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Patrick Moore LMT BA
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite of McCullers' works
Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2023
Unlike her other works, reads more like a murder mystery or page-turner. You don't know who to root for, the mysterious outsider who breaks a few rules or the conformist people.. all are written with such tenderness you love them all.
H. Williams
4.0 out of 5 stars
Repress your sexuality and all sorts of horrible Southern Gothic things can happen (and it's pretty interesting)
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2015
The book discussion group discussed this short kinky novel in October 2015. We all liked this book and thought that it has plenty to recommend itself but it isn't the best McCullers novel (or the best first McCullers novel to read). And the movie sort of ruins it.
Some of us had the old paperback edition of the novel that has an essay from Tennessee Williams about Southern Gothic novels and noting that this McCullers's "sophomore novel" after a wildly successful first novel (which was "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," published when she was 23). This is clearly a Gothic novel that falls into a genre category. While Tennessee doesn't mention him, I thought of Faulkner while reading "Reflections...."
A number of readers pointed out the beautiful and unexpected language that McCullers uses throughout the novel. In addition to the heightened emotions, we were constantly knocked out by the word choices. Some of the descriptions of nature on the military base were especially rich and unexpected.
All of the characters are severely damaged in some way. It's hard to believe, but Leonora Penderton is probably the most "normal" of the limited cast. Yes, she might be a bit dim but she's a force of nature. She takes lovers easily and loves ferociously, especially her horse that is often treated like one of her lovers (raising the issue of bestiality among all the other sexual obsessions in the novel).
"Reflections..." is a novel of spectacular failure of communication. All of the characters are unable to connect to their partners or others around them. They seem to be sleepwalking through their lives, searching for something they can't find. Private Williams is always lying around about ready to doze off; Alison Langdon is constantly repairing to her bed; and a quarter of the action of the novel takes place in Leonora's bedroom while she's sleeping. She barely wakes up for the final terrible action.
Their searching points to the voyeuristic theme of the novel. Secretive viewing appears in the title of the novel, in the dreams that Alison and Anacleto discuss, in Anacleto's watercolor images of eyes, in the extreme sexual voyeurism by Private Williams, in Allison's spying on Private Williams from her bedroom (she doesn't even know who he is), and finally Major Weldon Penderton's neurotic stalking of Private Williams before he spots him from his bedroom window.
A few people thought that the novel ended too quickly and should have included a denouement and some information about what happened to Major Weldon. I thought that the ending seemed like a short story or a horror story finale, emphasizing the compact nature of the story and the shocking conclusion.
Most of the readers also thought that Alison's sensitive and artistic (but very minor) friend Major Weintraub is gay. This partially explains why Major Weldon is so anxious to get rid of him.
McCullers describes an awful number of horrible events in an off-handed way: Major Weldon Penderton kills a kitty, Alison disfigures herself with garden shears, Major Weldon abuses Leonora's horse Firebird before the horse tortures Major Weldon, Major Weldon then violently whips Firebird bloody, Private Williams previously killed a man for no reason, everybody goes to the fights to cheer on the boxers, Private Williams sees a bloody car accident, Alison is institutionalized (and perhaps commits suicide alone far from the base), Anacleto (the one very clearly gay character) just disappears, all before the final bloody scene that's clearly mentioned in the opening paragraphs. The casualness makes the horrific actions seem more shocking.
Finally, about half of us watched the movie and decided that it was badly miscast. Montgomery Clift was supposed to play Major Weldon against his good friend Elizabeth Taylor. Instead, Marlon Brando played the role, uncomfortably searching for a way to handle the extreme behaviors with his "method acting." And the movie script adds a scene of Leonora physically whipping her husband, which is very exciting but out of character for Leonora, who strives for good Southern manners and never would take such violent action at her own party in front of the accordion player she's hired and her carefully invited guests. The problem is that once you've seen the movie, you can't get Liz and Marlon out of your head. You can't unsee the characters and it poisons your recall of the book.
There's plenty to talk about in "Reflections in a Golden Eye" but it's not the best place to start with McCullers. (Go ahead, read "The Heart is a Lonely Heart" first.) And it does make us very happy to live in a post-"don't ask, don't tell" world where even the army has put such deep dark sexual repression to bed.
Some of us had the old paperback edition of the novel that has an essay from Tennessee Williams about Southern Gothic novels and noting that this McCullers's "sophomore novel" after a wildly successful first novel (which was "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," published when she was 23). This is clearly a Gothic novel that falls into a genre category. While Tennessee doesn't mention him, I thought of Faulkner while reading "Reflections...."
A number of readers pointed out the beautiful and unexpected language that McCullers uses throughout the novel. In addition to the heightened emotions, we were constantly knocked out by the word choices. Some of the descriptions of nature on the military base were especially rich and unexpected.
All of the characters are severely damaged in some way. It's hard to believe, but Leonora Penderton is probably the most "normal" of the limited cast. Yes, she might be a bit dim but she's a force of nature. She takes lovers easily and loves ferociously, especially her horse that is often treated like one of her lovers (raising the issue of bestiality among all the other sexual obsessions in the novel).
"Reflections..." is a novel of spectacular failure of communication. All of the characters are unable to connect to their partners or others around them. They seem to be sleepwalking through their lives, searching for something they can't find. Private Williams is always lying around about ready to doze off; Alison Langdon is constantly repairing to her bed; and a quarter of the action of the novel takes place in Leonora's bedroom while she's sleeping. She barely wakes up for the final terrible action.
Their searching points to the voyeuristic theme of the novel. Secretive viewing appears in the title of the novel, in the dreams that Alison and Anacleto discuss, in Anacleto's watercolor images of eyes, in the extreme sexual voyeurism by Private Williams, in Allison's spying on Private Williams from her bedroom (she doesn't even know who he is), and finally Major Weldon Penderton's neurotic stalking of Private Williams before he spots him from his bedroom window.
A few people thought that the novel ended too quickly and should have included a denouement and some information about what happened to Major Weldon. I thought that the ending seemed like a short story or a horror story finale, emphasizing the compact nature of the story and the shocking conclusion.
Most of the readers also thought that Alison's sensitive and artistic (but very minor) friend Major Weintraub is gay. This partially explains why Major Weldon is so anxious to get rid of him.
McCullers describes an awful number of horrible events in an off-handed way: Major Weldon Penderton kills a kitty, Alison disfigures herself with garden shears, Major Weldon abuses Leonora's horse Firebird before the horse tortures Major Weldon, Major Weldon then violently whips Firebird bloody, Private Williams previously killed a man for no reason, everybody goes to the fights to cheer on the boxers, Private Williams sees a bloody car accident, Alison is institutionalized (and perhaps commits suicide alone far from the base), Anacleto (the one very clearly gay character) just disappears, all before the final bloody scene that's clearly mentioned in the opening paragraphs. The casualness makes the horrific actions seem more shocking.
Finally, about half of us watched the movie and decided that it was badly miscast. Montgomery Clift was supposed to play Major Weldon against his good friend Elizabeth Taylor. Instead, Marlon Brando played the role, uncomfortably searching for a way to handle the extreme behaviors with his "method acting." And the movie script adds a scene of Leonora physically whipping her husband, which is very exciting but out of character for Leonora, who strives for good Southern manners and never would take such violent action at her own party in front of the accordion player she's hired and her carefully invited guests. The problem is that once you've seen the movie, you can't get Liz and Marlon out of your head. You can't unsee the characters and it poisons your recall of the book.
There's plenty to talk about in "Reflections in a Golden Eye" but it's not the best place to start with McCullers. (Go ahead, read "The Heart is a Lonely Heart" first.) And it does make us very happy to live in a post-"don't ask, don't tell" world where even the army has put such deep dark sexual repression to bed.
C. Collins
5.0 out of 5 stars
A tragedy resulting from repressed emotions and desire
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2010
This short novel, is extremely well written, not a word out of place. Carson McCullers I very economical with her descriptions, evoking a drama of odd circumstance that must have been a taboo topic when the book was first published. McCullers doesn't seem to really like any characters in the book but she treats them fairly as she surgically dissect each one, revealing repressed feelings, narcissism, shallow intellect, emotional fragility, and dangerous sublimation of emotion.
Repressed homosexual Army Major Penderton is the most complex character in the novel, an unloved and unlovable shell of a human, who is barely able to sustain a rigid mask of sanity as homosexual compulsions eventually, drives him to rash acts of violence against himself, his wife's horse, and others. He is the victim of Venus, the goddess who infects humanity with sexual obsession. He is struck by a vision of a handsome young man, Private Williams, and vacillates between fantasy of sexual encounters merged with combat and struggle. The Major's wife, Leonora, is not a complex thinker, but is a bold, beautiful spoiled military brat who has married a career officer with a repressed secret that undermines their entire relationship, making them enemies. As a sexually frustrated wife, she meets her sexual needs with an affair that is so open that everyone on the military base knows it is occurring, with the possible exception of Major Weldon Penderton. Major Penderton may know about her affair with Lt. Colonel Morris Langdon, their next-door neighbor, but he sees it as punishment for his dark secret. She releases some of her pent up passion through horseback riding on her beautiful white stallion, Firebird, an animal that her husband sees as somewhat of a rival.
Some may indicate that this is a dark Southern Gothic tale by a Southern writer. It takes place in a post-World War II army base in Georgia where officers and their wives make use of a stable of horses, maintained by the enlisted men. When riding, there are multiple trails in the southern forest that surrounds the Army base. It is here that Leonora and Colonel Langdon frequently go to have sex among the blackberry bushes. It is here that Private Williams, a handsome animal force from nature, rides a black mare nude. It is here that Major Penderton pushes his wife's horse into panic and frenzy in a wild ride of desperation to escape his life condition.
Private Williams is a fascinating character, his actions bring about the crisis of identity for Major Penderton for he becomes the object of male obsession. He is a force of nature drawn to nature and destined to appeal to the nature hidden within others. He is as one with horses and the forest where he takes off his clothes and either rides or naps in the nude. He recognizes in Leonora an animal instinct and animal passion that is unreleased and seething. As a voyeur, he observes Leonora taunt her husband while she is nude. However, Private Williams has his own secret, for he becomes obsessed with Leonora and enters the Penderton home nightly to watch her sleep and to smell her clothing. There could also be a Jungian interpretation of Private Williams, for he acts as a shadow archetype for Major Penderton. He nightly enters the home of Penderton (which is the symbol of the psyche) as if the repressed homoeroticism is breaking through the unconscious into consciousness.
Alison Langdon, the mentally disturbed wife of Colonel Langdon, watches as her husband courts Leonora, hating both but too weak to escape. As is many classics, she may be mentally ill but she sees all. She sees that her husband is unfaithful and she sees that Private Williams enters the Penderton home on a nightly basis. She is tended to by an effeminate butterfly of a man, Anacleto, who is the houseboy for the Langdons. Alison lost a female child in childbirth and mutilated her nipples afterward in an act of grief and an emotional break from reality.
Much story is told in this short novel. The weaknesses of every character are revealed. We are swept away by McCuller's beautiful writing into an odd story of repression and violence.
Repressed homosexual Army Major Penderton is the most complex character in the novel, an unloved and unlovable shell of a human, who is barely able to sustain a rigid mask of sanity as homosexual compulsions eventually, drives him to rash acts of violence against himself, his wife's horse, and others. He is the victim of Venus, the goddess who infects humanity with sexual obsession. He is struck by a vision of a handsome young man, Private Williams, and vacillates between fantasy of sexual encounters merged with combat and struggle. The Major's wife, Leonora, is not a complex thinker, but is a bold, beautiful spoiled military brat who has married a career officer with a repressed secret that undermines their entire relationship, making them enemies. As a sexually frustrated wife, she meets her sexual needs with an affair that is so open that everyone on the military base knows it is occurring, with the possible exception of Major Weldon Penderton. Major Penderton may know about her affair with Lt. Colonel Morris Langdon, their next-door neighbor, but he sees it as punishment for his dark secret. She releases some of her pent up passion through horseback riding on her beautiful white stallion, Firebird, an animal that her husband sees as somewhat of a rival.
Some may indicate that this is a dark Southern Gothic tale by a Southern writer. It takes place in a post-World War II army base in Georgia where officers and their wives make use of a stable of horses, maintained by the enlisted men. When riding, there are multiple trails in the southern forest that surrounds the Army base. It is here that Leonora and Colonel Langdon frequently go to have sex among the blackberry bushes. It is here that Private Williams, a handsome animal force from nature, rides a black mare nude. It is here that Major Penderton pushes his wife's horse into panic and frenzy in a wild ride of desperation to escape his life condition.
Private Williams is a fascinating character, his actions bring about the crisis of identity for Major Penderton for he becomes the object of male obsession. He is a force of nature drawn to nature and destined to appeal to the nature hidden within others. He is as one with horses and the forest where he takes off his clothes and either rides or naps in the nude. He recognizes in Leonora an animal instinct and animal passion that is unreleased and seething. As a voyeur, he observes Leonora taunt her husband while she is nude. However, Private Williams has his own secret, for he becomes obsessed with Leonora and enters the Penderton home nightly to watch her sleep and to smell her clothing. There could also be a Jungian interpretation of Private Williams, for he acts as a shadow archetype for Major Penderton. He nightly enters the home of Penderton (which is the symbol of the psyche) as if the repressed homoeroticism is breaking through the unconscious into consciousness.
Alison Langdon, the mentally disturbed wife of Colonel Langdon, watches as her husband courts Leonora, hating both but too weak to escape. As is many classics, she may be mentally ill but she sees all. She sees that her husband is unfaithful and she sees that Private Williams enters the Penderton home on a nightly basis. She is tended to by an effeminate butterfly of a man, Anacleto, who is the houseboy for the Langdons. Alison lost a female child in childbirth and mutilated her nipples afterward in an act of grief and an emotional break from reality.
Much story is told in this short novel. The weaknesses of every character are revealed. We are swept away by McCuller's beautiful writing into an odd story of repression and violence.
Sandra
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reflections in a golden eye
Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2023
A good read.
Top reviews from other countries
french reader
5.0 out of 5 stars
greek ancient drama in a golden light
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2012
Ancient Greek drama in the 1940s deep america. The Aristotelician unity of place is respected: a military camp. And since the first sentences, we know that a murder will be committed . "Was committed". A sacrifice. This young man, its only pleasure : riding horses, naked, in lonely places. Is he not the brother of Hippolytus from Phaedra (Seneca, Jean Racine) ? Innocent. Nearly a young child or a sweet silent animal. He discovers, by chance, the fascinating pleasure to look at a blossoming woman sleeping....That, and only that. Only the beauty of this reflection in his own eyes. Unfortunately, the husband of the woman, uncomfortable between homosexuality and heterosexuality, between life and death, has also received an irreparable shock. Just a glimpse: reflection on his own eyes of a gorgeous half man half animal riding a horse, naked, under an unbearably wonderful light.... Neighbours with a dead child... Death needs death. This is also how the ancient Greek tragedy advances.
I cannot resist to give you a few extracts of how is lighted all the beginning of the book.
"(The leaves): in late autumn they were flaming gold- (the young soldier):" his round sunburned face (...) his hair lay brown(...).In his eyes which were a curious blend of amber and brown.(...)"-
(The captain's wife rides a) "chestnut stallion"- (Their house is surrounded) by "scrubs oaks "- The captain wore a gold ring (..), he was dressed in khaki shorts(...)and a suede jacket"- (His wife) "wore her straight bronze hair"- (somebody takes) "a pint bottle of rye, a whisky jigger"- "the late autumn sun laid a radiant haze over the new sodded winter grass of the lawn and even in the woods, the sun shone through places where the leaves were not dense, to make fiery golden patterns on the grounds"- "the sky filled with a pale, sold, yellow light"- (the captain) "poured himself a cup of tea" (...)" he had a "brilliant career"- (the captain's wife) "took a ham a sprinkled the top with brown sugar and bread crumbs"- " a fire was laid in the grate"- "before the bright gold and orange light of the fire her body was magnificent"- "a breeze blew and lifted a loose strand of her bronze hair"- "the house brightly lighted(...) he kept a decanter of old strong brandy"....
Golden and golden light. Everywhere. Just read what follows....A real and (not so many so-called) masterpiece to read and read again. But nearly everybody knows that.
I cannot resist to give you a few extracts of how is lighted all the beginning of the book.
"(The leaves): in late autumn they were flaming gold- (the young soldier):" his round sunburned face (...) his hair lay brown(...).In his eyes which were a curious blend of amber and brown.(...)"-
(The captain's wife rides a) "chestnut stallion"- (Their house is surrounded) by "scrubs oaks "- The captain wore a gold ring (..), he was dressed in khaki shorts(...)and a suede jacket"- (His wife) "wore her straight bronze hair"- (somebody takes) "a pint bottle of rye, a whisky jigger"- "the late autumn sun laid a radiant haze over the new sodded winter grass of the lawn and even in the woods, the sun shone through places where the leaves were not dense, to make fiery golden patterns on the grounds"- "the sky filled with a pale, sold, yellow light"- (the captain) "poured himself a cup of tea" (...)" he had a "brilliant career"- (the captain's wife) "took a ham a sprinkled the top with brown sugar and bread crumbs"- " a fire was laid in the grate"- "before the bright gold and orange light of the fire her body was magnificent"- "a breeze blew and lifted a loose strand of her bronze hair"- "the house brightly lighted(...) he kept a decanter of old strong brandy"....
Golden and golden light. Everywhere. Just read what follows....A real and (not so many so-called) masterpiece to read and read again. But nearly everybody knows that.
My Lovely Horse
5.0 out of 5 stars
A writer with the Midas touch
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 25, 2014
This is a sensual and mythical novel written by a writer at her zenith, the themes are subtly woven like a golden thread throughout. There are so many gilded images, but they are done so as not to distract. Reading this was uncomfortable at times as the characters are painfully exposed to their reality as well as each other and McCullers writes with such frankness, even though her voice as a writers is always warm and poetic, she really tells it like it is!
I believe McCullers was attempting alchemy with this work (and succeeded), the grotesque characters glittered with promise and fascinated me so that I kept reading, and this is all because of McCullers' handling of them, as they really are unpleasant characters. Yet, I found the characters beguiling and vivid. They are hard and cold like gods turned into metal statues, and they are all trapped. Yet they can see the reflection of something they bury in themselves in the behaviours of others.
McCuller's Midas' touch extends to readers too because we are also distracted by these reflections of capacities that we have ourselves. But like in the myth of Midas one has to wonder where the characters and us as readers will get our nourishment with all the famous 'golden' descriptions of golden food and drink in this book, McCullers was aware what kind of literary feast she is offering us in a golden imitation of life. Reading can be a charmed state that offers a dangerous nostalgia for lives we never lived. There is also this dangerous nostalgia in obsessing over missed or denied opportunities as the characters do in this book. Attempts to recapture or understand joy is fool's gold, it distracts us from the real golden moment.
Depending on what kind of books you normally like and what you expect a novel to give you, there is a chance that many readers will not like this book and will find it depressing and disturbing. This is a mythical sort of tale, it has a golden veneer with the sensual, warm writing, but the characters are hard to love as they are selfish, spiteful and ignorant. If you try to take a bite out of this Midas apple of a novel you might not like how cold and hopeless the story is, despite all the golden gorgeousness of the writing, it reflects what is ugly in all of us.
I believe McCullers was attempting alchemy with this work (and succeeded), the grotesque characters glittered with promise and fascinated me so that I kept reading, and this is all because of McCullers' handling of them, as they really are unpleasant characters. Yet, I found the characters beguiling and vivid. They are hard and cold like gods turned into metal statues, and they are all trapped. Yet they can see the reflection of something they bury in themselves in the behaviours of others.
McCuller's Midas' touch extends to readers too because we are also distracted by these reflections of capacities that we have ourselves. But like in the myth of Midas one has to wonder where the characters and us as readers will get our nourishment with all the famous 'golden' descriptions of golden food and drink in this book, McCullers was aware what kind of literary feast she is offering us in a golden imitation of life. Reading can be a charmed state that offers a dangerous nostalgia for lives we never lived. There is also this dangerous nostalgia in obsessing over missed or denied opportunities as the characters do in this book. Attempts to recapture or understand joy is fool's gold, it distracts us from the real golden moment.
Depending on what kind of books you normally like and what you expect a novel to give you, there is a chance that many readers will not like this book and will find it depressing and disturbing. This is a mythical sort of tale, it has a golden veneer with the sensual, warm writing, but the characters are hard to love as they are selfish, spiteful and ignorant. If you try to take a bite out of this Midas apple of a novel you might not like how cold and hopeless the story is, despite all the golden gorgeousness of the writing, it reflects what is ugly in all of us.
lindac
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lovely edition
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 19, 2022
I enjoyed this book very much. The seller was fantastic - popped in a hand written note and a tea bag. So kind.
Lissinda
5.0 out of 5 stars
Une perfection
Reviewed in France on April 6, 2016
Ce livre est tout simplement une perfection d'écriture. Il n'y a pas un mot de trop. On ne pourrait en enlever aucun. Dans cette histoire étrange,tout est essentiel pour caractériser sobrement et presque sèchement les personnages, leurs actions, leurs désirs, leurs passions, leur vice. C'est également un livre qu'il faut lire aussi à haute voix, comme un long poème en prose, tellement la langue est fluide et presque musicale. Carson Mac Cullers est une immense écrivaine et il faudrait lui redonner une place forte dans la littérature.
De plus, la présentation, la mise en page, les caractères ajoutent, par leur sobriété et leur élégance simples, à l'histoire même.
De plus, la présentation, la mise en page, les caractères ajoutent, par leur sobriété et leur élégance simples, à l'histoire même.
patricia clancy
3.0 out of 5 stars
Worth reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2019
The title intrigued me. I read quickly as the book is an easy read. I did no t like any of the characters, but needed to know the end, which actually was not surprising. Not a book I would keep in my library and I have no wish to read any more of the authors work.