McCullers, Carson - Books - Magic Bean Dip

Page 1 of 5 - Go to page: 1 2 3 4 5

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Oprah's Book Club)

Carson McCullers

Amazon Price: $10.36
List Price: ~~$12.95~~
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Mariner
Amazon Marketplace: 605 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( M ) -> McCullers, Carson
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> Classics -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 156 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

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 all 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 attune 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.

The Member of the Wedding

Carson McCullers

Amazon Price: $7.95
List Price: ~~$7.95~~
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Mariner Books
Amazon Marketplace: 88 new & used starting at $0.05

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( M ) -> McCullers, Carson
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Women's Fiction -> Domestic Life
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 75 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Eloquent, lovely, and sad 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is my very favorite book and, in my opinion, far superior to "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter."

I was not an adolescent when I read it--I was 23--but I was astonished by how often McCullers was able to perfectly describe what I had believed to be indescribable experiences. In some ways I think that my attachment to the book grew from my ability to relate to Frankie's anxiety. The pace of the book, which all takes place during one stereotypically oppressive southern summer, becomes more frantic as Frankie's anxiety mounts. Her efforts to belong, to be a member of something, push her to force attachments with others even while she knows they are superficial. I'm certain that, on this point alone, readers who remember the desperation to belong during their adolescence will relate to the novel. McCullers also conveys Frankie's longing for something to happen, to take her beyond the repetetive tedium of her young life and infuse it with adventure. When Frankie takes this task into her own hands, the results are harsh and startling.

What truly makes McCullers and this slim novel so amazing is her prose, which is both so sparse and crisp and yet so eloquent and expressive. Every word seems so deliberate that I couldn't believe there could be a more perfect way to depict the scene. At the novel's start, I will always remember the sentence, "At last the summer was like a green sick dream, or like a silent crazy jungle under glass."

I wish I could convey how much this book gripped me. It made me feel that my experiences were shared in a much deeper way than I ever could have imagined or hoped. "The Member of the Wedding" is funny, distressing, and deeply sad: as perfect a novel as I've ever read.

Editorial Review:

Twelve-year-old Frankie Adams, longing at once for escape and belonging, takes her role as "member of the wedding" to mean that when her older brother marries she will join the happy couple in their new life together. But Frankie is unlucky in love; her mother is dead, and Frankie narrowly escapes being raped by a drunken soldier during a farewell tour of the town. Worst of all, "member of the wedding" doesn't mean what she thinks. A gorgeous, brief coming-of-age novel.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter/Reflections in a Golden Eye/The Ballad of the Sad Cafe/The Member of the Wedding/The Clock Without Hands (Library of America)

Carson McCullers

Amazon Price: $23.10
List Price: ~~$35.00~~
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Library of America
Amazon Marketplace: 44 new & used starting at $17.98

Buy at Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

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.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Modern Library)

Carson Mccullers

Amazon Price: $10.85
List Price: ~~$15.95~~
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Modern Library
Amazon Marketplace: 62 new & used starting at $3.70

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( M ) -> McCullers, Carson
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> History & Criticism -> Criticism & Theory -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 173 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Unremitting Bleakness of Life 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

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.

Editorial Review:

When she was only twenty-three, Carson McCullers's first novel created a literary sensation. She was very special, one of America's superlative writers who conjures up a vision of existence as terrible as it is real, who takes us on shattering voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition. This novel is the work of a supreme artist, Carson McCullers's enduring masterpiece. The heroine is the strange young girl, Mick Kelly. The setting is a small Southern town, the cosmos universal and eternal. The characters are the damned, the voiceless, the rejected. Some fight their loneliness with violence and depravity, Some with sex or drink, and some -- like Mick -- with a quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.

From the Paperback edition.

Collected Stories of Carson McCullers, including The Member of the Wedding and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

Carson McCullers

Amazon Price: $10.20
List Price: ~~$15.00~~
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Mariner Books
Amazon Marketplace: 71 new & used starting at $1.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Interesting... 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I have always read stories in the past that gave me feelings right away. After reading these short stories, I was somewhat confused why McCullers didn't elaborate, or why she ended the story where she did. It was only after reading her biography, that I began to reread the stories and became obsessed with all of them. The meanings became clearer, the ideas behind them were revealed, and she has become my favorite author. I would recommend this to anyone, and I would also recommend her novels too. Enjoy.

Depressing themes emerge 3 out of 5 stars.
5 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I'm not a fan of the open-ended short story, being a tale that is redolent with symbolism that I'm certain is there but just don't "get." Unfortunately McCullers' tales seem to fall into this category so I was not terribly thrilled with the stories. However, as a body of work they were interesting--the themes of lost childhood, changing sibling relationships, disgruntled musical prodigies, and general loneliness / rejection emerge and give a nice sense of continuity to the works. The inclusion of two of her novellas is nice; I appreciate the longer story format for the ability to get to know the characters and setting a little better.
Overall I'd recommend picking up McCullers' novellas and if you're thrilled with those, tackle her short stories.

Editorial Review:

Carson McCullers--novelist, dramatist, poet--was at the peak of her powers as a writer of short fiction. Here are nineteen stories that explore her signature themes: wounded adolescence, loneliness in marriage, and the tragicomedy of life in the South. Here too are "The Member of the Wedding" and "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," novellas that Tennessee Williams judged to be "assuredly among the masterpieces of our language." (A Mariner Reissue)

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe: and Other Stories

Carson McCullers

Amazon Price: $7.95
List Price: ~~$7.95~~
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Mariner Books
Amazon Marketplace: 83 new & used starting at $1.62

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( M ) -> McCullers, Carson
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Carson's Ballad is Beautiful 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I was first turned onto Carson McCullers in a southern lit class in college. Sad Cafe was required reading, and one of the best stories I read that whole semester. I found myself reading it again and again because I just liked the way the story sounded in my head. McCullers has such a simple technique for description and writing. It's so easy to understand, and it stays with you. Unlike a lot of stories, it's uncluttered and her writing is the bare soul of her characters.

Beware, if you are new to southern lit you might want to know a few tips...stories are usually a tragedy, the characters are usually flawed emotionally and often physically, and setting plays a huge part of the story. Don't forget language either. Carson McCullers captures the true essence of all of these in her writing. Sad Cafe is no exception.

It is a story that stays with you in some way. I know it has definitely stayed with me. I find myself wanting to pick it up again and again. Whether you are from the South or not, don't miss out on this beautiful and haunting piece of literature.

Editorial Review:

A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers's best stories, including her beloved novella "The Ballad of the Sad Café." A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers to Miss Amelia, a formidable southern woman whose café serves as the town's gathering place. Among other fine works, the collection also includes "Wunderkind," McCullers's first published story written when she was only seventeen about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist. Newly reset and available for the first time in a handsome trade paperback edition, The Ballad of the Sad Café is a brilliant study of love and longing from one of the South's finest writers.

Reflections in a Golden Eye

Carson McCullers

Amazon Price: $8.00
List Price: ~~$10.00~~
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Mariner Books
Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $1.15

Buy at Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The Poetry of Menace 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This novella is a brave, bald exploration of homosexuality and infidelity in the military. It presents itself as a rare event that disturbs the routine dullness of peacetime military life.

The small circle of characters is individually and collectively self-destructive. There's Captain Penderton, who comes to nurse ambivalent homosexual yearnings for Private Williams, who fancies his wife. Meanwhile, Mrs Leonora Pederton is sleeping with General Langdon, whose wife, Alison, eventually succumbs to a complete breakdown of sanity. Got that? Good. It's compulsive stuff.

In this narrow social circle, author McCullers sets "normal" domestic events such as cooking delicious Southern dinners, and card evenings, against sexual episodes (both overt and latent). These range from Private Williams crouching in Mrs Penderton's room all night long to observe her sleeping naked, through to the tormentedly homosexual Captain Pemberton wrecking the body and spirit of his wife's horse on a particularly brutal ride.

In some ways, the strangest character is the Langdons' Filipino houseboy, Anacleto. Effete, devoted and fastidious to a "T", a would-be dancer and artist, he provides tragic Mrs Langdon with a kind of love. And it is Anacleto's artistic vision of a peacock with grotesque reflections in its golden eye that explains the title.

Typically of McCullers's Southern Gothicism, the writing infuses poetry with a feeling of utter menace. At times it's scarily bald, yet lyrical: "In the sky there was a white brilliant moon and the night was cold and silvery."

Some have found it too short, but I don't see that as a problem. It's a quick, chillingly stylish read that plumbs hidden psychological depths and doesn't shrink from uncomfortable truths.

Editorial Review:

A new trade paperback edition of McCullers' second novel, REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, immortalized by the 1967 film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, and John Houston. Set on a Southern army base in the 1930s, REFLECTIONS tells the story of Captain Penderton, a bisexual whose life is upset by the arrival of Major Langdon, a charming womanizer who has an affair with Penderton's tempestuous and flirtatious wife, Leonora. Upon the novel's publication in 1941, reviewers were unsure of what to make of its relatively scandalous subject matter. But a critic for Time Magazine wrote, "In almost any hands, such material would yield a rank fruitcake of mere arty melodrama. But Carson McCullers tells her tale with simplicity, insight, and a rare gift of phrase." Written during a time when McCullers's own marriage to Reeves was on the brink of collapse, her second novel deals with her trademark themes of alienation and unfulfilled loves.

Clock Without Hands

Carson McCullers

Amazon Price: $9.60
List Price: ~~$12.00~~
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Mariner Books
Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $1.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Good...definately good...reads fast and good... 4 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Geez...what can I say about this book? Well...I could start by saying that is was an excellent novel. Being 16 years old and all, this book really explained to me how some of the old southerners thought. They still had pride in the "old south" and it fascinated me that the old judge wanted Confederate money to be made redeemable into US dollars. I just could believe it. It portrayed racist, economic, and political issues in a very believable way. It was, all in all, emotional and it really had every emotion contained within it. At times it was funny. At times is was serious. Sometimes it was happy. Sometimes it was sad. It really gets you going once you read the first 10 pages. I liked it very much and do recommend it to everyone -- regardless of age.

Editorial Review:

Set in Georgia on the eve of court-ordered integration, Clock Without Hands contains McCullers's most poignant statement on race, class, and justice. A small-town druggist dying of leukemia calls himself and his community to account in this tale of change and changelessness, of death and the death-in-life that is hate. It is a tale, as McCullers herself wrote, of "response and responsibility--of man toward his own livingness."

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Carson McCullers

List Price: ~~$16.50~~
By: Penguin Classics
Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $2.63

Buy at Amazon.com

Editorial Review:

"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" was Carson McCullers' first novel, written in 1940. Set in a small town in the American South, it is the story of a group of people who have little in common except that they are all hopelessly lonely. A young girl, a drunken socialist and a black doctor are drawn to a gentle, sympathetic deaf mute, whose presence changes their lives. This powerful exploration of alienation is both moving and perceptive.

El Corazon Es Un Cazador Solitario

Carson McCullers

List Price: ~~$39.95~~
By: Editorial Seix Barral
Amazon Marketplace: 9 new & used starting at $35.69

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( M ) -> McCullers, Carson
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Foreign Language Fiction -> Spanish
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary

Page 1 of 5 - Go to page: 1 2 3 4 5

McCullers, Carson Books

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson Mccullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers