Book Review: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Genres: Fiction

I remember clearly why I picked Carson McCullurs. I think I read about her in an article and there were some comparisons made of her writing with of D.H. Lawrence. That would raise anyone’s curiosity along with their eyebrows, I bet.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was the first novel of Carson McCullers at the age of twenty-three. And the fact fascinates me, how can one with so steadiness and rich in words can write a novel like this? The novel focus on the theme of moral isolationism. I knew nothing about the book at all when I started reading it. The book starts with a deaf-mute character as its center, John Singer, set in a Georgia mill town in 1930s. The persona of Singer is represented in a noble manner. Always ready to listen and understand those who are needed of listening and understanding. I don’t like to make comparisons but the character of Singer is as liberal as Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Singer is followed by other personalities in the book, such as, Doctor Copeland, Jake Blount, Biff Brannon and Mick Kelly. All of them, when appearing for the first time, give a surrealistic sensation. Biff, a bar owner, aesthetic spirit, and Jake, a hard-drinker, both are struggling against alienation. Mc Cullers has done a wonderful job on portraying the disposition of Doctor Copeland, and his family. A highly educated black physician with a vision for lifting his people and combating racial injustice. This family is an evidence that McCullers was ahead of her time on casting a character like Copeland. 

Out of all the dramatis personae, I guess Mick Kelly is based on the author herself. The character does represents some semi-autobiographical structure, which is either constructed of author’s life or her imagination of her own. How she would or might have like to see herself.

McCullers in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter shows how a plot can be advanced just with the characters and no major plot. Her words are genuine, and addictive. One cannot read Carson McCullers fast or slow. Her words develop a pace for the reader to go on with, themselves. If a reader is able to adapt to the that, for which I am sure he will if he arrive far as reading 50 pages.

Due to being no major sense of a plot, I cannot give it more than:

4 out of 5!