Redheaded Reviews: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

This book is set in the Deep South in the 1930s and begins with the story of two deaf mutes, Spiro Antonapoulos and John Singer who live together in companionable friendship. Antonapoulos works at his cousin's grocers and Singer is an engraver at a jewelry store. Antonapoulos is a simple-minded fellow and they have their routine for ten years until Antonapoulos became sick and the doctor put him on a strict diet. Then suddenly Antonapoulos became belligerent and began to urinate in public, assault people and steal. Now Singer was having to spend all the money he had saved up on bail money to get his friend out of jail. Soon, though, his cousin, fearing that he would be put to blame for Antonapoulos's behavior has him committed to an asylum far away leaving Singer alone.

Singer moves into the Kelly boarding house and spends his nights for a while wandering around the town at night just walking. He takes his meals at the New York Cafe owned by Biff Bannon. It is there that he meets the wild alcoholic Jake Blount who has gone on a bender and owes Bannon a great deal of money and whom Bannon's wife insists that he take care of him. Singer takes him home with him that night. Blount is a communist who wants to save the world and the mill workers of the town by telling them the glories of communism and how it can change things and by organizing them. He believes Singer truly understands him and listens to him like no one else does.

Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland, a black doctor, meets Singer on one of his night walks and Singer lights one of his cigarettes for him. Dr. Copeland thinks this is an unusual white man and vows to get to know him better, so he comes to visit with him and talk about the plight of the black man and the need to rise up and end segregation by becoming educated and not taking menial jobs working in the white man's house. He also worries about the futures of his adult children who didn't turn out the way he planned. And he believes that Singer really understands him and listens carefully to what he says.

Thirteen-year-old Mick Kelly has a crush on Singer and quietly begins to visit with Singer and tell him of her love of music. Before Singer moved in she would listen to the radio played by a teacher staying there. She'd sometimes put it on the classical station for a while and Mick memorized some pieces by Mozart and fell in love with him. When the teacher wasn't playing her radio, Mick would go out into the neighborhood and radio hunt. She would listen in to the open windows and listen for the sound she was looking for and stop when she found it and spend the evening there. The music would make her cry it was so beautiful. Now she is learning to play the piano at school with the help of a girl she is paying and is composing songs in her notebook. She believes that Singer understands her completely and listens carefully to what she says.

Biff comes by but doesn't say much. He just observes. He notices that the others go and see Singer and wonders why they all treat Singer as though he is some God. He doesn't mourn his dead wife, Alice because the love had gone out of the marriage, but sprays her perfume on himself to remember the good times. He also remembers Singer and his friend and wonders what happened there.

The character of the tomboy Mick is partly autobiographical. Mick is a favorite character of mine. Her love of music mimics my own and I too was a tomboy. You watch as she quickly grows up in a large household where there is never enough money and soon there is large debt. You weep for the girl who has big dreams that may never come true.

No one asks what is on Singer's mind and they accept his non-answer when they ask where he has gone when he leaves to visit Antonapoulos at the asylum. Singer is happiest when he visits his friend at the asylum because he gets to use his hands and talk to someone. Everyone just uses him. And not just the ones mentioned here. When he goes walking around town people come up to him and talk to him. Everyone thinks they know him. The Turkish man swears that he is Turkish. Dr. Copeland swears that he is Jewish. Blount swears that he is Scots-Irish. Singer is what people think he to them. In a way, he is a blank slate that they write upon themselves their own story to suit their needs. But Singer treats Antonapoulos the same way when Antonapoulos barely pays him any attention at all just takes the gifts he is given. This book is largely about lonely people and loneliness and reaching out to make a connection in the dark. It is a brilliant piece of Southern Gothic literature and I highly recommend it.

Quotes

Nothing was really as good as music.

-Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 37)

Resentment is the most precious flower of poverty.

-Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 55)

Why was it that in cases of real love the one who is left does not often follow the beloved by suicide? Only because the living must bury the dead? Because of the measured rites that must be filled after a death? Because it is as though the one who is left steps for a time upon a stage and each second swells to an unlimited amount of time and he is watched by many eyes? Because there is a function he must carry out? Or perhaps, when there is love, the widowed must stay for the resurrection of the beloved—so that the one who has gone is not really dead, but grows and is created for a second time in the soul of the living? Why?

--Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 104)

He sees how when people suffer just so much they get mean and ugly and something dies in them.

-Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 129)

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

-Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 284)