was just an offhand novella she wrote that wasn't originally meant to be published. It's really brilliant though. I think it's the Southern Gothic style perfected. It's really uncomfortable and gross and weird, but McCullers does it in such a perfect way you hardly notice. You feel like you've stagnated around this filth your entire life. Ballad of the Sad Cafe was a return to usual stuff. More in a folky style, hence the name. One criticism you can make of her is that, other than Reflections in a Golden Eye, she can be quite one-note as an author. She does focus on the pain involved in love and unrequited love, and of course being a freak. Clock Without Hands, I would ignore entirely. She wrote that later in life, after all of her strokes, and it really shouldn't have been published, to be honest. Apparently it arrived with heavy, heavy editing from the publisher. If you do really love her books I would recommend her biographies as well. She had a very sweet soul. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY7TQVCSFL8 And a lovely voice too of course. You can really hear the pain in her words.