It is typical McCullers’ in that it is unspeakably bleak, and delves into the darkest emotions. These lives are burdened with intense hatred for each other that it controls their entire spiritual beings disallowing them to fully comprehend themselves. Shockingly violent, in both actions and private thoughts. The novella is brutal in the refusal to soften these stark elements of the human psyche. As with all of McCullers’ work it deals with the nuances of spiritual isolation, the ways in which we find ourselves completely alienated despite and because of our surroundings. Outside of them is Private Williams, somewhat simple and quiet, but menacing. It concerns the relationships between five key figures – repressed and confused Captain Penderton, his unsatisfied flighty wife Leonora, who is having an affair with Major Langdon, whose wife Alison is suffering great mental and physical exhaustion. The story centers around six people, each battling with their own demons, each wanting love in it’s varied fractured forms, and each looking for salvation and finding none whatsoever. Reflections in a Golden Eye is set in the American Deep South, in a fort, during peace-time in an army camp. I for one am not surprised, considering she knew that she always wanted to be a writer and admitted it to one-time friend Truman Capote. It is the way she writes and describes the surroundings that almost make you skip a heartbeat and wonder how did she manage to churn out such brilliance.
When I read her books, I am almost overwhelmed with sadness myself. I picked this one up on a lark and I am glad that I did.Ĭarson McCullers had a knack of portraying the loneliness her characters felt. Carson McCullers has always been and will in all probability always be famous for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Ballad of the Sad Café, of course as they were brilliant books and pieces of magnificient literature, but this is no less. Reflections in a Golden Eye is one such short gem that most people do not know about. Having said that, I am also partial to novellas and short novels as and when they come my way and off late they have been coming my way more so than I expected. The bigger, the better I say and have always maintained that. I have always believed in reading big books.
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