Happy Birthday Carson McCullers

[Anonymous No.19953651]

>’I have more to say than Hemingway, and God knows, I say it better than Faulkner’

Poet, playwright and novelist Carson McCullers celebrates her 105th birthday today. I don't think I could accurately introduce her without turning this thread into a blogpost, but if I had to summarise her work quickly I think I would describe it as an intimate documentation of loneliness and spiritual isolation, and trying to find love in these unhappy conditions. She writes very weird, grotesque and friendless characters, and I think there are a probably few anons on this board who could absolutely be a subject of one of her novels. She is also very cute (see pic rel).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carson_McCullers

Where to start:
>The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
>The Member of the Wedding (1946)
>The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1951)
>Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941)
>Clock Without Hands (1961)

Further reading:
>The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers, Virginia Spencer Carr
>Carson McCullers: Her Life and Work, Oliver Evans
>My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, Jenn Shapland
>God and no God in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Frank Durham

I want to know if anyone else has read anything of her's other than The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, because I seem to be the only one who posts about them on this board, and I think they deserve more recognition. The Member of the Wedding is her strongest novel imo (although not my favourite), and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe is really great too. She has some good short stories as well, such as The Haunted Boy, Wunderkind and Correspondence if you don't want to commit to reading a whole novel just yet. Her poetry although not as well known stands on its own too and I will link my favourite one below.

https://www.best-poems.net/carson_mccullers_poems/when_we_are_lost.html

I don't really have anything else to say but I have created a Google Drive with some essays, mainly on The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, that I downloaded from JSTOR for people to read if they want. I will link in the first reply because I don't want this whole post to be taken down for it. Oh and also happy birthday to Dasha Nekrasova too ;)).

[Anonymous No.19953666]

here is the essays

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1t5RVn7YXaPr4pF8yWA3XjUjkpUWxSovI?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.19953693]

>>19953651
I've read all the works by her you listed except Clock Without Hands. I don't have anything to say except her novels are worth reading. Not really an author you become obssessed with unless you want to seem different in Academia. Kind of like how OP is saying
>Faulkner!? McCullers did Southern Gothic better.

[Anonymous No.19953757]

>>19953693
Drop the tone. I already said in the intro that I didn't want to turn this thread into a blogpost, so I haven't elaborated fully, but I have very personal reasons as to why I like McCullers so much, and if you were at all familiar with herself and her novels, as you claim to be, then you would understand that her work can be very touching and intimate. I personally find her very relatable and it gives me enjoyment and an emotional relief to read her books.

> I don't have anything to say except her novels are worth reading.
irony

[Anonymous No.19953761]

what's this hole's prose like?

[Anonymous No.19953768]

>>19953761
I will ignore the hole comment, but here is one of her most famous passages from Ballad of the Sad Cafe.

“First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons — but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world — a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring — this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.

Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else — but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.

It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.”

[Anonymous No.19953785]

>>19953651
>’I have more to say than Hemingway, and God knows, I say it better than Faulkner’

Pretentious bitch

[Anonymous No.19953790]

>>19953651
Sounds like a bitch who needed a good dicking.

[Anonymous No.19953793]

>>19953761
>>19953785
>>19953790
chud(s)

[Anonymous No.19953798]

>>19953651
Never heard of her before. Good thread though.

[Anonymous No.19953825]

>>19953768
Thanks for sharing. Personally there was nothing enchanting about her prose here, and the insights were hardly revelatory or even really true, but to each his own, we all get off on different things.

[Anonymous No.19953828]

>>19953757
>drop the tone
(You) are making this sound like a blog post by trying to dictate tone to others on a Des Moines butter frying forum you cornball. Thank you for introducing her tho

[Anonymous No.19953830]

>>19953790
Based.

[Anonymouṡ No.19953854]

>>19953768
This is good. I've encountered something like it more than once. When a girl is in the mood for loving, she will find the nearest object and love it, whether it's worthy or not. I might try reading some CM.

[Anonymous No.19953855]

>>19953757
No one cares about your author nor your tumblr-esque post.

[Anonymous No.19953857]

>>19953757
>if you were at all familiar with herself and her novels, as you claim to be, then you would understand that her work can be very touching and intimate.
All you are doing is proving my point about why you cling to Carson McCullers so much. Why do you find it hard to believe I've read her novels?

[Anonymous No.19953864]

>>19953790
Based

[Anonymous No.19953873]

>>19953854
>CM
I agree. You should read Cormac McCarthy.

[Anonymous No.19953879]

>>19953854
I think it was referring to people in general and not just women, but yeah she is really great.

>>19953855
Thanks for the (You)

>>19953857
Because you seem to be dismissing her as an author with a solid body of work. Why would she not be worthy of studying in detail? She has 2 great novels and 2 great novellas and a great collection of short stories. Not to mention a wildly successful Broadway play. If you were familiar with all of this then you would understand how a person could be infatuated with her.

[Anonymous No.19953961]

>>19953651
From the further reading list, what's the best or most recent biography I should check out? I remember last year one came and there where raving reviews about it in the usual high profile literary magazines, but I can't remember the name of the work. From what I can remember from the reviews, it seems like McCullers was a pain in the ass as a person, very unlikeable and hard to deal with, but she still had a powerful personality.

[Anonymous No.19953967]

>>19953961
>one came
one came out*

[Anonymous No.19954086]

>>19953961
From her biographies I would definitely start with Virginia Spencer Carr's The Lonely Hunter, as it is the most full and objective account of her life.

The one you are referring to is My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland, and is a modern LGBT reinterpretation with rediscovered therapy notes upon the death of her therapist. As Shapland is a journalist before writer, it reads more as a long form article than full biography; she annoyingly talks about herself quite a bit, and having been written during the 2016 election there are some very cringe references to Trump that were not necessary. Anyway she discovered the therapy notes between Carson and her therapist, Dr Mary Mercer, that shed a bit more light onto her life that Carr previously didn't have access to. It basically hinted that Carson had a lesbian relationship with Dr Mary Mercer, and most likely had a few lesbian relationships in her past as well that were either secret or kept hidden by the estate and by Carr as well in her biography. I think it is worth reading if you have a genuine interest in McCullers as the therapy notes are interesting; that being said Mary Dearborn is also due to release her bio in the coming year so if you could just wait for that one to come out if you want the modern take with the therapy notes while avoiding the Trump stuff.

The Oliver Evans bio is also very good and more angled for an academic study. It is not very detailed in the life part but it introduces each novel with the context it was written in and along with a short analysis/criticism. This one is really great at understanding how much of Carson's self is in her books. Most of her fiction is at least semi-biographical.

As for Carson as a person from reading her bios I got the impression she was just a very complicated and stubborn person, and sometimes a bit much for people to deal with; I think she was either your best friend/lover or nothing at all, and that isolated her a lot. She also got a bit jealous of other novelists; she had a one sided feud with Truman Capote, who purportedly copied her stylistically, and also made comments about others such as Flannery O'Conner (deserved) and also the quote in the OP about Faulkner and Hemingway (also deserved). She wasn't mean spirited though. There was an anecdote from her bios that when one time someone accused her of anti-semitism she had an entire episode bothering every single one of her friends about it because she was so concerned over having hurt someone, which I think is very sweet. I think strong personality describes her well.

[Anonymous No.19954393]

>>19953666
Devil trips mean I will not be clicking that link

[Anonymous No.19954510]

>>19954393
It's only a google drive folder with pdfs

[Anonymous No.19954550]

>>19954086
thanks for the reply, will check those books

[Anonymous No.19954557]

Read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter a few months ago. Her observational stuff is the best part of her work, I found the actual writing and ideas to be just okay. But she has a real talent for nailing a specific kind of person and their state of mind and the way their feelings feel.

[Anonymous No.19954565]

>>19954086
>Flannery O'Conner (deserved) and also the quote in the OP about Faulkner and Hemingway (also deserved)
That's just your fanboyism showing. It speaks more about McCullers's anxieties /of influence, perhaps?) as a writer that she had to say those things about others, than about her merits as a writer. She can be a splendid novelists, but that doesn't make her any better than O'Connor, Hemingway or Faulkner, nor does it really matter.

[Anonymous No.19954578]

hey... i just realized something...!
once you filter out the nazis, the christians, the economists, and the philosophers from this board, its pretty good.

[Anonymous No.19954634]

>>19954557
>But she has a real talent for nailing a specific kind of person and their state of mind and the way their feelings feel.

Yep, I mentioned in my other reply that most of her fiction is semi-biographical, so I guess you could say that that person or state of mind she knew so well was just her own.

And I sort of know what you mean about the ideas being okay; it's why I think The Member of the Wedding is her best novel. At 22 I don't think she had fully mapped out how she felt and ambitiously tried to cover too much ground. While she covered much of that ground well in Heart, The Member of the Wedding is much more concise and direct. Instead of writing about society as a whole, she writes directly about teenage angst and the anxiety of growing up, and she really does nail Francis as a character (people say she is the character Carson most resembles).

>>19954565
Personally I think she is better than all those other writers but that doesn't matter. I think her mother gave her a bit of an ego along with a huge expectation to be a great artist, and like you said it probably played on her mind a bit. But you sort of need to have an ego to be successful; if you don't believe you are great then you never will be.

Also I don't think it was meant to be a dig at those writers btw. Pic rel is the full context.

>>19954578
based!

[Anonymous No.19954733]

>>19954634
I'll read The Member of the Wedding once I finish my current read then. I found myself almost hating Mick Kelly by the end of Hunter, who I assume in some way was a bit of a self-insert. Hopefully not an omen of things to come.

[Anonymous No.19954749]

>>19954733
>I found myself almost hating Mick Kelly
Uh I don't know how that happened, but I will tell you Mick Kelly and Frankie Addams are almost identical. Make of that what you will.

I still think it's worth reading though.

[Anonymous No.19954783]

>>19954749
Everyone else goes through a transformation towards a kind of understanding of themselves over the course of the novel. Mick does the opposite and ends up hurting herself and the people around her as a result. She cannot see beyond herself, it got very frustrating to watch her bumble her way through the story over and over but mostly I felt horrifically badly for Ralph.

[Anonymous No.19954830]

>>19953961
Every literary writer on earth was a pain in the ass, artists are generally terrible people.

[Anonymous No.19954953]

>>19954783
It's relieving to hear that the hatred wasn't misogynistic lol, but I think it's a little unfair to judge Mick too harshly.

She is still a child, and an awkward naïve one at that. I think she sticks out from the rest because her arc represents the crushing of the spirit; while Copeland, Blount and Biff have already been broken, Mick starts the novel still with her dream of music fresh, untouched and still intact and it's tragic to see her flounder about trying to fulfil this unrealistic vision. No decision a person makes at that age should be of any significance, yet Mick, as a result of her absent father, and the economy forcing her into work, and all along with the awkwardness of adolescence, is forced to prematurely become an adult with financial responsibilities. I read her character still with youthful innocence despite this forced growth and in that way I can excuse some of the wrong she did; I think a child at that age should still be playing games and shit.

I also think it would be incorrect to say the other characters experienced any real growth. Copeland gives up and moves away to die; Blount moves onto another town, presumably to repeat his drunken routine all over again; and Biff seems to only acknowledge his situation as a loner as also too gives up. Finally, Mick tragically clings onto her dream own dream, but now now with the added weight of the responsibilities of adulthood. I think I remember seeing something about McCullers intended the ending to be happy or even hopeful, but I'm with you in thinking Mick didn't get anywhere. Now being able to see into the future (published in 1940, no one would have know how bad WW2 would have been) I think it's safe to assume Mick didn't get her piano and never got to become a famous composer. Functioning as the allegorical child, she will likely just grow into a female version of her supporting characters.

>>19954830
Carsondidnothingwrong.

[Anonymous No.19955336]

>>19953825
>the insights were hardly revelatory or even really true,
How would an incel know anything about love and relationships?

[Anonymous No.19955445]

>>19954953
>copeland

[Anonymous No.19955493]

>>19955445
>omg its le heckin based 4chan buzzword !!!

[Anonymous No.19956088]

>>19953961
Cheeky bump because I forgot to mention you can read an article Shapland did for the NYT that summarises much of her book.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/books/review/autobiography-carson-mccullers-jenn-shapland.html

She also did an interview on the Weekly We of Me podcast which is worth a listen. There are a few really good episodes on there with other guests who are actual experts as well; I recommend the listening to the Carols Dewes (he edited the LoA editions of McCullers) and Mary Dearborn (she is writing a bio on McCullers) interviews.

https://anchor.fm/nick-norwood/

[Anonymous No.19956180]

>>19953768
not bad

[Anonymous No.19956396]

>>19956180
Will you read it then??

[Anonymous No.19956455]

>>19953768
>I will ignore the hole comment

/lit/sisters...

[Anonymous No.19956554]

>>19956455
You are not funny.

[Anonymous No.19956596]

>>19954749
is that barry dillon?

[Anonymous No.19956715]

>>19953651
Are you the schozo tranny that had HRT meds on his burger pillow and went on a schizo rant about DFW or am I confusing you with someone else?

[Anonymous No.19957343]

>>19956455
You are funny, carry on.

[Anonymous No.19958289]

>>19956596
No it's Yung Lean

[Anonymous No.19958298]

>>19953790
She liked the pussy and the dick

[Anonymous No.19958299]

>>19953651
She’s proto-DFW.

[Anonymous No.19958352]

>>19956715
>>19958299
9/20/21 Never forget.

I don't care about it anymore but in all seriousness it was one of the dumbest and most obnoxious comments I've ever seen on this board.

also btw I samefagged a bunch of those replies to the original post lmao