The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) (nat)

I read a book. Finally. Thanks to the impending book group meeting tonight. Yep. Give me a deadline and I'll read a book. That says a lot about what my non-school life is going to look like.

Anyway, I won't say too much because I am going to go talk about it with people in just over an hour or so. I will say it just wasn't my cup of tea. The basic premise is a set of characters in small town 1930s Georgia. They all interact with one deaf-mute, Singer, who has recently lost his best friend (also a deaf-mute--what are the odds, really, of two deaf-mutes in the same small town in GA? And apparently there were more at other times.) to an asylum. There's Mick a pre-teen/teenager (girl) who loves music, Biff a diner owner who is either a pedophile or deeply regrets not having children of his own, Blount an educated rough-neck communist drunk, and Dr. Copeland a black doctor (in that he's black and he only treats blacks) who loves Marx but hates all other white people (except Singer). These four all interact with Singer but not with each other so much--there are, of course, other characters (a whole slew of them) but they get minor billing behind the main five. There's a lot of political, social, and economic concerns swirling around in the book but none seem to settle and none seem to come to any sort of conclusion (or even a hint at a possible conclusion).

Overall, I don't get the larger point behind the motivation of any of the characters, the absent sexuality (except for one possible event which could be read as just a kiss), any of the pseudo-relationships between the characters (especially that between Singer and his deaf-mute Greek friend), the supposed political struggle (I don't know which McCullers wants, capitalism, communism, or fascism---none work in the book), the random characters who just drop out of the book altogether . . . . I guess I just want a point, any point really.

Oh well, we'll see what the other people in the book group say and see if Tracy decides she likes to talk about books on the blog too :-)