I just read this recently, and finished the book satisfied but also deeply ruminative.
The clue to this book is in the title: it is about a collection of people living in a poor rural town in the South of the United States of America, each plagued by loneliness in their own way.
The bar owner who loses his wife. The young girl making her way awkwardly into adulthood, and nursing a passion for music that she can share with no one else. The vagabond who sees too keenly the injustices around him, and is bursting with rage and socialist righteousness. The black man who worked his way up to become a doctor, only to find himself seething and raging against the continued oppression and privations of his people.
They all gravitate around John Singer, a man that most call simply “the mute”. Indeed, The Mute was supposed to be the original title of the novel, written at the age of 23 by a precocious young author. Almost unique for her time, Carson McCullers wrote of the sorrows and joys of simple people, and masters that very difficult art of shading each character’s narrative so that the reader can almost feel themselves living in the minds of these persons as they make their way through unremitting sadness and misfortunes, in a time when very few cared for the plight of the black man, or the poor.
I enjoyed this book. Each character was believable in their own individual loneliness, and as each of them sought the company of the mute to pour out their worries and sorrows, the reader gets a sense of how difficult life can get. The mute himself, even as he plays the oblique role of being the receptacle of others’ deepest concerns, is struggling with his own loneliness, which culminates in a tragic and senseless ending.
This was a 4-star read. Some rough edges here and there, understandable in the context of a young author finding her footing, but still miles ahead of many writers out there. Recommended.
