The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Look at this picture. Seriously. This sad looking lady is Carson McCullers, the author of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.


This is a novel about the socially maladjusted. People who feel strongly but have difficulty connecting.

It is one of those books that I had picked up for years at bookstores, read the blurb on the back, and decided it wasn’t for me. I mean, much as I love southern novels, the sentence, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s,” just doesn’t do it. Also, why does the cover have a not-so-great picture of a sad looking woman on it? What I’m rambling towards, is I think this book has been poorly marketed. In reality, it’s a heartbreaking story of loneliness, longing, and our inability to connect to each other despite wanting more than anything to do so.

Enjoyability: In some ways this book was a rough read for me. I recognized painful aspects of myself in some of the characters. I had flashbacks to my own teen years when reading about Mick, the teen girl in the story. But this is part of what makes the book so good. We all have times of loneliness and so can identify with the characters even though they lead very different lives.

Readability: An easy read. The prose is smooth and, while not much happens, I found myself anticipating what would happen to the characters

Favorite Quotes: "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... He sees a whole damn army of unemployed and billions of dollars and thousands of miles of land wasted... He sees how when people suffer just so much they get mean and ugly and something dies in them. But the main thing he sees is that the whole system of the world is built on a lie. And although it's as plain as the shining sun—the don't-knows have lived with that lie so long they just can't see it."

“This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and feelings. This music was her—the real plain her...This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen... Now that it was over there was only her heart beating like a rabbit and this terrible hurt.”

“And as there was no way to disprove these rumors they grew marvelous and very real. Each man described the mute as he wished him to be."

Favorite Character: Mick. She is an angry, lonely, disconnected and awkward but she loves music more than anything, even though she has no real access to instruments or radio, and through this love for music we get to see another side of her.

Greatest Impact: I just noticed that this book is on Oprah’s book club. Eew. That aside, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was written by a 23 year old white woman, in the south, in the 1940s AND deals sensitively with poverty, racism, discrimination, socialism etc. etc—all topics that were pretty controversial at the time. Pretty neat, and gutsy.

Recommended For: People who like southern novels (you know—racial tensions, hot nights, dusty streets, poverty, injustice, violence—all that) but told from a slightly different perspective. Only the lonely (Dum dum dum, dummy doo wah).

The Yacoubian Building

Readability:
I feel it necessary to make a distinction here. This is not a book that is hard to read - the language is straight forward, the story easy to follow, etc. But note that it took me two months to finish this book, because I just had a hard time making myself sit down and read it. While vaguely interesting, I didn't feel any sense of connection to the characters or to what they go through. So while I didn't find it hard to read, I did find it hard to make myself read it.

Enjoyability:
I am so disappointed not to like this book. I was excited about it - a book from a non-Western writer that the back cover claims is about "flawed and fragile humanity," particularly about Egyptian society and the juxtaposition between the current era and the values and traditions of the past. Sounds promising, right? Unfortunately... how do I say this nicely? I hated it. The story moved around too much, the characters were flawed to the point of not being relatable or even likable, although sensitive topics like homosexuality and women's rights were covered in what might seem to some a "progressive way," I felt like they were included for the sake of including them and the bias and values of Al Aswany himself were what really showed through. There are places where a character or story line becomes engaging for a time, but as a whole I found this book frustrating and disappointing.

Favorite character: Probably Busayna, just because I felt sorry for her. She is a young girl who ends up doing some fairly un-savory things out of financial obligation for her family, and she struck me as one of the strongest characters. The frustrating of her story is that she ultimately marries someone who does not seem fit for her with only a brief explanation of how or why this would happen, and the ending is rushed - what about all the trauma she went through? And then she fell in love and everything was hunky dory? I don't think so. It didn't feel credible, and I wish we would have seen more emotional depth from her.

Most un-favorite character: Sooo many to choose from. Practically all the characters besides Busayna are just jerks in one way or another, taking advantage of each other or being corrupt or what have you. I may have to pick Hatim Rasheed, who is a wealthy newspaper man who is an extremely unhappy person, largely because he is gay and lives in a society that does not accept that and largely views him as morally reprehensible. What I couldn't stand about him is how he treats this guy that he supposedly loves, and is just horrible to - manipulative, coercive, etc. I can almost never condone violence, but this is a case when I'm tempted to say he got what he deserved.

Best Quotes:
Whatever.

Recommended for:
People who want to learn about modern Egyptian society, people who like to read about scandal but don't mind unsatisfying endings, people who can read a whole book even when they don't care about any of the characters.

Want a better version of this style of novel, with focus on multiple story lines and culture? See Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey, or Home Town by Tracy Kidder for a non-fiction version. Both of them are excellent.