Lonely Hunters Make Good Company

In spite of my long silence, the search for smarts continues. I took some time to read Watership Down with my son and I have begun reading Dune aloud to Ann. It is one of her favorite books, but it is my first time reading it. In addition, I got lassoed into reading a free market economics book that is draining my soul.

But onward with the subject at hand: Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. We all have certain subject matters and writing styles that resonate with us on what feels like a primordial level, and McCullers and this novel do just that for me. Like Cannery Row and Winesburg, Ohio, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter takes a look at human suffering at its finest, at the efforts we make to reach out to the world around us, at the inevitable failure of those efforts. Every part of this novel was a joy to me. McCullers's writing is powerful in its straightforwardness and it manages to be wonderfully heartwrenching while steering clear of sentimental goop. Moreover, the writing never falls into self-congratulatory profundity even as it makes beautifully profound observations of human desires and interactions. The characters are vibrant and alive, seeming to exist beyond the borders of the page.

As Biff Brannon observes, the lonely creatures surrounding John Singer are able to cast their own image onto Singer due to his muteness. And as Singer observes, the three lonely hearts that seek him out are all obsessed with something they cannot get a hold of. McCullers makes it clear that Singer holds no special powers himself; in fact, he is equally obsessed with and equally able to write his own desires on Antonapoulos. Everyone is casting about to find a fellow soul that vibrates on the same frequency, and often we mistake our own eternal vibration for the like vibration of another.

All interactions in this novel miss their mark. Biff loves Mick, but she sees his attention as something malicious, her own guilty conscience turning his love into suspicion. Jake Blount and Dr. Copeland are fellow political activists who cannot trust themselves or others, who meet for one night of intense discussion only to fall apart and become more distant than ever. Singer's love for Antonapoulos is painful to watch since we know that that love is doomed from the first chapter. Each character has wonderful insights into those around them but is blind to his own motivations and doings. And it seems the more they stumble, the more lost they become. Mick's entrance into adulthood is of course the prime example of this. After her initiation into sexual adulthood, she withdraws not only from those around her, but from herself. She is no longer allowed into her own interior room. Her response is strikingly similar to Bubber's after shooting Baby in the face. Both have crossed a threshold after which childhood is lost, and with childhood, some understanding of ourselves and our own dreams.

Perhaps it is hope that the lonely heart hunts for, hope for a connection and for a world of possibilities. And when that hope dies, something dies in us. For Singer, that death is total. Without Antonapoulos, he has no reason to go on at all. For those who pinned their hopes on Singer, his death sends them into a spiral as well. Mick's estrangement from herself is complete, and Jake's groundedness is lost. We cannot see beyond ourselves. Worse yet, we cannot see within ourselves. Where does that leave us?

Biff seems to be the pivot point of the novel, insofar as he is left standing in the end. He is the only character rooted in the community. I suppose Copeland is certainly rooted, but his desires for a better world take him out and set him on the fringes, as does his skin. No, Biff is the only one settled and unmoving. He is as disconnected as the rest, but there is something resigned in him that allows him to keep soldiering on even as the world changes. His loneliness doesn't seem as painful, and I can't decide if that is an even sadder fate than that of the others.

I took so long to read this novel not because it was a difficult or slow read, but because I was eager for it not to end. I knew from the start that it was not going to end well, and I was in no rush for everything to unravel and slip away. The writing, the characters, the world--they were all too good to let go.