Biography carson hunter lonely mccullers jr
Search review text. Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews. Paul Bryant.
Biography carson hunter lonely mccullers
Fascinated by the garish grisly life of Miss Carson McCullers I embarked upon this big fat bio, and first I thought it might be a mistake, as the last big fat bio I read Sinatra made me want to fly to America and disinter Sinatra's remains for the simple pleasure I might have gained in booting Frankie's skull about whilst yelling obscenities.
Since you will not have read any recent report of a British man arrested whilst trying to break into the Sinatra family crypt, you will perceive that I managed to suppress my unseemly impulse. This Carson bio, however, nearly defeated me on page one! Check out this sentence which appears in paragraph three: Deeply compassionate, the youngster was becoming increasingly aware that one's physical aberration was but an exaggerated symbol of what she considered everyman's 'caught' condition of spiritual isolation and sense of aloneless in spite of his intense desire and effort to relate to others.
Pass the Anadin! This vile sentence must have passed through various drafts and editors and still ended up sprawled in front of us, on page one, obscene and twisted, hopelessly tangled in its own umbilical cord. Fortunately the rest of it was much better.
As I read on, I turned the pages excitedly anticipating Carson's first stroke and first suicide pact - which would come first? It turned out to be a very fine biography, to be lapped up carefully like a cat trying not to spill one drop from an overfull bowl of milk. So many ideas swill and slosh around in these pages — in this life.
For instance, sexual orientation. So she sings this : PHOEBE: Sometimes men love women, sometimes men love men, and then there are bisexuals, though some just say they're kidding themselves. Seems to me that Carson was gay. But conflicted. I know - quelle surprise. That was really a dead giveaway. This guy really did not get the breaks. But how many gay people in those days were driven into marriages because at first they thought all their feelings were wrong and marriage to some good man or woman would straighten them out?
I bet that's what Carson did.
This bio doesn't say so in as many words, but it seems clear to me. But she did learn to smoke a pipe and drink like a fish. Anyway, the whole gay thing loomed fairly large, but yet larger loomed the whole ILL thing. She was a valetudinarian. Yes, ill all the time.
Biography carson hunter lonely mccullers wife
She had stuff wrong with her the doctors couldn't put a name too. She was thirty years ahead of her time with her ailments. Good thing, then, that by her mid 20s she'd written all her major novels except one. Nope, not really. Fascinating bio of a great writer. Author 1 book followers. It takes an extraordinary person to write such remarkable literature, and Carson McCullers was extraordinary to say the least.
She has a complicated personality that ranged from vivacious and sweet to cold and sullen. She was an indulged child and an over-protected adult who lived as much in her own fantasies as she did in reality. She had an unusual number of friends who went to extreme lengths to prove their friendship, among them such notables as Tennessee Williams.
She fed off of people and belonging, but I wonder if she ever felt a true part of anyone outside of herself. She could sometimes seem very fragile, but her determination was limitless. Plagued by bad health and bad habits, she navigated her life like it was a story with an ever-changing plot, but belonging to someone else.
After having known her husband Reeves for almost her entire life and having divorced and remarried him, and despite his attentive care during her illnesses, she dismissed his death as if it were just an inconvenience to her. That relationship seemed to me to speak volumes about her true character. I do not think I would have liked her at all.
Carson hunter kickin it
She was far too needy and egotistical. Had she not been a brilliant writer, I doubt she would have garnered the love of so many. She was excused so much by everyone because of her genius and she seemed to take for granted that everyone else's needs would, by right, come in line behind her own. I would have loved to have had one ounce of her talent, however, and we could all do with some of her perseverance.
Carr managed to approach a very difficult subject with a great deal of care and honesty. She did not paint McCullers as anything other than a complex human being, neither good nor evil. I particularly enjoyed the section that dealt with the production of The Member of the Wedding for Broadway. So many of the people who made up McCullers friends and colleagues were well-known in their time, which made the reading all the more interesting.
By the end of this thorough biography, you cannot help feeling that you know much of what made McCullers tick and have a deeper understanding of how her own life influenced her subjects and her work. I don't know if this is the third or fourth time I read this book but, It reminds me of the old saying don't ever meet your idols in the flesh.
I read this Literary biography and others like it Carson McCullers like other writers of merit carry around them, a cloud of destruction of themselves and others its the people who surround them who pay that price the hardest every time. That same combo of genius, will, and drive that makes excellent literature.
Carson McCullers's mother whose blinding love for her daughter feeds and nurture her genius to the point of turning a blind eye to Carson's many faults. This bio reads like a sad saga novel. I want this book to go wherever I go and its always the book that starts my book collection. Iona Stewart. This is a voluminous, comprehensive, well-written book.
Carson was a precocious, musically gifted child who played the piano with prowess from an early age. She originally intended to study music at an illustrious college but when she lost the tuition money, she turned to writing instead. As a child, she was a prolific reader, reading all the classics — the books of Chekhov, Tolstoy, D.
Lawrence, Flaubert, James Joyce, etc. It is packed with information and I found it rather dense and not easy-to-read. We are provided with many photos of Carson at various ages and of her family, friends and husband, Reeves.
Biography carson hunter lonely mccullers songs: The Lonely Hunter is widely accepted as the standard biography of Carson McCullers. Author of such landmarks of modern American fiction as Reflections in a Golden Eye and The Ballad of the Sad Café, Carson McCullers was the enfant terrible of the literary world of the s and s.
I had never experienced this sort of thing before, strange! Carson smoked excessively and constantly drank alcohol, so it was not surprising that she suffered severe health problems including several incapacitating strokes. She died in at the age of Career [ edit ]. Later life [ edit ]. Death [ edit ]. Criticism [ edit ].
Legacy [ edit ]. Works [ edit ]. Novels [ edit ]. Other works [ edit ]. Collections [ edit ]. Recording [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. The New Yorker. Retrieved May 30, The Paris Review. Archived from the original on March 27, Retrieved May 21, March 28, Archived from the original on April 8, Retrieved September 17, Ann Arbor, Michigan: Dissertation Abstracts.
The American Poetry Review. ISSN JSTOR February House: The Story of W. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN X. The Nation. Retrieved November 24, The New York Times. Retrieved August 8, Shapland was an intern at the Harry Ransom Center, a writers' and artists' archive at the University of Texas at Austin, when she discovered love letters written to McCullers from Annemarie Schwarzenbach , a Swiss heiress with whom McCullers had an affair.
Journal of Homosexuality. PMID The New Georgia Encyclopedia. My Autobiography of Carson McCullers.
Biography carson hunter lonely mccullers death
Portland, Oregon: Tin House Books. ISBN A very clean and straight copy. Clean text and an uncreased spine. Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Carr, Virginia Spencer. Publisher: University of Georgia Press , Review Sensitive, balanced, authoritative. New York Times Fascinating. Buy Used Condition: Good Ship within 24hrs.
Learn more about this copy. Buy New Learn more about this copy. Other Popular Editions of the Same Title. Anchor Press, Softcover. Cite this book. Request an exam or desk copy. Skip to Description Reviews Awards. Likely to become the definitive biography of McCullers — Library Journal. Winner Francis B. Simkins Award, Southern Historical Association.