The Shade of Human Hope Gone Grey

Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a quiet novel about the lives of a group of people living in a small Georgia mill town just prior to America's entry into World War II. The entire time I was reading this book, I kept thinking of Henry David Thoreau's line, "The mass of men lead lives of silent desperation." Lula Carson McCullers wrote her most famous work when she was only 22, an impossibly young age to have so much insight into the shape of the human heart. But McCullers knew already what one poet called "the shade of human hope gone gray," and she documented it in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, spelling it out so that all of the rest of us would know too. McCullers' story follows the lives of five disparate people: Mick Kelly, a young girl of about 15, who dreams of music; Mr. Singer, a deaf mute; Biff Brannon, the owner of the New York Cafe; Jake Blount, an alcoholic labor agitator; and Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland, a black physician who dreams of educating all of his people.

Mr. Singer is the center of the story. He is the pivot point about which all of the others turn. Being deaf, Mr. Singer never talks. He listens. Listens and smiles and nods or shakes his head. Because he doesn't talk, everyone considers him very wise and they go to him and tell him all of their problems. They talk and cry and rant. He just listens. Mr. Singer only has one real friend - Antonapoulos, another deaf mute with whom he once shared an apartment. But Antonapoulos was sent to an insane asylum, and Mr. Singer is left alone in a world of talking people. Mick is the other main character. She is at the nexus of her life, the point at which we turn from a little child to a young adult. She's starting to think about the future and the kinds of things she wants to do. She loves music and spends hours listening to the radio in Mr. Singer's room. She even starts trying to write music. Mick's parents own the boarding house where Mr. Singer lives, so she gets to see him everyday. Slowly, she begins to idolize him. Maybe she's falling in love with him. Biff is falling in love too, though he doesn't want to admit it. He's the most knowledgeable of this desperate group of people, the most aware of what's going on around him, the most aware of what's going on inside of himself. His wife of twenty-some-odd years dies towards the beginning of the novel. It's okay, though, because they didn't really love each other. He starts his life anew without her, and slowly he begins to be attracted to Mick. He watches her. He thinks to himself that he'd do anything for her. But his feelings shame him, and he never takes any action on them. Instead, he watches and observes. Jake comes to town one day, and promptly goes on a twelve-day drunk. When he finally sobers up, he gets a job at a local carnival. In his off hours, he talks to Mr. Singer about all of the ideas in his head, ideas for making the world a better place to live. He rants and raves, while Singer listens patiently. No one else does, no matter how much he implores them. Dr. Copeland is a lot like Jake, only he's not a drunk. Or white. He's the physician for the black people in the town. He's educated. He understands things about racism, poverty, hunger and disease. He wants to educate his people, to raise them up from the mud in which they live. But no one wants to listen to him either. No one, that is, except Mr. Singer. Mr. Singer, who is everyone's sounding board because he never talks back, never says go away. In the end, being everyone's sounding board takes its toll on Mr. Singer. When he discovers that Antanopoulos has died, Singer calmly takes his own life. Dr. Copeland is jailed for demanding justice for his son who lost his feet while in prison. Jake flees town after a murderous fight at the carnival. Mick takes a job at the Woolworth, drops out of school, and enters the adult world. Biff goes right on being Biff, owner of the New York Cafe, a man who has run out of dreams of his own

Reading this novel, I was reminded of the film Wonderboys, in which the character of James Leer writes of his professor, Grady Tripp, "His heart, once capable of inspiring others so completely, could no longer inspire so much as itself. It beat now only out of habit. It beat now only because it could." These characters' hearts go on beating only out of habit, the long habit of living when there's nothing left worth living for. There is a reason that The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is one of the greatest books of the 20th century. It's good. It paints a picture of life as its lived by a good many people in this world. And given the terrible economic times we are in, I think this book is more appropriate now than it has ever been.