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Available
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Publication
Penguin Classics (1991), 128 pages
Description
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.… (more)
Media reviews
racsor
Interesante novela en que con solo seis personajes logran crear un microcosmos en el que cada uno de ellos encierra sus propios demonios internos sin ser capaces de superar las adversidades. Lectura recomendada y de breve duración.
User reviews
LibraryThing member gbill
McCullers second novel, published just a year after her classic ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’, is focused, dark, and strong. At age 24, she demonstrates such knowledge about the pathos of the human condition, and also understands just how random behavior can be. She tells us on the first page
McCullers is not shy about sex but is wonderfully reserved in describing it. Relative to the Captain: “Sexually the Captain obtained within himself a delicate balance between the male and female elements, with the susceptibilities of both the sexes and the active powers of neither.” And his wife: “When she married the Captain she had been a virgin. Four nights after her wedding she was still a virgin, and on the fifth night her status was changed only enough to leave her somewhat puzzled.” Her style is otherwise direct and she used economy to create a world on an army base, one that seems ordinary on the surface, but as she reveals each character, the underlying isolation and darkness come through.
In this edition I appreciated Tennessee Williams’s afterword, which he wrote in 1950. Williams also wrote of dark, fractured lives in the South, breaking through with ‘The Glass Menagerie’ three years after McCullers wrote ‘Reflections in a Golden Eye’. Faulkner, Williams, and McCullers – she’s definitely right in this company – and it seems to me she’s underrated today.
Just one other quote, on falling asleep after taking a pill; I liked the imagery:
“The quantity of the drug gave him a unique and voluptuous sensation; it was as though a great dark bird alighted on his chest, looked at him once with fierce, golden eyes, and stealthily enfolded him in his dark wings.”
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that a murder has been committed, but throughout the novella she keeps us guessing as to what’s going to happen, since each of the characters – a Captain and his wife, a Major and his wife, an enlisted man, and a housekeeper – are troubled in one way or another. The major is having an affair with the captain’s wife, which everyone understands, creating not only tension but a sense of pitiful loneliness. McCullers is not shy about sex but is wonderfully reserved in describing it. Relative to the Captain: “Sexually the Captain obtained within himself a delicate balance between the male and female elements, with the susceptibilities of both the sexes and the active powers of neither.” And his wife: “When she married the Captain she had been a virgin. Four nights after her wedding she was still a virgin, and on the fifth night her status was changed only enough to leave her somewhat puzzled.” Her style is otherwise direct and she used economy to create a world on an army base, one that seems ordinary on the surface, but as she reveals each character, the underlying isolation and darkness come through.
In this edition I appreciated Tennessee Williams’s afterword, which he wrote in 1950. Williams also wrote of dark, fractured lives in the South, breaking through with ‘The Glass Menagerie’ three years after McCullers wrote ‘Reflections in a Golden Eye’. Faulkner, Williams, and McCullers – she’s definitely right in this company – and it seems to me she’s underrated today.
Just one other quote, on falling asleep after taking a pill; I liked the imagery:
“The quantity of the drug gave him a unique and voluptuous sensation; it was as though a great dark bird alighted on his chest, looked at him once with fierce, golden eyes, and stealthily enfolded him in his dark wings.”
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LibraryThing member kidzdoc
Reflections in a Golden Eye is McCullers's follow up to her wildly successful and brilliant debut novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Her sophomore effort was written in 1939, and was based on a story about a peeping tom at an Army base that her husband told her. It originally appeared in Harper's
The novel takes place at an Army base in a small Southern town in peacetime, and McCullers tells us in the first paragraph that a murder will take place. The main characters are a major and his wife, who are friends with a captain and his wife who live nearby; the Filipino manservant of the major's wife; a private; and the spirited horse that belongs to the captain's wife.
The characters are all dislikable and odd, in keeping with McCullers's Gothic style. However, unlike those in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, I could not feel any sympathy toward any of them, even those that suffered or met tragic ends. The story is well written and McCullers kept me guessing and curious as to what would happen, which saved the novel for me. I would guardedly recommend it, but only for those interested in Southern Gothic literature or McCullers's work.
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Bazaar at the end of 1940, and was published in book form the following year.The novel takes place at an Army base in a small Southern town in peacetime, and McCullers tells us in the first paragraph that a murder will take place. The main characters are a major and his wife, who are friends with a captain and his wife who live nearby; the Filipino manservant of the major's wife; a private; and the spirited horse that belongs to the captain's wife.
The characters are all dislikable and odd, in keeping with McCullers's Gothic style. However, unlike those in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, I could not feel any sympathy toward any of them, even those that suffered or met tragic ends. The story is well written and McCullers kept me guessing and curious as to what would happen, which saved the novel for me. I would guardedly recommend it, but only for those interested in Southern Gothic literature or McCullers's work.
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LibraryThing member Miro
The book has well drawn characters, a dark theme, but somehow it doesn't hang together. Although it's well written, I think the problem is the unbelievable plot and the author trying too hard to shock and impress.
LibraryThing member LynnB
This is the story of a murder involving two couples (Captain Weldon Penderton and his wife Leonora; Major Morris Langdon and his wife Allison), a soldier, a Filippino servant and a horse. This, we are told early in the book.
The characters are finely drawn, and the writing draws you into an
The characters are finely drawn, and the writing draws you into an
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atmosphere so strong you feel you are there. The plot keeps you unsure....you know a murder is coming, but until it happens, you can't predict how it will play out. Wonderful writing. Show Less
LibraryThing member charlie68
Short, but sweet. Finely wrought characters and a plot that keeps you guessing till the end, not the what, but the who. Well-written too in the bare bones style of Ernest Hemingway without the machismo.
LibraryThing member librarianbryan
I was itching to read this after seeing John Huston's adaptation as part of the Belcourt's Visions of the South. In a career of brave roles Brando's Captain Penderton had to be one of his bravest, and the same for Elizabeth Taylor’s Leonora.So I had high hopes.I fear the lashing I will get for
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writing this, but this may be one of those rare examples where the film adaptation is more interesting than source material. I was not particularly entranced by McCullers prose. Thematically, I’m not sure that letting Penderton be unconscious of his own homosexuality was a wise choice. Or perhaps the film just ruined my interpretation. Or perhaps it is just impossible for me to put myself into the 1941 mindset regarding homosexuality. Maybe McCullers could not, because of social taboo and censorship, openly write that Penderton was gay but in denial. Ironically enough, she does come out and say Leonora Penderton may have a slight disability. In Huston’s film this is never revealed and therefore Taylor’s Leonora just comes off like a first class bimbo. (I thought it was brave for Taylor to take the role because it could be read as so demeaning.) I don’t know how readers in the 1940s would have interpreted the work. Would it have been obvious to them that Penderton was homosexual? Even though McCullers makes it pretty explicit, I never felt that roiling sexual tension Brando expresses in the film and therefore it lacked emotional intensity.I can’t say that the ending was the surprise I think it was supposed to be either. Show Less
LibraryThing member bluepigeon
I read Reflections in bus stops, busses, malls, and movie theaters in Nashville. I thanks Carson McCullers for this little gem, which enriched my life for a brief moment in the vast desert of car parking lots and needless and scary commercial enterprises. I thought often about what she would think
I read the last part of Reflections in the movie theater as I was being blasted with some preview stuff about upcoming films. Guns, space, bombs, armies, things blowing up, murders, blood... It was nice to have Reflections neatly and snugly spread out on my lap and McCullers' narration calmly describe a very alien life, one that was calm, boring, subtle, simple, yet intricately complicated, repressed, and ultimately violent. Then I read the afterword, where Williams defends the Gothic, defends the gruesome and "awful" things McCullers writes about. And it occurred to me, with renewed surprise, that we have come so far in how much awfulness and violence we assume and expect not only from life but from arts and entertainment. But despite the blood and gore in the film previews, the uneventful murder (which McCullers tells us about in the first paragraph of the book) seems so chilling. It touches something so fundamental. And that's what makes this book special.
Unlike most people, I liked Reflections better than Member of the Wedding. Heart is a Lonely Hunter is certainly my favorite, though. It is hard to compare the two, as I think Reflections is entirely different from Heart. Reflections is meant to be short and minimalist, almost like a snapshot. Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a philosophy, a study of a whole era and peoples. McCullers' voice is clear in both of them, and it's the only thing that I can really see that's similar.
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of the South now.I read the last part of Reflections in the movie theater as I was being blasted with some preview stuff about upcoming films. Guns, space, bombs, armies, things blowing up, murders, blood... It was nice to have Reflections neatly and snugly spread out on my lap and McCullers' narration calmly describe a very alien life, one that was calm, boring, subtle, simple, yet intricately complicated, repressed, and ultimately violent. Then I read the afterword, where Williams defends the Gothic, defends the gruesome and "awful" things McCullers writes about. And it occurred to me, with renewed surprise, that we have come so far in how much awfulness and violence we assume and expect not only from life but from arts and entertainment. But despite the blood and gore in the film previews, the uneventful murder (which McCullers tells us about in the first paragraph of the book) seems so chilling. It touches something so fundamental. And that's what makes this book special.
Unlike most people, I liked Reflections better than Member of the Wedding. Heart is a Lonely Hunter is certainly my favorite, though. It is hard to compare the two, as I think Reflections is entirely different from Heart. Reflections is meant to be short and minimalist, almost like a snapshot. Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a philosophy, a study of a whole era and peoples. McCullers' voice is clear in both of them, and it's the only thing that I can really see that's similar.
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LibraryThing member DinoReader
Carson McCuller's style of writing isn't what usually appeals to me but it works. She often goes into long descriptions of things or settings or people; sometimes engages in authorial intrusion and uses more adverbs than I would like to see but again, it all works and reads with a pleasing flow.
On the other hand, there are many paragraphs that consist of six or seven very simple declaratory sentences that could be Hemingway or Fante or edited Carter. These too work.
By the time I had read the first ten pages, I knew I was reading the product of an extremely skilled writer. It was a pleasure to read her writing and continued to be enjoyable to the last word.
My criticism of it would be that, after spending a great deal of time developing characters and doing a good job of describing events and experiences that are the near perfect set up for transformational character change; the novella ends with acts that seem pedestrian given the events leading up to them. I don't see any character change or growth or transformation, there's not even character shift; so it runs the risk of being a long character study or vignette (I haven't reached a final conclusion). Regardless, the writing is very good.
I had never read any of Carson McCuller's work before and was very impressed with her writing. Her character development, dialogue and description are also excellent. Her descriptions are particularly good.
I am less impressed with her plotting and failure to construct and finish with, a more credible and interesting character transformation. The novella runs the risk of being a description of "a bad day at the office."
I highly recommend it based solely on the quality of her writing, there is rarely an extra word in the novella.
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She also tells you what someone's emotion or emotions are and again, it works for her.On the other hand, there are many paragraphs that consist of six or seven very simple declaratory sentences that could be Hemingway or Fante or edited Carter. These too work.
By the time I had read the first ten pages, I knew I was reading the product of an extremely skilled writer. It was a pleasure to read her writing and continued to be enjoyable to the last word.
My criticism of it would be that, after spending a great deal of time developing characters and doing a good job of describing events and experiences that are the near perfect set up for transformational character change; the novella ends with acts that seem pedestrian given the events leading up to them. I don't see any character change or growth or transformation, there's not even character shift; so it runs the risk of being a long character study or vignette (I haven't reached a final conclusion). Regardless, the writing is very good.
I had never read any of Carson McCuller's work before and was very impressed with her writing. Her character development, dialogue and description are also excellent. Her descriptions are particularly good.
I am less impressed with her plotting and failure to construct and finish with, a more credible and interesting character transformation. The novella runs the risk of being a description of "a bad day at the office."
I highly recommend it based solely on the quality of her writing, there is rarely an extra word in the novella.
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LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
This novella was a bit slow and a bit unbelievable, but not a bad story to escape into for a few hours. At times it did seem somewhat heavyhanded though, particularly for McCullers' standards. In general, I'd say it's an intersting work, worth reading if you're looking for a piece of southern
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literature to escape into or if you enjoy her other works (as I do), but probably not something you'll come back to for a second or third read. Show Less
LibraryThing member DanielAlgara
The bio in the sleeve compared McCullers to Hemingway. Umm...No. There are flashes of good writing around a pretty bland story told with what I've come to call arms-length prose. The writer simply does not let us fully into the characters. I can see why her stuff was made into plays, the prose is
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wooden most of the time and there's a lot of "telling" and predicate nominatives. Perhaps I expected more and that's why I slung her with a two, but, ya know, don't go tossing out Hemingway and Faulkner as literary peers unless it can live up. Doi. Show Less
LibraryThing member BrokenTune
"For the formation of an idea involves the fusion of two or more known facts. And this the Captain had not the courage to do."
2016 has been such a strange year so far. Not only have we lost some of the great individuals of the performance arts, but my reading choices have led me sown some rabbit
Reflections in a Golden Eye is another one of those messed up books. Don't get me wrong, there is no gore or torture or anything like that, but we get a cast of characters who are each in a state of torment - each for different reasons but all of them are connected and could be resolved if things were brought out in the open.
Except, this does not happen. There are attempts, but these are consistently thwarted.
I recently described this story to a friend as similar to Albee's famous opus Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? except that there is no fight, no catharsis.
What is striking about Reflections, however, is that this was written in 1939 (the same year as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), just over 20 years before Albee's play, and that Carson McCullers was only 22 years old at the time.
I'm am amazed at the insight McCullers had into the human psyche and into the complexity of relationships at such a (still) young age, and this is why I keep coming back to her writing. Stylistically, I did not enjoy Reflections as much as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and I had to re-read several pages over and over to keep up with the story, but the ideas put forward in this short novella make it well worth reading.
" ‘You mean,’ Captain Penderton said, ‘that any fulfilment obtained at the expense of normalcy is wrong, and should not be allowed to bring happiness. In short, it is better, because it is morally honourable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it?’
‘Why, you put it exactly right,’ the Major said. ‘Don’t you agree with me?’
‘No,’ said the Captain, after a short pause.
With gruesome vividness the Captain suddenly looked into his soul and saw himself. For once he did not see himself as others saw him; there came to him a distorted doll-like image, mean of countenance and grotesque in form. The Captain dwelt on this vision without compassion. He accepted it with neither alteration nor excuse.
‘I don’t agree,’ he repeated absently.
Major Langdon thought over this unexpected reply, but did not continue the conversation. He always found it difficult to follow up any one line of thought beyond the first, bare exposition. With a headshake he returned to his own bewildering affairs."
2016 has been such a strange year so far. Not only have we lost some of the great individuals of the performance arts, but my reading choices have led me sown some rabbit
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holes that can only be described as "messed up".Reflections in a Golden Eye is another one of those messed up books. Don't get me wrong, there is no gore or torture or anything like that, but we get a cast of characters who are each in a state of torment - each for different reasons but all of them are connected and could be resolved if things were brought out in the open.
I recently described this story to a friend as similar to Albee's famous opus Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? except that there is no fight, no catharsis.
What is striking about Reflections, however, is that this was written in 1939 (the same year as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), just over 20 years before Albee's play, and that Carson McCullers was only 22 years old at the time.
I'm am amazed at the insight McCullers had into the human psyche and into the complexity of relationships at such a (still) young age, and this is why I keep coming back to her writing. Stylistically, I did not enjoy Reflections as much as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and I had to re-read several pages over and over to keep up with the story, but the ideas put forward in this short novella make it well worth reading.
" ‘You mean,’ Captain Penderton said, ‘that any fulfilment obtained at the expense of normalcy is wrong, and should not be allowed to bring happiness. In short, it is better, because it is morally honourable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it?’
‘Why, you put it exactly right,’ the Major said. ‘Don’t you agree with me?’
‘No,’ said the Captain, after a short pause.
With gruesome vividness the Captain suddenly looked into his soul and saw himself. For once he did not see himself as others saw him; there came to him a distorted doll-like image, mean of countenance and grotesque in form. The Captain dwelt on this vision without compassion. He accepted it with neither alteration nor excuse.
‘I don’t agree,’ he repeated absently.
Major Langdon thought over this unexpected reply, but did not continue the conversation. He always found it difficult to follow up any one line of thought beyond the first, bare exposition. With a headshake he returned to his own bewildering affairs."
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LibraryThing member stevesmits
Reflections in a Golden Eye is in the "Southern Gothic" genre that McCullers and other southern writers produced in the mid-twentieth century (q.v. Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner). For some reason (perhaps the fate of second novels after an astounding debut work) this short novel did not
The novel's setting -- an unnamed army post in the South in the 1930's -- is the perfect stage on which to explore the complex and distraught inner lives of the characters. On its face, a military post is where one might expect its inhabitants to evince order, discipline, self-control and mundane regularity of interactions, a place where hierarchy governs social relationships. In a sense, the structure of social relations on a military post might be analogous to the hierarchical race and class relations in the South. Far from an orderly tableau of functional relationships, McCullers reveals that there are deep and discordant currents of anger, angst and sadness that plague the soldiers and wives on the post.
Captain Penderton is a West Point graduate who's considered by his superiors a hard-working scholar of tactics, regarded as having potential for advancement to higher rank. His wife, Leonora, is a southern "belle" who is sociable and personable, but not at all intelligent. She is having an affair with Major Langdon, of which Penderton is aware but unwilling or unable to confront. Despite his veneer of competence, Penderton knows he is guided by his fears. He also has sublimated homoerotic feelings toward Langdon which check his anger about being cuckolded. Major Langdon is brusque and straight forward, not subtle in any sense. His wife, Allison, is intellectually superior to Langdon, but in frail health and grieving over the loss of an infant child a few years ago. She has no intellectual peers at the post apart from Lieutenant Weinchek, an odd duck who is failing in his military career. Allison has a devoted servant, Anacleto, a Filipino, who had accompanied the Langdon's from a previous posting. Anacleto is gentle and sensitive and he and Allison have a close intellectual bond not possible between she and her boorish husband.
Private Ellgee Williams is a loner who does not engage in camaraderie with his fellow enlisted men. His life has been a series of episodes in which he explosively breaks through his detachment to do something dramatic and destructive (he once killed a man). He is mostly an "watcher" of others and makes no effort to socially bond with anyone. Williams has become infatuated with Lenora after having glimpsed her partially naked while walking by the Penderton's home. He starts sneaking up to the home's windows at night just looking, but then begins to enter Lenora's bedroom in the middle of the night to watch her sleeping. Penderton often stays up late working, unaware that Williams is in his wife's bedroom. Even so, Penderton, after an incident with a horse ride, becomes obsessed with hatred for Williams. They do not have any interactions beyond the most superficial encounters, but Williams becomes the object of great disdain for Penderton.
Allison decides she can no longer abide with her loutish husband and must divorce him. Her health deteriorates (one suspects stemming from her depression.) She and Anacleto concoct half-baked plans to start a business somewhere so they can support themselves after she leaves Langdon. Before this happens Allison has an emotional breakdown which prompts Major Langdon to commit her to an asylum where she shortly dies.
Penderton's revulsion for Williams grows. He starts stalking him. Williams continues his night intrusion to Leonora's bedroom until one night Captain Penderton discovers him there and shoots him dead.
The contrast between the presumed orderliness of an army post and the tumultuous inner lives of the characters give this novel its "gothic" tone. McCullers imbues these characters with a depth of alienation and loneliness that is agonizing and even crippling to them. Captain Penderton is aware of his broken relationship with Leonora, but unable to deal with it. Perhaps his seething hatred of Williams, a social inferior, stems from his inability to react to his wife's affair with a military superior. Allison is grieving over the loss of a child, but even more over a life of barren personal relationships that cannot be changed. Williams is so completely incapable of establishing emotional ties with others, so much that he is really a "watcher" of the people in his world, never able to bridge the emotional gap he lives with. Right before the final incident with Penderton, Williams instigates a fight in the barracks, a sign that his repression of feelings is about the break down.
In all, this is a fine example of the genre of writing so well-crafted by McCullers and her Southern peers.
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garner the critical praise heaped on "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter". Nonetheless, it is a riveting and deeply moving story.The novel's setting -- an unnamed army post in the South in the 1930's -- is the perfect stage on which to explore the complex and distraught inner lives of the characters. On its face, a military post is where one might expect its inhabitants to evince order, discipline, self-control and mundane regularity of interactions, a place where hierarchy governs social relationships. In a sense, the structure of social relations on a military post might be analogous to the hierarchical race and class relations in the South. Far from an orderly tableau of functional relationships, McCullers reveals that there are deep and discordant currents of anger, angst and sadness that plague the soldiers and wives on the post.
Captain Penderton is a West Point graduate who's considered by his superiors a hard-working scholar of tactics, regarded as having potential for advancement to higher rank. His wife, Leonora, is a southern "belle" who is sociable and personable, but not at all intelligent. She is having an affair with Major Langdon, of which Penderton is aware but unwilling or unable to confront. Despite his veneer of competence, Penderton knows he is guided by his fears. He also has sublimated homoerotic feelings toward Langdon which check his anger about being cuckolded. Major Langdon is brusque and straight forward, not subtle in any sense. His wife, Allison, is intellectually superior to Langdon, but in frail health and grieving over the loss of an infant child a few years ago. She has no intellectual peers at the post apart from Lieutenant Weinchek, an odd duck who is failing in his military career. Allison has a devoted servant, Anacleto, a Filipino, who had accompanied the Langdon's from a previous posting. Anacleto is gentle and sensitive and he and Allison have a close intellectual bond not possible between she and her boorish husband.
Private Ellgee Williams is a loner who does not engage in camaraderie with his fellow enlisted men. His life has been a series of episodes in which he explosively breaks through his detachment to do something dramatic and destructive (he once killed a man). He is mostly an "watcher" of others and makes no effort to socially bond with anyone. Williams has become infatuated with Lenora after having glimpsed her partially naked while walking by the Penderton's home. He starts sneaking up to the home's windows at night just looking, but then begins to enter Lenora's bedroom in the middle of the night to watch her sleeping. Penderton often stays up late working, unaware that Williams is in his wife's bedroom. Even so, Penderton, after an incident with a horse ride, becomes obsessed with hatred for Williams. They do not have any interactions beyond the most superficial encounters, but Williams becomes the object of great disdain for Penderton.
Allison decides she can no longer abide with her loutish husband and must divorce him. Her health deteriorates (one suspects stemming from her depression.) She and Anacleto concoct half-baked plans to start a business somewhere so they can support themselves after she leaves Langdon. Before this happens Allison has an emotional breakdown which prompts Major Langdon to commit her to an asylum where she shortly dies.
Penderton's revulsion for Williams grows. He starts stalking him. Williams continues his night intrusion to Leonora's bedroom until one night Captain Penderton discovers him there and shoots him dead.
The contrast between the presumed orderliness of an army post and the tumultuous inner lives of the characters give this novel its "gothic" tone. McCullers imbues these characters with a depth of alienation and loneliness that is agonizing and even crippling to them. Captain Penderton is aware of his broken relationship with Leonora, but unable to deal with it. Perhaps his seething hatred of Williams, a social inferior, stems from his inability to react to his wife's affair with a military superior. Allison is grieving over the loss of a child, but even more over a life of barren personal relationships that cannot be changed. Williams is so completely incapable of establishing emotional ties with others, so much that he is really a "watcher" of the people in his world, never able to bridge the emotional gap he lives with. Right before the final incident with Penderton, Williams instigates a fight in the barracks, a sign that his repression of feelings is about the break down.
In all, this is a fine example of the genre of writing so well-crafted by McCullers and her Southern peers.
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LibraryThing member IonaS
The setting of this brilliantly written book is an army post.
There are several protagonists in this story.
There is Private Williams, who keeps himself to himself and behaves, mostly, or at least at first, in an exemplary fashion. He had never willingly touched, looked at, or spoken to a female
There is Captain Pendleton, who is “something of a savant” but has “a sad penchant for becoming enamoured of his wife’s lovers. He is also a bit of a kleptomaniac.
Pendleton’s wife, Leonora, is a somewhat “feeble-minded”, sensual woman who “could not have multiplied 12 by 13” and has difficulty in writing a simple letter.
Her present lover is Major Morris Langdon, not a sympathetic character, whose wife, Alison, is in poor health.
Alison has a wonderfully empathic and solicitous Filipino servant called Anacleto, who is rather special and artistic; he loves ballet, classical music and paints water-colours.
Leonora’s horse, Firebird, also plays a key role.
Private Williams becomes infatuated with Leonora, and begins to enter her house at night and sit silently by her bed gazing at her.
Captain Penderton has various encounters with Private Williams and develops an obsessive hatred for him which turns into a sort of love.
This theme of strange, unrequited love echoes that in The Ballad of the Sad Café, a later book of Carson’s.
I found Carson’s characters to be unique and brilliantly delineated. This is another of the author’s masterpieces.
P.S. I see from other reviews that the book has been filmatized starring Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando.
There are several protagonists in this story.
There is Private Williams, who keeps himself to himself and behaves, mostly, or at least at first, in an exemplary fashion. He had never willingly touched, looked at, or spoken to a female
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since he was 8 years old.There is Captain Pendleton, who is “something of a savant” but has “a sad penchant for becoming enamoured of his wife’s lovers. He is also a bit of a kleptomaniac.
Pendleton’s wife, Leonora, is a somewhat “feeble-minded”, sensual woman who “could not have multiplied 12 by 13” and has difficulty in writing a simple letter.
Her present lover is Major Morris Langdon, not a sympathetic character, whose wife, Alison, is in poor health.
Alison has a wonderfully empathic and solicitous Filipino servant called Anacleto, who is rather special and artistic; he loves ballet, classical music and paints water-colours.
Leonora’s horse, Firebird, also plays a key role.
Private Williams becomes infatuated with Leonora, and begins to enter her house at night and sit silently by her bed gazing at her.
Captain Penderton has various encounters with Private Williams and develops an obsessive hatred for him which turns into a sort of love.
This theme of strange, unrequited love echoes that in The Ballad of the Sad Café, a later book of Carson’s.
I found Carson’s characters to be unique and brilliantly delineated. This is another of the author’s masterpieces.
P.S. I see from other reviews that the book has been filmatized starring Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando.
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LibraryThing member boredgames
Incredible character study full of mood and complexity. How she was only 24 and displaying such technical finesse and wisdom simply awes me.
LibraryThing member psalva
I’m not sure this was for me. There was a psychological suspense element that was well done but, beyond that, there wasn’t much here. The writing was good enough to keep me going but it was a short book so that wasn’t really an issue. This was my first McCullers so I may give her more famous
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novel a shot and see if that agrees with me more. Show Less
LibraryThing member edwinbcn
The characters in Reflections in a golden eye all seem to struggle with their role in society. In almost all cases, they do not really fit. Their emotions are restrained, and they cannot realize themselves. Restrictions come from marriage to an unsuitable partner, their position in society, their
Private Williams cannot fulfil the normal development of his sexuality because he lacks the knowledge and experience how to devlop normal relations with wormen. Most women in the novel are unhappily tied in marriages that are unhappy, for once, in the case of Captain Penderton because he is homosexual, a thing he could never admit to.
The only character in the novel who is free from all these limitations and constraints, who moves like a child, girlish at times, affected, but apparently not necessarily gay, is Anacleto, the Philipino house boy. He represents the sexual freedom of the Pacific Islands, a more natural, unrestrained spiritual and physical freedom, darting like a little elf between the heaviness of the more seriously troubled American characters.
Reflections in a golden eye is a short, very well-crafted novel, about a theme which has not altogether disappeared, although society has progressed quite a bit since the 1940s.
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limited knowledge and experience, and their inability to break free from conventions. In many cases, constraints also come from the way other people see them. In fact, as Captain Penderton says "any fulfilment obtained at the expense of normalcy is wrong, and should not be allowed to bring happiness." and "It is better (...) for the square peg to keep scraping around the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it." (p. 112)Private Williams cannot fulfil the normal development of his sexuality because he lacks the knowledge and experience how to devlop normal relations with wormen. Most women in the novel are unhappily tied in marriages that are unhappy, for once, in the case of Captain Penderton because he is homosexual, a thing he could never admit to.
The only character in the novel who is free from all these limitations and constraints, who moves like a child, girlish at times, affected, but apparently not necessarily gay, is Anacleto, the Philipino house boy. He represents the sexual freedom of the Pacific Islands, a more natural, unrestrained spiritual and physical freedom, darting like a little elf between the heaviness of the more seriously troubled American characters.
Reflections in a golden eye is a short, very well-crafted novel, about a theme which has not altogether disappeared, although society has progressed quite a bit since the 1940s.
Show Less
LibraryThing member chichyJakMysz
A definite favorite. McCullers' work usually gets 5 stars from me.
LibraryThing member Ghost_Boy
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I've like almost everything McCullers has written. I only have one more novel to read of hers and I'll have read almost everything. Feels like this book is her weakest though. Her themes are there, just feels like something is missing. Maybe it's because
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it's about soldiers this time and not really her signature misfits. I still loved her writing. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1941
Physical description
128 p.; 5.04 inches
ISBN
0140181350 / 9780140181357