Carson McCullers: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Author Carson McCullers

The other day I was going through my library of books and as I traced my fingers across the cover jackets looking for a good read that would peak my interest, I stopped on a title I had not read since my college english literature class. I must have re-read it again since I found a bookmark in the middle of the book that was dated 10 years ago and the pages and cover have started to yellow. The book was author Carson McCullers, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter".

I remember most parts of the book but what I remember most is how it moved me emotionally to feel compassion for the characters. I tend to dread reading books as emotionally twisting as this because it takes me a little while to recover from the connection I feel with the stories.
So, I have decided to delve into the book again for spring reading.

Here is the Book Jacket Description:
When she was only twenty-three, this was Carson McCuller's first novel, that created a literary sensation.
She is very special, one of America's superlative writers who conjures up a vision of existence as terrible as it is real, who takes us on shattering voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition. This novel is the work of a supreme artist, Carson McCuller's enduring masterpiece. The heroine is the strange young girl, Mick Kelly. The setting is a small Southern town, the cosmos universal and eternal.

The characters are the damned, the voiceless, the rejected. Some fight their loneliness with violence and depravity, some with sex or drink, and some--like Mick--with a quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.

Another Short spring read from my worned book collection is:
Thornton Wilder's, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"
Book Jacket Description: The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder's second novel, won him the first of his three Pulitzer Prizes. The novel opens in the aftermath of an inexplicable tragedy-- a tiny footbridge in Peru breaks, and five people hurtle to their deaths. For Brother Juniper, a humble monk who witnesses the catastrophe, the question is inescapable: Why those five? Suddenly. Brother Juniper is committed to discover what manner of lives they led-- and whether it was divine intervention that took their lives, or a capricious fate.

I plan to recover from these thought provoking and emotional roller coaster books by reading a few comedies.

Check out my other blog: http://culturalcommentaryartist.ning.com

Happy Reading
Gloria J Harden-Bailey