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The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers: A Review
Coming into this blind I was surprised by how relevant this is today. Here we are eighty odd years later and many of the troubles of society have a distinctly similar feel.
“But say a man does know. He sees the world as it is and he looks back thousands of years to see how it all come about. He watches the slow agglutination of capital and power and he sees its pinnacle today. He sees America as a crazy house… But the main thing he sees is that the whole system of the world is built on a lie. Although its plain as the shining sun — the don’t-knows have lived with that lie so long they just can’t see it.”
Income equality, race relations, ambivalence about sexual norms are all here. The troubles of the mind are equally represented, and in that, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is instantly relatable.
“She put her head on her knees and tied knots in the strings of her tennis shoes. What would Portia say if she knew that always there had been one person after another? And every time it was like some part of her would bust in a hundred pieces.
But she had always kept it to herself and no person had ever known.”
While The Heart… is a straightforward novel it always has something lurking under the surface. Almost the feel of a toned down Cormac McCarthy novel. Just as the inferno of world war II is about to be unleashed our point of view characters have a turmoil within. As a reader it’s something you can spot, but in real life we are often too absorbed with ourselves and our troubles and needs to notice.
“And why did everyone persist in thinking the mute was exactly as they wanted him to be…”
The dual framing, historical context along with ever present inner struggles is a win for me. It’s a book that will appeal to a wide audience and be relatable to just about everyone with a heart. A detraction for some will be that it is largely a slow mover.
My favorite question from the book.
“If you could choose the time in history you could have lived, what era would you choose?”
4.1 stars
Coming into this blind I was surprised by how relevant this is today. Here we are eighty odd years later and many of the troubles of society have a distinctly similar feel.
“But say a man does know. He sees the world as it is and he looks back thousands of years to see how it all come about. He watches the slow agglutination of capital and power and he sees its pinnacle today. He sees America as a crazy house… But the main thing he sees is that the whole system of the world is built on a lie. Although its plain as the shining sun — the don’t-knows have lived with that lie so long they just can’t see it.”
Income equality, race relations, ambivalence about sexual norms are all here. The troubles of the mind are equally represented, and in that, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is instantly relatable.
“She put her head on her knees and tied knots in the strings of her tennis shoes. What would Portia say if she knew that always there had been one person after another? And every time it was like some part of her would bust in a hundred pieces.
But she had always kept it to herself and no person had ever known.”
While The Heart… is a straightforward novel it always has something lurking under the surface. Almost the feel of a toned down Cormac McCarthy novel. Just as the inferno of world war II is about to be unleashed our point of view characters have a turmoil within. As a reader it’s something you can spot, but in real life we are often too absorbed with ourselves and our troubles and needs to notice.
“And why did everyone persist in thinking the mute was exactly as they wanted him to be…”
The dual framing, historical context along with ever present inner struggles is a win for me. It’s a book that will appeal to a wide audience and be relatable to just about everyone with a heart. A detraction for some will be that it is largely a slow mover.
My favorite question from the book.
“If you could choose the time in history you could have lived, what era would you choose?”
4.1 stars
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