Amazon.com Reviews
Heralded as the "best book on the dope decade" by the New York Times Book Review, Hunter S. Thompson's documented drug orgy through Las Vegas would no doubt leave Nancy Reagan blushing and D.A.R.E. founders rethinking their motto. Under the pseudonym of Raoul Duke, Thompson travels with his Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in a souped-up convertible dubbed the "Great Red Shark." In its trunk, they stow "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls," which they manage to consume during their short tour.
On assignment from a sports magazine to cover "the fabulous Mint 400"--a free-for-all biker's race in the heart of the Nevada desert--the drug-a-delic duo stumbles through Vegas in hallucinatory hopes of finding the American dream (two truck-stop waitresses tell them it's nearby, but can't remember if it's on the right or the left). They of course never get the story, but they do commit the only sins in Vegas: "burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help." For Thompson to remember and pen his experiences with such clarity and wit is nothing short of a miracle; an impressive feat no matter how one feels about the subject matter. A first-rate sensibility twinger, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a pop-culture classic, an icon of an era past, and a nugget of pure comedic genius. --Rebekah Warren
Book Description
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.
Now this cult classic of gonzo journalism is a major motion picture from Universal, directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro. Opens everywhere on May 22, 1998.
Customer Reviews:
I know, I know..........2007-09-30
I know, it's THE Hunter S. Thompson book. It would be like having the gall to write a review for the Grapes of Wrath or Slaughterhouse Five and think you'd be doing anything other than blabbing just to see your own words on a computer screen.
That said, read this book this instant. Whatever good anyone's ever said about this book, it's twenty times better. I read it in two sittings and only stopped myself from reading it again because it was a library book and had to be returned.
The late HST's gift for gonzo, that strange mix of fiction and nonfiction, is ultimately realized in this book. Reality is seamlessly mixed with a bizarre fantasy world of sentient reptiles and split personality through the medium of hard drugs that serve to clarify (and sometimes amplify) a violent and twisted town in a strange time.
This book will have you laughing hysterically at parts, so don't read it around other people unless you're okay with passing it to them. This book will have you cringing at the brutality of human nature at points, so have your wits about you.
I really can't say anything else, other than that this book must be purchased and read this very instant if you haven't already done so.
A must read for anyone.......2007-09-21
Thompson's book helps create a vivid picture of the drug fueled 60's and early 70's a way no one else has before.
Good stuff, but less important than his other work.......2007-09-14
¨Fear and Loathing¨ is a great ride for sure. A drug-addled, hilarious, disturbing romp through Las Vegas in search of the American Dream. Thompson is definitely a skilled writer and an outlaw and this stuff comes through in this book. I don't want to shrug this work off by any means, but I definately prefer his other work, such as ¨The Great Shark Hunt,¨ because it truly brings out Thompson's outlook on the world, his hatred of wealth, power and greed, etc. This book is fun, but Thompson is definitely capable of more depth and thought. While this work might be what gave him his big break, he definitely went on to better things.
Buy the ticket...take the ride.......2007-08-23
A bizzare journey to the heart of the American Dream, funny, witty and full of memorable episodes. The illustrations by Ralph Steadman are also superb. Raul Duke says it clearly : "buy the ticket...take the ride"
A wild and extraordinary ride down a lost highway ..........2007-08-20
The lost highway of the American Dream.
I wasn't old enough to remember much from the late 60's early 70's let alone the political aspects of Nixon's presidency or the drug culture of the time, so this review won't have any profound social or political commentary, except that comparisons can well be made to the drug culture of today, and it is glaringly apparent that not much has changed.
Considering the climate of the time: Nixon's presidency, the war in Vietnam, and the country's young men succumbing to the draft, it was no wonder that an entire generation wanted something more, for this was not the American Dream they had been sold. And for some, the only way to drown out the hypocrisy gnawing at your brain is to give your brain an escape. Expand your mind, as that might be the only part of you that is truly free. Whatever it takes to get you directly out of your head -- the higher the better. This story chronicles a journey utterly devoid of restraint and reason as these two men, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, and their trunk full of felonies set themselves loose upon Las Vegas -- the last vestige of the American Dream. However, their idea of the American Dream is not how most of us would understand it, but somehow, through the fog of hallucinatory metaphor, we can actually see and feel what the main characters are searching for so desperately.
All that aside, even if the 60's culture is beyond your age group, Thompson's writing is worth the read -- Brilliant, sarcastic, and frighteningly funny: Bars seething with has-been lounge lizards, tearing the patrons to shreds, blood soaked tacky hotel rooms, police car chases, kidnapping, gambling, excess, and debauchery ... not to mention the Narcotics Convention. The dialog is brilliant. Harrowing experiences abound; it is amazing that the two main characters make it out of Vegas alive.
Definitely a wild ride for all.
Book Description
With the publication of her first novel, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1940. At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty. Richard Wright praised Carson McCullers for her ability "to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness." She writes "with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming," said the NEW YORK TIMES. McCullers became an overnight literary sensation, but her novel has endured, just as timely and powerful today as when it was first published. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, endearing best.
Customer Reviews:
The Quiet Man. .......2007-09-27
An outstanding and realistic examination of the human condition. It's an indirect examination ("thoughts that wound from behind" as the great philosopher/storyteller Soren Kierkegaard put it) and that's what makes it so effective.
Everyone is so caught up in their own problems and acting out their desires that nobody notices the quiet suffering of the saintly central character. When he exits his void is felt yet no one can fathom the reasons for his disappearances. Maybe Jean Calvin was/is right about that thorough-corruption doctrine.
Carson McCullers sounds Kierkegaardian in showing the limits of organized religion and social action. The men of purposeful action (street preacher Simms, vagabond Jake Blount, and house-calling Doctor Copeland end up estranged, embittered, and feeling a lack of accomplishment. Meanwhile, the non-formalists (John Singer, Mick Kelly, and Biff Brannon) are better-adjusted and seem to have done more for the world. McCullers doesn't forget the "middle path" either by giving us Portia Copeland, a decent and generous church-goer who talks a little too much.
Our author echoes the sentiments of fellow Southerner William Faulkner on the civil rights issue. Both McCullers and Faulkner despaired at the suffering of blacks under Jim Crow but were wise enough to know the situation could not be legislated away (after all Jim Crow was a creation of government too.) Racism is a human failing to see The Other as a fellow child of G-d. It's an animalistic impulse, as Rabbi Daniel Lapin (a teacher of mine) rightly points out. Trying to speed the undoing of this impulse through legislation and protest marches, while not completely unhelpful, risks bloodshed. Having the faith/attributes of Biff (who runs a restaurant/hospitality center in the spirit of Biblical patriarch Abraham, the father of faith), Mick and Singer makes peaceful change possible in time.
Doctor Copeland and Jake Blount foreshadow the professional protestors of our era. Their enjoyment in physical confrontations tells us a good bit about the psyche of poverty pimps and union thugs.
Singer's life shows the truth of what another of my teachers (the saintly Rabbi Avigdor Miller ZT"L) once said -- "It is the quiet man that is respected." The public activist hero portrayed in Hollywood and TV news misleads many into thinking that they must pour forth a constant stream of verbiage to make an impact and promote "understanding." Rabbi Miller and other sages know better -- Most talking is counterproductive.
McCullers (who was 23 at the time "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" was published) proves herself the Great American Prophetess of the Great American Loneliness. Widespread ambivalence and inarticulateness amid the Information Age and cell-phone-driven communications "revolution" wouldn't have surprised Carson McCullers.
To close, here's a gem -- "He (Biff) had known his loves and they were over. Alice, Madeline, and Gyp. Finished. Leaving him either better or worse. Which? However you looked at it."
Character study, not a story.......2007-09-13
I read tons of "pulp" novels and I've started adding some classics to my wish list--largely to see if the books I abhored in high school would be more enjoyable if they were not assigned reading. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was no better now.
As a character study it is superb; the main characters are deep, believable, and unique. I understood the characters, or at least why they didn't understand themselves. Each chapter with Mr. Singer made me smile with anticipation while I waited for something magical to happen to make the characters happy.
That was the problem with the book. Each chapter barely moves the story forward, and in the end nothing happens. There is so much potential for characters to talk and understand and change, but it never happens and the potential hangs over the entire book like a cloud. The book simply ends. No character is better off than they were in the beginning, no character's life path is appreciably changed from those of their next door neighbors. In short, with the exception of Mr. Singer, there was no reason to write about these characters in terms of their participation in events that are worth writing about.
The book was not a labor to get through, but I was largely unsatisfied with the resolution. I don't need a happy ending, but atleast give me a sense that the previous 200 pages somewhat affected that ending.
No thrilling page-turner, but a deep, honest look into the heart of man!.......2007-09-09
It's no fast-paced thriller, nor is it a gripping page-turner, it is however, an incredibly deep look into the heart and soul of man. Not until you finish the very last page and reflect on what you have read, can you truly begin to understand the simple truth behind the title, `The heart is a lonely hunter.'
The heart of man is lonely, always seeking, always needing something... elusive. We all share the need to feel connected, to be part of a whole. To know truth, and be at peace. We are so many disjointed voices that few of us are ever really heard.
Set in the deep South, Carson tells of a deaf mute named John Singer and a group of frustrated individuals that gravitate towards his serene and kindly nature--a young girl, desperate to follow her dreams; a drunkard, willing to impart his wisdom on the uninformed; a black doctor, eager to lift his people to equality; and a café owner, stuck in the routines of life.
Each seek Singer's company and tell of their woes with a deep believe that he, and only he, truly understands their ply. In him, each sees a kindred spirit. But what, exactly, does Singer see in them?
The Meaning of Life.......2007-08-29
"Seek and ye shall find," Jesus is quoted as saying in the Bible. All of us, no matter what our religious affiliation--or lack thereof--are seeking out a dream, a little piece of happiness. Sometimes this process is conscious and sometimes a subconscious imperative drives us forward towards that piece of happiness.
The five main characters of "The Heart is A Lonely Hunter" are all seeking their dreams in an unnamed mill town in the South in the late 1930s. For teenaged Mick Kelly, the dream is a career in classical music that her impoverished family can't afford to provide. For the relentless black Doctor Copeland, the dream is freedom and equality for his people. For restaurateur Biff Brannon the dream is having children. For vertically-challenged drifter Jake Blount the dream is a Marxist revolution to level the playing field for all people. And last, but most important, the dream for deaf-mute John Singer is to be reunited with his long time partner Anatopolous, who was committed to an institution.
Singer becomes the prime focus for the other four. One by one they inadvertently seek him out and spill their wishes and desires to him, although he often doesn't understand them. To Mick he is a secret friend who understands her. To Copeland he is a wise man who understands the struggles of the black minority. To Blount he is a comrade in arms for the revolution. And to Biff he is a kindred spirit, a fellow observer of humanity.
Yet for as much as he represents to them, they mean relatively little to Singer. His thoughts are consumed by his love--platonic, we assume--for Anatopolous, the one he thinks understands him. But much as Singer is a false idol to the other four, Anatopolous is a false idol for him, a lazy, selfish, slovenly person incapable of appreciating Singer's love. In the end these troubled souls are left to pick up the pieces after the false idols shatter, as they inevitably do. This leads each of them to make a decision and to enter a new phase of life.
What makes this book so wonderful to read is the profound understanding of humanity shown here. All of us at one time or another have felt the pent-up ambition Mick feels at wanting something that remains just out of reach. We've felt the righteous anger to right a terrible injustice like Doctor Copeland. We've felt the isolation of being the outsider like Blount. We've all felt the confusion after a loss like Biff. And those of us fortunate enough--or perhaps unfortunate enough--have felt the heartache of an unrequited love like Singer.
These people all seem real because their hopes and desires are those hopes and desires we all have. Their dreams aren't altogether different than those each of us seek, whether we're aware of it or not. We know their longing and desperation to find someone who understands them, even if that someone is a deaf-mute who can only nod along.
Because of that, the book touches something deep in our consciousness, something primal within all of us--the need to seek out for something greater. The most astounding thing about "The Heart is A Lonely Hunter" is that the author was only twenty-three years old when she published this. At a time when most of us are just getting out into the "real world" and discovering ourselves, McCullers already had it figured out.
This is truly a literary achievement that you should seek out at your local bookseller or library at once, those who haven't already done so based on Oprah's recommendation.
That is all.
doesnt stand up over time.......2007-08-13
Lula Carson Smith was my favorite author for a long time. However i must have outgrown her, because i found a recent re-reading of 'the heart...' to be a little tiresome. i agree with another reviewer who noted it was easy to tell the characters were developed by a 23 y/o.
Book Description
Double the paranormal erotic romance-two all-new stories from a fan favorite.
From Shiloh Walker's hot Hunter series come two new stories...
In the shades of night, when the evil are free to seduce the weak and indulge their desires, there are still those who will fight to the death for the innocent. They are The Hunters. They are at the heart of a sensuous and strange new world...
Two men. Two women. Paranormal warriors and eternal lovers who keep the undead in line by destroying those who have gone rogue. They serve as Judge, Jury, and Executioner. They are as merciless as their prey. And they are its soul.
But in this strange enclave of midnight retribution, some discover a hunger they'd never imagined, a love that crosses unnatural boundaries, and a blood reckoning with a damnable past that could save the Hunters or destroy them.
Customer Reviews:
Just a bit of information.......2007-08-24
Chronologically, this is actually book 9--the events here occur between Hunting the Hunter and Hunter's Salvation.
Also, disregard Harriet's review--what she says is not correct about the stories. They are not reprints and she summarizes them incorrectly.
The Hunters.......2007-08-20
Hunter's Salvation (The Hunters, Book 10)The Hunters: Interlude (Books 3 & 4)Legends: Hunters and Heroes (The Hunters, Book 7)
Interesting..........2007-06-30
HUNTERS: HEART AND SOUL is essentially one story with two romances, divided into two separate sections. In "Soul of a Hunter", the plot focuses on Leandra and Mike. For over 5 years, Leandra has been haunted by her past. Leandra had fought as a member of Scythe against the Hunters, not realizing that she was fighting on the wrong side. No one blames Leandra more than Leandra herself. Will Mike's love be enough when danger strikes?
"Heart of a Hunter" picks up right where "Soul of a Hunter" concludes, but from the perspective of Kelsey and Malachi. Leandra encourages Kelsey to talk to the Council's captive and it is only then that Kelsey recognizes what has occurred. Determined to stop the Council's execution order, she seeks out Malachi. Will Malachi's anger over the recent events blind him to what Kelsey has to say? And what will become of the powerful attraction between them?
Shiloh Walker takes a very unusual approach with HUNTERS: HEART AND SOUL. Broken into two parts, "Soul of a Hunter" and "Heart of a Hunter" are essentially two very hot romances and yet the ongoing thread between the storylines makes them basically one story. The stories must be read in the right order due to the ongoing thread that links the stories together, but to reveal more about this thread would be a spoiler.
"Soul of a Hunter" will probably be better appreciated by fans of Ms. Walker's Hunters series as it jumps rather quickly into the midst of the plot. While I have read HUNTING THE HUNTER, I haven't read any of the other Hunter books and initially was a bit confused as it almost felt as if I'd missed a previous episode. However, as the story progresses and the action begins to kick in, the plot begins to coalesce just a bit.
With "Heart of a Hunter", the true genius of Shiloh Walker begins to shine. The plot moves along rapidly as all of the pieces begin to come together. While I wasn't overly enthusiastic about "Soul of a Hunter", the series of events is necessary for "Heart of a Hunter" to even occur. In some ways, HUNTERS: HEART AND SOUL is really the story of the Hunters as a whole, as events occur that will surely impact them all. There are some dangling threads that remain unresolved and one expects that these threads will be picked up in the next book in this series.
Shiloh Walker has obviously spent a great deal of time in crafting the world of the Hunters. The premise is absolutely brilliant and overall I enjoyed this book. Perhaps a brief introduction or recap at the beginning of the book would have resolved some of my initial confusion and helped ease me into this very complex world.
COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES
Thank you Shiloh!.......2007-05-19
I have been waiting for Malachi and Leandra forever and I was not disappointed. Maybe Mike and Leandra could have ended alittle better but...
I am SOOOO happy she did not wimp out Leandra or Kelsy. Shiloh is one the few authors who can write a lead fem with stregnth and angst without all the weak female whinning[..]. Adding coffee to the cream with Mike and Leandra was wonderful. So rarely do we get to see interracial relationships in this genre and Shiloh keeps my sista girl strong and true even with all of her emotional baggage and keeps the sexy HOT HOT HOT. I loved how Mike held his ground with her.
Malachi is as Malachi does and I was not disappointed. It was a GREAT story with all the sexual tension...and release so many of us crave.
It was worth the wait for me.
Fantastic!.......2007-05-12
Great read, it is a terric ongoing story from the Hunters series. If you like paranormal crime fighting an romance you will love this story!
Average customer rating:
- Dark, depressing, but worthwhile
- Unremitting Bleakness of Life
- Simple
- GOOD GAWD - this book leaves you breathless !!!!!
- If you like literature, you need to read this.
|
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0618084746 |
Book Description
With the publication of her first novel, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1940. At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty. Richard Wright praised Carson McCullers for her ability "to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness." She writes "with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming," said the NEW YORK TIMES. McCullers became an overnight literary sensation, but her novel has endured, just as timely and powerful today as when it was first published. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, endearing best.
Customer Reviews:
Dark, depressing, but worthwhile.......2007-09-07
I thought I would be bored listening to an audio book and not pay attention. I listened to this while driving 1200 miles in one weekend. It was the nicest, incredibly long drive I've ever had. The book is a little dark but I was impressed with the writing, especially since Carson McCullers was only 23 when she wrote it. My book club had selected this book and I don't think I would have listened to it otherwise. Although, I like lighter Southern Genre books. Still, having grown up in the South, I thought it was a pretty realistic portrayal of the times and the people. But just one tragedy after another and from what I have read about McCullers, somewhat autobiographical.
Unremitting Bleakness of Life.......2007-09-03
I coudn't stop thinking while I was reading this, I couldn't stand more than a hundred pages, that it was a brilliant work for a very sensitive,depressed, lonely, highly intelligenttwenty something writer. Who wasn't made like other folks, and for many artists that's a necessary evil. I havent' read anything else by her, and I don't think I will, I have a feeling life doesn't get better in the works of Carson McCuller and that's too bad.
The writing is much better than OK, but,this work is amateurish in structure. There is no impelling story of any kind, just a wearing down, gets to be boring, pastiche of miserable and semi-miserable characters going nowhere except into a future of deepening misery and despair.
Yes there are pleanty of folks like that but nothing redeems them here.
McCullers is a southern grotesque who lacks the vitality of Flannery O'Connor and the enduring humanity and brilliance of William Faulkner.
Simple.......2007-03-25
This is simply one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. It catches the rhythm of life for the lonely 'invisible' people, and its emotion is conveyed so forcefully that the tragedy becomes cathartic. Buy this book.
GOOD GAWD - this book leaves you breathless !!!!!.......2006-01-16
This book came to me in a odd way. It was mentioned in the movie "A love song for Bobby Long". Never thought it was a real book. But googling for the title (just out of curiosity) I found it. Got very curious after having read a couple of reviews and bought it. It cost me a sleepless night. I couldn't put it down and read it in one breath. It has such an impact that it leaves one breathless. What an astounding story it is. It boggles my mind how such a young woman in 1940 (she was 23 at the time the book was published) could come up with such a novel.
My question is also: what has changed in the meantime, as to the social circumstances of the poor? Nothing whatsoever. It's frustrating that I cannot come up with anything original to add in this review, as far too many 5 star reviewers have already done that. It comes down to a repitition of words like:
astounding, remarkable, extraordinary, impressive, beautiful and bittersweet: ALL TRUE.
People who are looking for a plot, are looking for easy reading and have a totally dream-like idea of how life can be.
Wake up people and experience truth. Take up the book again after a couple of years, and see if it will make sense by then.
If you read this book, you will be totally shaken by this story of beauty and darkness.
Carson Mccullers is a genius to have written this story at such a young age.
If you like literature, you need to read this........2006-01-02
I picked "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" up before Oprah Winfrey mentioned the book and put it in her club. Interestingly enough, the book was referenced to me by someone who is quite different from Oprah: The late controversial poet and novelist Charles Bukowski, "The laureate of the low lifes," as Time referred to him disgustedly. For the last five years I have been utterly obsessed with this man and his writings. It was Bukowski who had turned me on to other fantastic writers like John Fante, Celine, Ezra Pound, and Sherwood Anderson. He also name drops Carson McCullers in many of his poems and in some of his published interviews (As a big fan of Henry Miller, I found out that McCullers was also a favorite of this author of "Tropic of Cancer" and the Sexus/Plexus/Nexus trilogy). So I picked up as many of her books as I could find, and I started off by reading "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter."
And what a fantastic book it is.
I could identify with so many of the characters in this book (published in 1940) that I was like, "where has this book been my whole life?" Unbelievable! Yes, it is sad in some few parts but it is never "sappy" sad. For me, the saddest part was when Bubber accidently shoots another small child - and whereas before this incident Bubber was a chipper, talkative boy who liked dressing up in costumes (although he was often made fun of for it) and singing, he breaks down after the accident and becomes totally withdrawn, and stops playing with other kids.
It is remarkable to think that Carson McCullers had the keen political and social insight to write this book at the age of 23. This book was years ahead of its time in its social and political commentaries. Besides the aforementioned gun accident (which subtly painted an ugly picture of a culture obsessed with guns), this book addresses class struggle, racism, bigotry, political apathy, materialism, drug abuse, the inequalities of the criminal justice system, and other important issues.
Most of this book found me smiling and nodding my head up and down. This is so true in reading about Blount and Dr. Copeland. Blount is a white, blue collar worker who is frustrated with the capitalist system in America, but he is laughed at by other poor whites and greeted with apathetic indifference when he suggests that they should band together and strike for better conditions. Copeland is a black doctor who also tries to get black people in this depression-era town to strike, but he is greeted with the same responses as Blount. In fact, the poor whites and the poor blacks in this town would rather remain separate from one another drowning to the bottom of their liquor bottles than to try to make their lives better.
Political apathy? My, how little has changed from 1940 to 2005.
When I first read this book I had to force myself to put it down, and every year I find myself re-reading the entire book or parts of it.
All I can say is that this is a fantastic novel, one of my top five books of all time. I don't know how or why this book could merit less than five stars. Read it.
Book Description
A new collection of sporting essays by one of America's finest outdoor writers.
Customer Reviews:
Man as hunter, writer as seer.......2007-03-15
Robert F. Jones brings an illumination to the sport of hunting that is often missing from other writers. There is an insight, a special gift that Jones has that brings us to the hunt wide eyed and ready. He speaks of favorite dogs without being soppy and sentimental. He makes passages glisten with newness even though the scene is lived out daily during the hnting season. If you are a dog lover, a hunter, or someone intereste din good writing, Jones is the man for you.
The Heart of Eevery Bird Hunter.......2004-02-07
My wife gave me this book for Christmas. She told me that I was the hunter of her heart! Well enough with the sappy stuff, on with the review. I recently went on vacation and took the book along for a read at the beach. I read the book in two days! It was one of those books that was hard to put down. On my flight back to the states, I began to read some of the stories again, and was just as intrigued during the first read. Mr. Jones talks about hunting in with his Lab and a Jack Russell (definite twist). That would have been a pair to see in the field, a Jack Russell pointing and a Lab flushing!?!?!?! Mr. Jones has the ability to make you feel like you are right there with him. Not many authors have that ability. If you have a true passion for good hunting and great dogs, this book is it. Now that I am back to reality (cold, snowy weather), I have picked up the book sevral more times and began to read the book from cover to cover again, while I am waiting for my most recent Amazon order of bird hunting books. Spend the money and take the time to read this great book. It wont disapoint you.
Book Description
When The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was published in 1940, Carson McCullers was instantly recognized as one of the most promising writers of her generation. The novels that followed established her as a master of Southern Gothic.
"McCullers' gift," writes Joyce Carol Oates, "was to evoke, through an accumulation of images and musically repeated phrases, the singularity of experience, not to pass judgment on it." McCullers effortlessly conveyed the raw anguish of her characters and the weird beauty of their perceptions. Set in small Georgia towns that are at once precisely observed and mythically resonant, McCullers' novels explore the strange, sometimes grotesque inner lives of characters who are often marginal and misunderstood. Above all, McCullers possessed an unmatched ability to capture the bewilderment and fragile wonder of adolescence.
In The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, an enigmatic deaf-mute draws out the haunted confessions of an itinerant worker, a young girl, a black doctor, and the widowed owner of a small-town café. Two shorter works, Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941) and The Ballad of the Sad Café (1943), use melodramatic scenarios and freakish characters to explore the disfiguring violence of desire. The Member of the Wedding (1946), on which the play and film were based, tells of a young girl's fascination with her brother's wedding and is perhaps McCullers' most moving and accomplished novel. In Clock Without Hands (1960), the story of a terminally ill druggist, McCullers produces some of her most forceful and indignant social criticism.
Edited by Carlos Dews.
Customer Reviews:
The American Jane Austen?.......2003-12-24
I have read many novels by many writers, both American and foreign, but it's been a good long while since I've read something so penetrating and perceptive as Carson McCuller's first and last novels. The characters in the books, their lives and personalities, are so well thought-out and delineated that you have to wonder how a woman of 23 could put something like this together. Anyway, below is a synopsis of each story in this volume.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is the longest of Carson McCullers' novels, and the first. She wrote it in the late `30s, and published it in 1940, when she was 23. It's an incredible first novel, and amazingly prescient and wise for someone of her age, era, and upbringing. The story revolves around a deaf mute, John Singer, who works engraving silverware in a small city in the South somewhere. He has only one friend in the world, another deaf mute who works for his cousin, making candy. As the story begins the candymaker (named Antanopolous) is committed to an asylum, and Singer moves from the home they shared, and slowly begins to acquire a circle of other friends. Principle in this circle are four people: Mick, the daughter of his landlords at the rooming house he lives in; Biff, who runs the diner where he takes his meals; Blount, another denizen of the diner, who wishes to unionize the local mill-workers; and Dr.Copeland, a black man who rages against the injustice of white society towards him and his race. The heart of the story is a character study of these five people, with alternating chapters following the one and then the other. Each is intelligent, in his or her own way, and each has special insights into the world around them. How these characters interact, and the relationships between them and the rest of the world, make the heart of the story and most of the book.
Reflections in a Golden Eye is a shorter story, one of McCullers' novels that is really more of a novella. The plot revolves around a love triangle that develops between two officers on an Army base, and the wife of one of them. There's also a strange, solitary, enigmatic private who tends the horses on the base, and he interacts with the other characters. Frankly, I didn't enjoy this story as much as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The characters weren't anywhere near as believable, and their motivations weren't as transparent or understandable. The ending was also somewhat predictable.
The Ballad of the Sad Café is the shortest of McCullers' novels or novellas, weighing in at 60 pages. It's the story of a strange, unpredictable relationship between the standoffish businesswoman who dominates the culture of a small town, and a dwarf hunchback who shows up one day claiming to be her long-lost nephew. How the two of them interact in the story is strange, to say the least, and not wholly explained in the story. This creates an enigmatic atmosphere, and as the story progresses and it becomes obvious we're not going to receive an explanation of things, you find yourself re-reading passages looking for clues as to motivations. I enjoyed this story much more than Reflections in a Golden Eye, perhaps almost as much as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
The Member of the Wedding is perhaps McCullers' most strange work. The heart of the book is built around the fantastic intentions and beliefs of a twelve-year-old girl. In the first portion of the book, she's known as Frankie. Later, when she gets the idea she's going to leave with her older brother on his honeymoon, she changes her name to F. Jasmine, and the book follows that convention. Once it develops that she can't go with the brother and his new bride (you knew this was going to happen) she becomes Frances. There isn't much of a plot other than this girl fantasizing about all of the things she's going to be or do, and looking down her nose at all the common people who surround her, who she thinks are beneath her.
Clock Without Hands is the best of McCullers' books other than The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I now wonder if the length of the books had something to do with whether I liked them or not. She seems to have been able, in the longer books, to build her characters more, and have more plot twists. Clock Without Hands is about a dying pharmacist in a small Georgia town, and the events surrounding his death, but it really turns out to be more about one of his acquaintances, a senile old judge who imagines himself a great leader of the opposition to the desegregation movement. The episodes of the Civil Rights movement, as McCullers recreates them, become at times farcical and silly, and the resistance to the movement altogether silly and irrational.
Library of America volumes are wonderful to hold and read, and this is no exception. The type is clear, the book handy to hold or slip into a pocket. Given McCullers' stature as a writer, I think I'm going to value this book for a good long while.
Magnificent McCullers.......2002-03-11
Carson McCullers, one of America's greatest Southern writers, was often misunderstood, as many people were put off by or unwilling to deal with her (at the time) controversial subject matter. MCCullers used the grotesque as exaggerated symbols of everyday experience. The loneliness and isolation of her gothic-like characters were merely extreme examples of feelings we all have, though magnified and intensified to the nth degree.
Tennessee Williams, in his introduction to MCCullers' "Reflections in a Golden Eye", posed the question (in a mock dialogue) most people asked about writers of the 'gothic' school such as Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter and Eudora Welty: "Why do they write about such dreadful things?" Williams replies, " In my opinion it is most simply definable as a sense, an intuition of an underlying dreadfulness in modern society.. Why have they got to use..symbols of the grotesque and the violent? Because a book is short and a man's life is long... The awfulness has to be compressed."
McCullers, unlike any writer I have ever read, pierces the heart of themes such as love, isolation, and loneliness with her lucid, poetic prose. Tennessee Williams, in Virginia Spencer Carr's biography of McCullers summed up McCullers' writing as follows: "I have used the word 'heart', but it is not an adequate word to describe the core of Carson McCullers' genius....I believe, in fact I know, that there are many, many with heart who lack the need or gift to express it. And therefore Carson McCullers is what I would call a necessary writer: She owned the heart and the deep understanding of it, but in addition she had that 'tongue of angels' that gave her power to sing of it, to make of it an anthem."
The unique lady of the "South".......2001-10-20
Until very recently, it was quite difficult to find a nice hardback copy of Mc Culler's novels. Each one of them is absolutely priceless and unforgettable; believe me when I tell you that "The Ballad of the Sad Café" is one of those stories that long remain on your mind. Mc Culler's novels, clearly influenced by Faulkner, surpass the master himself in magnetism, , power of storytelling and above all, characterization. If you add to all this a dose of gothic dark strangely ambivalent sense of humour, the result is certainly a writer utterly impossible to classify, novels that you really enjoy reading and characters that you are very unlikely to forget. Besides I am fully in love with the Library of America hardback editions and Mc Cullers certainly deserves to be included in this collection.
Later, if you want to give yourself a treat, go and buy her autobiography, although unfinished, a memorable book.
Book Description
This collection of Flack's writings covers so much game that after reading this book you will agree that the Big Five are not the only worthwhile African trophies.
Average customer rating:
- The great divide
- Good beginning but goes no where
- Feel the passion, hear the experiences of the Bushman.
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The Heart of the Hunter: Customs and Myths of the African Bushman
Laurens Van Der Post
Manufacturer: Harvest/HBJ Book
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
South Africa | Africa | History | Subjects | Books
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Ethnology | Anthropology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0156400030 |
Book Description
The author’s passionate concern for Africa and for the human spirit is evident in this portrait of the “First People” of southern Africa, the Bushmen. Van der Post describes his desert travels, the splendid landscape and wildlife, and his encounters with the Bushman, an elusive culture. Drawings by Maurice Wilson.
Customer Reviews:
The great divide.......2004-07-16
I again with the earlier reviewer who pointed out the noticeable difference between the first part of this book and the latter; when Van der Post is recounting his experiences with the Bushmen (or San, if you prefer) and with various other folk who have come to inhabit the Kalahari the book is very interesting and informative. However, in the second half he feels the need to reinterpret the Bushmen's legends or myths through a Jungian perspective, a treatment I found neither compelling nor convincing. While the fragments of the Bushmen's tales are interesting and Van der Post's ruminations are occasionally thought provoking, I didn't particularly enjoy his technique of intercutting between a few sentences of the one and heavy doses of the other. I suppose that for the reader who cares to interpret everything by archetypes and quests it might prove intriguing, but I soon came to find it rather annoying and distracting.
Good beginning but goes no where.......2000-03-16
This is a decent book because I love anthropology, ethnobotony, and learning about the Bushman. The beginning of this book was great, the author discusses how he and his group fall upon a thirsty group of Bushman. That part is great because it describes the interactions between the author and the Bushman. One of the author's mate on the trip, Dabe, a Bushman himself, also offers amazing commentary when they run into the Bushman.
However, in the middle, who knows what is going on. And the end was so confusing, but sorta okay. Van der Post discusses Bushman creation tales which are good in themselves because most books overlook the spiritual aspect of the Bushman--but the tales need more explanation--Van der Post talks over your head and says things don't need an explanation when they really do.
I would recommend reading 'Nisa, The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman' and 'The Harmless People' which both can be purchased online here!
Feel the passion, hear the experiences of the Bushman........1999-02-06
Sir Laurens van der Post has a gift for story telling that we should all explore. The customs and myths of the Bushmen are simple, complex, spiritual, entertaining but always there is a lesson to be learned. This book will feed your mind and you will find yourself through Laurens' craft eager for more. If you have shut down your heart and your imagination, feel the beat of this book and get your pulse back.
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