Unlike many writers' first novels, this is not a first-person narrative closely resembling the author's life. Instead, it is an ambitious telling of the inner lives of lonely and rather grotesque people in the Deep South of 1938-1939. The narrator's point of view shifts to whichever character takes prominence at a given time. Though care seems to have been taken in the planning of the novel, it does not adhere to a strict plot in the traditional sense; instead, it leans more towards the "slice-of-life" form of storytelling. Though there is an obvious beginning and end to the novel, most of the narrative is there to create a complete portrait of the characters, their surroundings, and their inherent isolation. Some may say that there is unnecessary detail throughout the book, but after having finished it, I do not look back and see any details that I feel could have been pared out without detracting from McCullers' vivid picture. Never once did I feel that I was being led on a pointless tangent, or distracted from a goal. Likewise, McCullers does not fall prey to excessive description--aspects of her characters and their world are revealed through their intermingling. The picture of the small Southern town during the Depression is a vivid one, yet when looking back at the book I see little in the way of the detailed, poetic description that one would expect for so complete a picture. The details come instead from her characters' inner lives. And though I will criticize her writing style, I must make it clear that at no point did her writing style hamper my enjoyment of it. Being able to read more closely than in years past, I nit-pick over little things that I would have done differently had I written the novel.
The vast majority of the novel features little in the way or poetry or even sentence variety. It shares qualities with that spare, clipped style made famous by Hemingway. (Damn, now I'll have to read his stuff again for a better understanding...) In fact, it's hard for me to tell just what was meant to be spare and what wasn't. McCullers seems too often to tell the reader what happens, rather than show it. For example, Biff Brannon: "He stood behind the cash register, and his face contracted and hardened as he tried to recall the things that had happened during the night. He had the feeling that he wanted to explain something to himself. He recalled the incidents in tedious detail and was still puzzled" (23). How much of this is McCullers simply wanting to keep the prose simple, and how much is really boring sentences? Does the reader need to be told what Biff's facial gestures mean? There are a great many instances in which I had the sense that McCullers was writing more about her story than actually telling it.
Unquestionably, the fictional world of this novel is thoroughly imagined and expressed. But the reader with a critical eye picks out too many instances of bland writing. Passages such as these are how my rough drafts appear before I've gone back and revised them over and over again:
Even though the narrator's point of view moves close to each character, and the language subsequently changes to some extent to match that of the character, McCullers mostly avoids stream-of-consciousness technique, except for a few very crucial moments. One place she very obviously kept her distance was in describing tomboy Mick Kelly's prom party:
The plain mode of storytelling does serve to make the few poetic moments that much more powerful, standing out as they do against a plain matter-of-fact background. Biff Brannon, who seems to never feel, only observing curiously the novel's other lonely people, does have a moment of longing, in one of the few instances where McCullers takes a liberty with her ordinary style: "They had taken the streetcar one Sunday to Old Sardis Lake and had rented a rowboat. At sunset he played on the mandolin while she sang. She had on a sailor hat, and when he put his arm around her waist she --Alice----" (104). The effect is that of a writer cursing only one fucking time in a given work.
On only one occasion was I jerked out of the world McCullers imagined for me. There is a point where Mick Kelly states that she hates Biff Brannon, which seems completely out-of-place with anything that had transpired earlier:
Of all the characters, McCullers seems to have given the most distinct voice to her Negro doctor, Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland, who was educated in the North and returned South to care for his people. He suffers from a kind of angry, idealistic exasperation that has estranged him from his family and accelerated the onset of his tuberculosis. So desperate is he to set an example for his people that he never uses contractions or slang, always speaking in a painfully formal style. Not only is his dialogue this way, but the narrator's voice takes on this style during his portions of the novel. So obsessed is he with the need to educate his people and hold them to a higher standard that he winds up spending all of his time meditating on Marxist ideals, and has little time for small talk with his loved ones. Nearly all of his thought and speech seem as though he is constantly writing a thesis. There is a very moving, poetic summation after he has given a rousing speech to a gathering at his house:
Again later in the book, we are taken closer into the mind of a character who previously had been fleshed out mostly through his own speech and the perceptions of other characters. Jake Blount, who is a smelly and mostly drunken self-educated Marxist, has taken up work at a sort of poor man's amusement park on the outskirts of town, when finally all hell breaks loose:
The excuse for bringing all these characters together is the deaf-mute, John Singer, who can read lips mostly, but only speaks by signing or writing notes. Given his belief that it is best to be polite, and his need for company, he acts as a sort of wailing wall for all the characters' need to talk. Even Dr. Copeland, who has never met a white man that he felt was not insolent, sees a kind of quiet dignity in Singer and spends time talking to him. They all idealize Singer, believing him to be the companion they have always wished for, someone who would patiently listen to all their inner lives, without judging or denying their worth. In fact, McCullers again is a little too transparent and explains it didactically to her reader: "And why did everyone persist in thinking the mute was exactly as they wanted him to be--when most likely it was all a very queer mistake?" (171). Before long, however, it is plain to see that Singer has no one of his own to love, no one to listen to him. His friend, a retarded deaf-mute who for years had sat while Singer had signed all his innermost thoughts, has been institutionalized and eventually dies. Singer, having been able to think of no one but his idealized friend, then commits suicide, having a domino effect on the novel's other lonely grotesques.
Some may view the novel's end as pessimistic, or as a tragic ending, but it did not seem out of place with the rest of the story. I did not feel as though I had been misled or cheated in any way, as I have felt after the conclusion of novels like Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. While Singer's suicide is saddening, it is not surprising. Likewise, Dr. Copeland's tuberculosis was present early on in the novel, and his diminishing health is a foregone conclusion. Mick's family obviously would need her to work to support them, Biff seemed content in his loneliness, and Jake never stayed anywhere for long. None of the characters' ends is out of step with what we know of their inner lives and their environment. What's more, the novel really aims to show a portion of their lives, and not mix them up in a labyrinthine plot to save the world. While no one comes out happy in the end, most just continue in the path they have been following. Had I read this at a younger age, it may have been depressing. But having lived through hardship, the book's conclusion seems open-ended to me. For example, Mick Kelly's creative outlets are stifled by her family's need for her to work, but she is only a teenager and there is no reason to think that her situation may not change someday. The characters' final moments are just that, moments captured before the book comes to an end. No one's life is static, and there are bound to be hopes and dreams and pleasures to come in their lives, one way or another. If the author was really so pessimistic, would she have ever written a book? Instead, she sees this pessimism in the lives of others, and rails against it, in one of Jake Blount's best perceptions: "Even on the coldest nights the Sunny Dixie Show was open. The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow" (153).
All contents, except where otherwise noted, are copyright Andrew Lee Hunn.