The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

De: Carson McCullers

Narrado por: Cherry Jones

Carson McCullers was all of 23 when she published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She became an overnight literary sensation, and soon such authors as Tennessee Williams were calling her "the greatest prose writer that the South [has] produced." The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s.

Richard Wright was astonished by McCullers's ability "to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness." Hers is a humanity that touches all who come to her work, whether for the first time or, as so many do, time and time again. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, most enduring best.

Check out more selections from Oprah's Book Club.©1940, 1967 Carson Smith McCullers (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers

Reseñas de la Crítica

• Audie Award Finalist, Classics, 2005

"A remarkable book...[McCullers writes] with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming." (The New York Times)

Do yourself a favor

and read this book. I saw the movie almost 30 years ago and was impressed but never realized the scope and depth of the original novel. The gushy praise of the Audible edition by users on the Audible Yahoogroup teased me into downloading it, and even then I put off listening for a while, thinking that "literature" might very well mean BORING. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Cherry Jones does a fantastic job of delivering the narrative, and the story is phenomenal; moving, acerbic, provocative, painful and compelling. There aren't many books worthy of this kind of praise, and fewer still have been so skillfully rendered in audio editions. GO FOR IT!

Well-drawn characters

The characters in this book were well-drawn, and I think the author got to their core. The narration helped in that regard as each character had his or her own subtle voice.

This is the story of many lonely people who wanted more and were denied. Each life intertwined with the deaf-mute, Mr. Singer, who was ultimately the loneliest in his prison of silence. It's not a book to listen to if you are feeling down, but well worth hearing for the characters and their points of view.

The Painful Realities of Small Town Southern Life

"Southerners are more lonely and estranged. I think because we have lived so long in an artificial social system that we insisted was natural and right and just--when all along we knew it wasn't." Carson McCullers

"I am a lone lorn creatur...and everythink goes contrairy with me." Mrs. Gummidge, David Copperfield.


This veracious Southern Gothic novel, with its common gothic staples of disfigurement, disease, brutality and mortality present in a dull and mean small Southern town, makes for a compelling, albeit painful, study of isolation and loneliness in a Georgia milling town in the 1930s.

At the center is a deaf mute who lip-reads named John Singer. The beginning of the novel starts with Singer's longtime friend and roommate Spiros, a morbidly obese Greek deaf mute, losing his sanity and being committed to an asylum. Singer is left all alone in the small Georgia town, terribly missing his only true friend.

The remaining characters gravitate to Singer as fragments of steel to a magnet as they struggle mightily to escape loneliness and see some kind of meaning in their lives. Singer seems to listen and care but says nothing back (even though, as he only knows, he was taught how to speak). These widely diverging characters therefore see in Singer who they believe or imagine him to be, a looking glass of their wants.

Jake Blount is a frustrated and idealistic working man who stews in his brew and becomes violent at a hair trigger. He is a social reformer who aspires to stir the working masses to a revolt and sees Singer as his audience to speeches he'll never deliver to an audience more than one.

Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland is an African-American physician who suffers from tuberculosis. Dr. Copeland obsesses over his wish that his people be saved from docile submission. Unfortunately, his gruffness and aloofness turn off his people from hearing what he has to say. He believes (without any particular reason) that Singer is Jewish and thinks him the only compassionate white he has ever known and that Singer can identify with Copeland as both are members of an oppressed class.

Mick Kelly is a pubescent tomboy who loves music and dreams of playing a piano and composing symphonies one day. She believes that, though Singer is deaf, he can hear music in his head and she tells him of her wishes and dreams. She is soon forced to confront life in poverty in which she may be required to quit school and go to work.

Finally, Biff Brannon is a cafe' owner who observes much, but is trapped in a loveless, childless marriage. After his wife's death, he becomes awfully lonely and would like to connect with any of the other four characters. In a cruel irony, these characters all effectively rebuff Biff's efforts, thus rejecting the only person who accepts them and offer them a human connection.

I guess the moral is that we all need to connect with other people, but it is nearly impossible to do so in any significant way; and, perhaps, if we do connect, we'd best be unselfish and do all we can to keep the wire live.

depressing

This book is good if you are interested in widening your literary knowledge, but it is pretty sad. I gave up 2/3rds of the way through, needed a break. I do care how it ends, so I will finish it after I have read/listened to something a bit lighter. The narrator is good.

Cherry Jones voice is pure poetry

Like listening to a lullaby. Great characterizations and distinctions. Swept away into Carson McCullers world thanks to the talented Cherry Jones.

A sublime work paired with a superb narration.

Would you listen to The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter again? Why?

I have read this book many times and have listened to the audio version twice. I have no doubt I will return to the audio version again. Cherry Jones managed to take a sublime masterpiece of the human soul and crown it with a performance that makes you think the book was originally written for her to narrate.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Jake Blount is one of my favorite characters in literature. I not only know him, I have spent a lot of my life being him. Every now and then we meet a character that so crystallizes our ideas, our feelings and our experiences, that we feel them forever a part of our own soul. In the beat up box that is my soul there is a table. At that table sits an angry and drunk Jake Blount, howling at the moon, wondering why people won't listen.

Have you listened to any of Cherry Jones’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This was my first time listening to a Cherry Jones narration.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This book has it all. I laughed and I cried.

Funny

I had never heard before this book the cities of New Orleans and Gastonia used in the same sentence... When some of the characters spoke, I thought they sounded from another place and not from the places in the book the writer portrayed. That was confusing...

Wow

Easily in my top five reads of all time. And Cherry Jones as narrator for this classic is a treasure.

First audiobook I've felt moved to review

I have well over 100 titles on here and this is the first one I've felt moved to review because Cherry Jones' work here is astounding. Each character has their own voice and her attention to the particulars of Southern accents as expressed by people of different races and classes is stunning. Often the worst parts of most audiobooks are when the narrator has to attempt voices of their opposite gender but Jones has the range to not sound silly or mocking when she does men's voices either. The novel itself is a classic of Southern melancholy but I just wanted to applaud Jones' reading.

LIked This one

I've never read Carson McCullers but I'd heard of her from reading biographies of other writers from the South, like Capote, Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor. After finishing this audio I understand why she's in their league. The characters in this book remain with the reader long after the book is finished. If you're expecting a page turner then forget this one. This is a literary novel. It has peaks and valleys. Finish this audio and you'll come away with a better understanding of how humans are connected to one another and why and how they interact. After each chapter I had to keep reminding myself Carson McCullers was just 24 when she wrote this. Incidently, I thought the Narrator did an excellent job. I've enjoyed lots of books since I joined Audio last year, and this narrator I'd place at the top. This was a pleasurable listen and another reason why I think the United State's best writers are from the South.