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Reflections in a Golden Eye
This particular hell is an army post in the South. Its inhabitants: a sexually disturbed officer; his sensual animal of a wife; his fellow-officer and wife's lover; a delicate, sensitive woman who must live with her husband's infidelity; and the driven young private who brings the searing drama to a head.
111 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1941
About the author
Carson McCullers
199 books3,372 followersCarson McCullers was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts in a small town of the Southern United States. Her other novels have similar themes. Most are set in the Deep South.
McCullers's work is often described as Southern Gothic and indicative of her Southern roots. Critics also describe her writing and eccentric characters as universal in scope. Her stories have been adapted to stage and film. A stage adaptation of her novel The Member of the Wedding (1946), which captures a young girl's feelings at her brother's wedding, made a successful Broadway run in 1950–51.
McCullers's work is often described as Southern Gothic and indicative of her Southern roots. Critics also describe her writing and eccentric characters as universal in scope. Her stories have been adapted to stage and film. A stage adaptation of her novel The Member of the Wedding (1946), which captures a young girl's feelings at her brother's wedding, made a successful Broadway run in 1950–51.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 874 reviews
August 12, 2020
Dice Cristina Morales en el prólogo a la edición con la que Seix Barral celebra el centenario del nacimiento de la autora que McCullers hace en poco más de cien páginas lo que Albert Cohen en “Bella del Señor” con unas ochocientas.
No me cabe duda de que la intención de la prologuista era la de elogiar el texto y, aunque es cierto que no le falta ni le sobra una coma, al que esto escribe le gustaría poder seguir leyendo setecientas páginas más de esta maravilla que es “Reflejos de un ojo dorado”.
No se la pierdan.
No me cabe duda de que la intención de la prologuista era la de elogiar el texto y, aunque es cierto que no le falta ni le sobra una coma, al que esto escribe le gustaría poder seguir leyendo setecientas páginas más de esta maravilla que es “Reflejos de un ojo dorado”.
No se la pierdan.
June 21, 2024
"… in a moment when a great but unknown shock is expected, the mind instinctively prepares itself by abandoning momentarily the faculty of surprise. In that vulnerable instant a kaleidoscope of half-guessed possibilities project themselves, and when the disaster has defined itself there is the feeling of having understood beforehand in some supernatural way."
From page one of this strange little book, there is a sense of impending doom hovering over the reader straight through to the very last page. As one would expect from Carson McCullers, this book speaks of loneliness and isolation. It also brings us into a world of obsession. Each character stands out with their eccentricities. You’re not going to find a single one towards whom you can extend a bit of hope. You will not want to sit down and share all your dreams and sorrows with them. Unlike my favorite McCullers novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, there are no John Singers or Mick Kellys.
"The participants of this tragedy were: two officers, a soldier, two women, a Filipino, and a horse."
The story takes place at a southern army base during what I assume to be the 1930s. One character on the surface serves as a ‘Peeping Tom’ of sorts. This in itself was enough to give me the creeps. But as our voyeur peers through the windows, so do we spy on the lives of this group of tormented human beings. Sexual repression is emphasized. When an individual is not allowed to be him or herself, what are the repercussions? If one must keep secret his or her desires, the results will eventually reverberate across all the players. Using the military post as the stage is a perfect way to illustrate the effects as this is a closed and disciplined community. A discussion between two of the officers illuminates the conflict best:
"You mean that any fulfillment 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 honorable, 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."
I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own. This novel does not quite soar to the heights of my favorite McCullers novel. Nevertheless, she was a brilliant author and I highly recommend any of her work. She writes of the outcast and the isolation of the human soul like no one else. Don’t expect to be uplifted after reading one of her works, but do expect to be fully satisfied.
From page one of this strange little book, there is a sense of impending doom hovering over the reader straight through to the very last page. As one would expect from Carson McCullers, this book speaks of loneliness and isolation. It also brings us into a world of obsession. Each character stands out with their eccentricities. You’re not going to find a single one towards whom you can extend a bit of hope. You will not want to sit down and share all your dreams and sorrows with them. Unlike my favorite McCullers novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, there are no John Singers or Mick Kellys.
"The participants of this tragedy were: two officers, a soldier, two women, a Filipino, and a horse."
The story takes place at a southern army base during what I assume to be the 1930s. One character on the surface serves as a ‘Peeping Tom’ of sorts. This in itself was enough to give me the creeps. But as our voyeur peers through the windows, so do we spy on the lives of this group of tormented human beings. Sexual repression is emphasized. When an individual is not allowed to be him or herself, what are the repercussions? If one must keep secret his or her desires, the results will eventually reverberate across all the players. Using the military post as the stage is a perfect way to illustrate the effects as this is a closed and disciplined community. A discussion between two of the officers illuminates the conflict best:
"You mean that any fulfillment 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 honorable, 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."
I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own. This novel does not quite soar to the heights of my favorite McCullers novel. Nevertheless, she was a brilliant author and I highly recommend any of her work. She writes of the outcast and the isolation of the human soul like no one else. Don’t expect to be uplifted after reading one of her works, but do expect to be fully satisfied.
June 19, 2020
This reads like a ghost story, even though there is nothing supernatural in it at all.
It is rather like an analysis of the inner ghosts people carry with them - making them act irrationally on an objective level while being perfectly logical according to the specific haunting that makes up their identity.
It also reads like a crime story running backwards, for we know from page one that one of the main characters is going to be murdered, and we know the entire cast of the tragedy as well. Over the course of the unfolding drama, we can see that there are no motives - or a million motives - for all actors involved, and we can see the everyday nothingness of life being mixed with the all-consuming passion of suppressed desire and ambition.
It is a story of overwhelming frustration with status quo - and it doesn't really matter whether that status quo means being a lover or a spouse or a secretly infatuated unconnected person. Status quo as a slow killer and a murder as a means of breaking the collective lethargy?
What made Carson McCullers write this piece of painful truth? A cautionary tale with a morale? Beware of boredom for it triggers insane action? Beware of desire for it makes you unhappy? Or maybe: beware of convention for it triggers rule-breaking?
Whatever her intention, the result is a breathtaking description of life as we know it: dull and dramatic, meaningless and important, difficult and easy-going. Brilliantly written in softly flowing prose!
Recommended!
It is rather like an analysis of the inner ghosts people carry with them - making them act irrationally on an objective level while being perfectly logical according to the specific haunting that makes up their identity.
It also reads like a crime story running backwards, for we know from page one that one of the main characters is going to be murdered, and we know the entire cast of the tragedy as well. Over the course of the unfolding drama, we can see that there are no motives - or a million motives - for all actors involved, and we can see the everyday nothingness of life being mixed with the all-consuming passion of suppressed desire and ambition.
It is a story of overwhelming frustration with status quo - and it doesn't really matter whether that status quo means being a lover or a spouse or a secretly infatuated unconnected person. Status quo as a slow killer and a murder as a means of breaking the collective lethargy?
What made Carson McCullers write this piece of painful truth? A cautionary tale with a morale? Beware of boredom for it triggers insane action? Beware of desire for it makes you unhappy? Or maybe: beware of convention for it triggers rule-breaking?
Whatever her intention, the result is a breathtaking description of life as we know it: dull and dramatic, meaningless and important, difficult and easy-going. Brilliantly written in softly flowing prose!
Recommended!
May 21, 2025
A small book plunges us into a closed session in a military barracks. We know there will be a drama, but which of the six characters will be the victim? With adultery as a background, each character is ultimately very alone with his tensions and neuroses.
Good writing quality.
Good writing quality.
September 27, 2025
Tennessee Williams meets Richard Yates. Williams's brutality, combined with Yates's painful suburbanism, with perhaps a bit of Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? thrown in. Is it any coincidence that Elizabeth Taylor starred in film adaptations of works by Williams, Albee, as well as the film adaptation of this book? Since I first read this I have also read Run River by Joan Didion and The Italian Girl by Iris Murdoch, both of which belong in the same category.
Brutal yet beautiful—no more needs to be said, but I will say more anyway. I dare anyone to get the image of a woman cutting her nipples off with garden shears out of their head. The homoeroticism is as palpable as the apprehension—repressed homosexuality will fuck you up, as the modern era continues to prove, especially in American politics. Let's all strive to be as uninhibited as Anacleto, the Filipino houseboy. Anyone else get Agador Spartacus (The Birdcage, duh) vibes from him? To quote Mean Girls, "he's almost too gay to function," and you cannot help but adore him. All I need now is a Cher or a Bette Midler reference and this review will have checked all the gay boxes. As it should.
Brutal yet beautiful—no more needs to be said, but I will say more anyway. I dare anyone to get the image of a woman cutting her nipples off with garden shears out of their head. The homoeroticism is as palpable as the apprehension—repressed homosexuality will fuck you up, as the modern era continues to prove, especially in American politics. Let's all strive to be as uninhibited as Anacleto, the Filipino houseboy. Anyone else get Agador Spartacus (The Birdcage, duh) vibes from him? To quote Mean Girls, "he's almost too gay to function," and you cannot help but adore him. All I need now is a Cher or a Bette Midler reference and this review will have checked all the gay boxes. As it should.
July 12, 2026
Do you ever read a novel and love it because you are thinking all the way through, “these people are just like me. I know these folks.”? Well, Carson McCullers creates exactly the opposite of that. All through this novel you are thinking, “I’m not like this. These are not folks I know.” And then, you realize, you are and they might be. Because underneath every human being alive there is a piece that feels alien to the world and a bit that never (or seldom) gets shared. Carson just knows how to put her finger on those people in a way that few authors can.
”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 honorable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it?”
If you know anything of Carson McCullers’ life, you will realize that she was that square peg and she opted to find the square hole and occupy it. She never allowed herself to be pushed into the round hole and she is constantly asking why all the holes need to be round in the first place.
Like her other works, Reflections in a Golden Eye left me feeling a bit uncomfortable and puzzled in the end. I never knew these characters well and yet I felt as if they had bared their very souls to me and I was asking to sit in judgment of them. They are despicable in so many ways, and yet sometimes so hopeless trapped and pitiable. Familiar and yet alien.
McCullers always seems to be saying to us that we really cannot understand one another, no matter how hard we try, because most of what we know of one another is either a lie or something we have projected. We are all trapped, but the trap is inescapable because the trap is ourselves, our own convictions and hidden secrets and our own shortcomings. And marriage is not a solution, because we might try to meld two people into one unit, but that cannot ever be. The individual is born into this world alone and goes out of it the same way...with mostly loneliness in between.
Carson McCullers is without a doubt one of the best novelist of our age. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding would both make my list of 100 Novels you MUST read.
”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 honorable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it?”
If you know anything of Carson McCullers’ life, you will realize that she was that square peg and she opted to find the square hole and occupy it. She never allowed herself to be pushed into the round hole and she is constantly asking why all the holes need to be round in the first place.
Like her other works, Reflections in a Golden Eye left me feeling a bit uncomfortable and puzzled in the end. I never knew these characters well and yet I felt as if they had bared their very souls to me and I was asking to sit in judgment of them. They are despicable in so many ways, and yet sometimes so hopeless trapped and pitiable. Familiar and yet alien.
McCullers always seems to be saying to us that we really cannot understand one another, no matter how hard we try, because most of what we know of one another is either a lie or something we have projected. We are all trapped, but the trap is inescapable because the trap is ourselves, our own convictions and hidden secrets and our own shortcomings. And marriage is not a solution, because we might try to meld two people into one unit, but that cannot ever be. The individual is born into this world alone and goes out of it the same way...with mostly loneliness in between.
Carson McCullers is without a doubt one of the best novelist of our age. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding would both make my list of 100 Novels you MUST read.
October 15, 2014
An impending sense of dread interlaces the lives of five characters set on an army base in the American South of the 1930s. They are all prey of the remorse that goes along with secret liaisons, inner frustrations and repressed sexual preferences. With the rigidness of the secluded military system and the inherent loneliness in hermetic marriages imposed by social convention as a backdrop, resentments and obsessions will fester in contained aggressiveness and will inevitably escalate towards a virulent eruption.
Captain Penderton wrestles against his strong attraction to men in self-loathing while his wife Leonora has an affair with Major Morris Langdon.
Officer Williams performs nocturnal voyeuristic rituals in a state of trance revealing his suppressed fascination for the female sex.
Alison Langdon’s mental state is fragile after a traumatic event and is repelled by her husband’s dalliance with Leonora.
Worthy of a Tennessee Williams’ play, these excessively temperamental, anomalous and aimless characters drawn in opaque languidness live locked within self-imposed isolation and disguise their torments with overwrought refinement and menacing politeness. The title of this novelette Reflections in a Golden Eye evokes the mismatched glances, the missed opportunities of crossed looks that never found each other. It’s in the eye where the seed of unresolved passions remains embedded, where a primal and inexplicable fixation for the other is fostered, where unconsummated lust clouds discernment in the threshold of desire.
“A peacock of a sort of ghastly green. With one immense golden eye. And in it the reflections of something tiny and (…) grotesque.” (86)
The symphonic motifs played in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” are revisited in this novella. They might be accused of lacking in thematic magnitude if compared to McCullers' opera prima but the dismal melody of her prose seeps in relentlessly, subjugating the reader, taking him to the pit of human desolation and leaving him alone with the discordant echoes of characters who live trapped within themselves and are incapable to communicate in a claustrophobic setting, which in turn gives shape to the ongoing metaphor that condemns the societal hierarchy of the American South of the thirties. Yes, we have encountered this theme before but the masterful precision in design and the deliberate structure of the work at hand that leads to a dramatically distilled outcome offers a nuanced reading experience of a more reflective order than McCullers’ famous masterpiece. The result is this brutal short story, which is much more than a “Greek Tragedy” played by misshapen creatures. It is a mirror refracting the Sense of absolute Dread that plagues mankind’s existence and dyes inexorable darkness with forged gold.
Captain Penderton wrestles against his strong attraction to men in self-loathing while his wife Leonora has an affair with Major Morris Langdon.
Officer Williams performs nocturnal voyeuristic rituals in a state of trance revealing his suppressed fascination for the female sex.
Alison Langdon’s mental state is fragile after a traumatic event and is repelled by her husband’s dalliance with Leonora.
Worthy of a Tennessee Williams’ play, these excessively temperamental, anomalous and aimless characters drawn in opaque languidness live locked within self-imposed isolation and disguise their torments with overwrought refinement and menacing politeness. The title of this novelette Reflections in a Golden Eye evokes the mismatched glances, the missed opportunities of crossed looks that never found each other. It’s in the eye where the seed of unresolved passions remains embedded, where a primal and inexplicable fixation for the other is fostered, where unconsummated lust clouds discernment in the threshold of desire.
“A peacock of a sort of ghastly green. With one immense golden eye. And in it the reflections of something tiny and (…) grotesque.” (86)
The symphonic motifs played in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” are revisited in this novella. They might be accused of lacking in thematic magnitude if compared to McCullers' opera prima but the dismal melody of her prose seeps in relentlessly, subjugating the reader, taking him to the pit of human desolation and leaving him alone with the discordant echoes of characters who live trapped within themselves and are incapable to communicate in a claustrophobic setting, which in turn gives shape to the ongoing metaphor that condemns the societal hierarchy of the American South of the thirties. Yes, we have encountered this theme before but the masterful precision in design and the deliberate structure of the work at hand that leads to a dramatically distilled outcome offers a nuanced reading experience of a more reflective order than McCullers’ famous masterpiece. The result is this brutal short story, which is much more than a “Greek Tragedy” played by misshapen creatures. It is a mirror refracting the Sense of absolute Dread that plagues mankind’s existence and dyes inexorable darkness with forged gold.
August 25, 2022
BUENO, BUENO, BUENO. Esta novela me ha maravillado. Menuda modernez, menuda genialidad. Es increíble cómo la autora es capaz de crear un mundo cerrado tan identificable y unos personajes tan complejos y profundos. Me ha parecido un ejercicio maravilloso sobre lo extraño de algunos vínculos humanos y sobre las profundas pulsiones que guían las vidas de las personas. No me sorprende, además, el revuelo que causó en su época: publicar en pleno 1941 —¡menudo año!—, una novela en la que hay varios personajes homosexuales en el marco del ejército, haciendo una exposición muy clara de los vicios y las intrigas del mundo militar, me parece de una audacia apabullante, especialmente si tenemos en cuenta que Carson McCullers tenía 23 años.
(DESDE AQUÍ HAY LO QUE ALGUNOS LECTORES SENSIBLES A LOS DESTRIPES PODRÍAN CONSIDERAR SPOILERS)
Cuenta la historia de las pasiones humanas que se desatan en una base militar estadounidense en la que las hormonas están revolucionadas y en la que se está gestando una tragedia sureña, casi griega. Tenemos a dos matrimonios: uno de ellos está compuesto por un taciturno comandante secretamente enamorado de otros soldados, y por una veleidosa esposa que mantiene un idilio con un aguerrido coronel (vecino y amigo de la familia) que a su vez está casado con una enfermiza mujer que tiene un amanerado criado filipino. Cuando un misterioso soldado entra en el juego de pasiones secretas en el que están envueltos los dos matrimonios, la cosa se complica y empieza a desarrollar tintes trágicos. El nivel de tensión emocional y sexual de la obra recuerda a obras de autores de la talla de Tenneessee Williams, autor que, en la edición que yo he leído, escribe un epílogo muy interesante y acertado que ayuda mucho a encuadrar y valorar la obra (a diferencia del prólogo de Cristina Morales que, en mi humilde opinión, aporta poco o nada).
En conclusión: LEEDLO, OS VA A ENCANTAR.
(DESDE AQUÍ HAY LO QUE ALGUNOS LECTORES SENSIBLES A LOS DESTRIPES PODRÍAN CONSIDERAR SPOILERS)
Cuenta la historia de las pasiones humanas que se desatan en una base militar estadounidense en la que las hormonas están revolucionadas y en la que se está gestando una tragedia sureña, casi griega. Tenemos a dos matrimonios: uno de ellos está compuesto por un taciturno comandante secretamente enamorado de otros soldados, y por una veleidosa esposa que mantiene un idilio con un aguerrido coronel (vecino y amigo de la familia) que a su vez está casado con una enfermiza mujer que tiene un amanerado criado filipino. Cuando un misterioso soldado entra en el juego de pasiones secretas en el que están envueltos los dos matrimonios, la cosa se complica y empieza a desarrollar tintes trágicos. El nivel de tensión emocional y sexual de la obra recuerda a obras de autores de la talla de Tenneessee Williams, autor que, en la edición que yo he leído, escribe un epílogo muy interesante y acertado que ayuda mucho a encuadrar y valorar la obra (a diferencia del prólogo de Cristina Morales que, en mi humilde opinión, aporta poco o nada).
En conclusión: LEEDLO, OS VA A ENCANTAR.
December 28, 2015
Carson’s biographer tells us that her family got an anonymous phone call just after this novel was published.
An alleged Ku Klux Klansman called to say that he and his friends were going to get her that night. She had been a “nigger lover” in her first book, he said, and now she had proven herself “a queer” as well. Carson’s indignant father waited all night on the front porch of their Starke Avenue home to greet the Klansman with a loaded shotgun and was disappointed when no one attempted to carry out the threat.
Here is the very house and the very porch
This novel is a novella – 124 large font pages – stuffed with lurid characters and incidents including one which some readers will find most upsetting – a man shoves a live kitten into a mail box – and it was written when Carson was 23.
In fact she had a career quite similar to some notable musicians from the 1960s who did almost everything before the age of 30 and kind of coasted after that. I’m looking at you, Ray Davies, John Sebastian, Brian Wilson and others, you know who you are. And like some of those guys, Carson did have legitimate reasons, because she was really ill a lot of the time.
So, this is a bonkers little tale of closeted gay men and horrible marriages, and I did like it but I kind of thought, as I do when I listen to the magnificent run of Kinks singles from "You Really Got Me" to "Lola", what could this writer not have done if only, if only.
An alleged Ku Klux Klansman called to say that he and his friends were going to get her that night. She had been a “nigger lover” in her first book, he said, and now she had proven herself “a queer” as well. Carson’s indignant father waited all night on the front porch of their Starke Avenue home to greet the Klansman with a loaded shotgun and was disappointed when no one attempted to carry out the threat.
Here is the very house and the very porch
This novel is a novella – 124 large font pages – stuffed with lurid characters and incidents including one which some readers will find most upsetting – a man shoves a live kitten into a mail box – and it was written when Carson was 23.
In fact she had a career quite similar to some notable musicians from the 1960s who did almost everything before the age of 30 and kind of coasted after that. I’m looking at you, Ray Davies, John Sebastian, Brian Wilson and others, you know who you are. And like some of those guys, Carson did have legitimate reasons, because she was really ill a lot of the time.
So, this is a bonkers little tale of closeted gay men and horrible marriages, and I did like it but I kind of thought, as I do when I listen to the magnificent run of Kinks singles from "You Really Got Me" to "Lola", what could this writer not have done if only, if only.
June 12, 2023
3.5 stars
...Reflections in a Golden Eye is one of the purest and most powerful of those works which are conceived in that Sense of The Awful which is the desperate black root of nearly all significant modern art, from the Guernica of Picasso to the cartoons of Charles Addams. – Tennessee Williams in the afterword
At the time that McCullers wrote this novel, she was living in Fayetteville, North Carolina near Fort Bragg. The original title was 'Army Post.' The idea for the story had come into being when she visited Fort Benning, Georgia, as a teenager. Later, the idea was given momentum by a story her husband, Reeves McCullers (an ex-soldier) told her about a young soldier at Fort Bragg, who was arrested for voyeuristic behavior. The movie based on McCullers's novel, directed by John Huston and starring Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor premiered on October 13, 1967. McCullers died two weeks prior to the movie's premiere, at age 50.
This was McCullers's second novel and according to Tennessee Williams's afterward was not received well in the literary community due to its darker subject matter.
McCullers plays upon the reader's sense of dread, we could also call it anxiety, by letting us know that someone is going to be murdered. This is not a spoiler. We learn it on the first page.
There is a fort in the South where a few years ago a murder was committed. The participants of this tragedy were: two officers, a soldier, two women, a Filipino, and a horse. As I begin to know the characters, my sense of anxiety is heightened. Which one will be murdered? Leonora Penderton is something of a siren, beautiful, voluptuous, knows how to host a party, and is having an affair with next door neighbor, Major Morris Langdon. Her husband, Captain Penderton is aware of the affair and accepts it, McCullers writes, the Captain did not dwell on this. In this cast of characters, Captain Penderton is my least favorite. A man whose head is full of book knowledge but doesn't know how to come up with any ideas on his own. In secret, he is cruel to animals.
The Major's wife, Alison Langdon is a sickly woman who knows about her husband's infidelity. Of these four characters, she garners the most sympathy. Trapped in a loveless marriage with few choices due to her health, Alison finds joy in music and the attention of her houseboy, Anacleto. Anacleto has been with Mrs. Langdon since he was seventeen years old and is devoted to her happiness. Anacleto’s antics offer some humor in a fairly grim narrative.
The other significant characters are Private Ellgee Williams and Leonora's horse, Firebird. McCullers attributes animal qualities to Williams. His eyes have a mute expression that is found usually in the eyes of animals.....he moves with the silence and agility of a wild creature or a thief. He is mysterious, a loner, and spends a lot of time in the woods. Throughout the story, he will have small interactions with Captain Penderton. These interactions don't seem to mean all that much to Williams, but they steadily grow in meaning to the Captain, until the Captain begins to hate Williams. This hate allows the Captain to lie to himself about his attraction to Williams. Williams on the other hand, is attracted to Leonora and comes into her bedroom at night just to watch her. . . truly creepy behavior.
Private Williams often works in the stable and saddles Firebird for Leonora Penderton. One day, the Captain wants to ride his wife's horse. A power struggle between man and horse ensues. The Captain felt suddenly that he was to be thrown, and not only thrown but killed. The Captain always had been afraid of horses: he only rode because it was the thing to do, and because this was another one of his ways of tormenting himself.
I can't say this novel was enjoyable, but I do find McCullers work singularly intriguing. I am captivated by how she draws her characters, even when, maybe especially when they are weird and unlikeable or self-unaware.
...Reflections in a Golden Eye is one of the purest and most powerful of those works which are conceived in that Sense of The Awful which is the desperate black root of nearly all significant modern art, from the Guernica of Picasso to the cartoons of Charles Addams. – Tennessee Williams in the afterword
At the time that McCullers wrote this novel, she was living in Fayetteville, North Carolina near Fort Bragg. The original title was 'Army Post.' The idea for the story had come into being when she visited Fort Benning, Georgia, as a teenager. Later, the idea was given momentum by a story her husband, Reeves McCullers (an ex-soldier) told her about a young soldier at Fort Bragg, who was arrested for voyeuristic behavior. The movie based on McCullers's novel, directed by John Huston and starring Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor premiered on October 13, 1967. McCullers died two weeks prior to the movie's premiere, at age 50.
This was McCullers's second novel and according to Tennessee Williams's afterward was not received well in the literary community due to its darker subject matter.
McCullers plays upon the reader's sense of dread, we could also call it anxiety, by letting us know that someone is going to be murdered. This is not a spoiler. We learn it on the first page.
There is a fort in the South where a few years ago a murder was committed. The participants of this tragedy were: two officers, a soldier, two women, a Filipino, and a horse. As I begin to know the characters, my sense of anxiety is heightened. Which one will be murdered? Leonora Penderton is something of a siren, beautiful, voluptuous, knows how to host a party, and is having an affair with next door neighbor, Major Morris Langdon. Her husband, Captain Penderton is aware of the affair and accepts it, McCullers writes, the Captain did not dwell on this. In this cast of characters, Captain Penderton is my least favorite. A man whose head is full of book knowledge but doesn't know how to come up with any ideas on his own. In secret, he is cruel to animals.
The Major's wife, Alison Langdon is a sickly woman who knows about her husband's infidelity. Of these four characters, she garners the most sympathy. Trapped in a loveless marriage with few choices due to her health, Alison finds joy in music and the attention of her houseboy, Anacleto. Anacleto has been with Mrs. Langdon since he was seventeen years old and is devoted to her happiness. Anacleto’s antics offer some humor in a fairly grim narrative.
The other significant characters are Private Ellgee Williams and Leonora's horse, Firebird. McCullers attributes animal qualities to Williams. His eyes have a mute expression that is found usually in the eyes of animals.....he moves with the silence and agility of a wild creature or a thief. He is mysterious, a loner, and spends a lot of time in the woods. Throughout the story, he will have small interactions with Captain Penderton. These interactions don't seem to mean all that much to Williams, but they steadily grow in meaning to the Captain, until the Captain begins to hate Williams. This hate allows the Captain to lie to himself about his attraction to Williams. Williams on the other hand, is attracted to Leonora and comes into her bedroom at night just to watch her. . . truly creepy behavior.
Private Williams often works in the stable and saddles Firebird for Leonora Penderton. One day, the Captain wants to ride his wife's horse. A power struggle between man and horse ensues. The Captain felt suddenly that he was to be thrown, and not only thrown but killed. The Captain always had been afraid of horses: he only rode because it was the thing to do, and because this was another one of his ways of tormenting himself.
I can't say this novel was enjoyable, but I do find McCullers work singularly intriguing. I am captivated by how she draws her characters, even when, maybe especially when they are weird and unlikeable or self-unaware.
February 1, 2020
This novel, Carson McCullers's second, first came out serialized in Harper's Bazaar in 1940. The following year it was published as a book. She wrote it in 1939, originally entitled Army Post. The idea for the book grew from both a visit she had made as an adolescent to Fort Benning in Georgia and then later her husband's mention of a peeking Tom incident at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. I assume you know what a peeping Tom is.
The story is laid up as a mystery. You are told at the beginning that it concerns two officers, two women, a soldier, a Filipino and a horse and that there will be a murder! You cannot help but be curious. The characters are strange and you cannot help but wonder how the elements fit together. There isn't a possibility of guessing what will happen. I was surprised at how the characters and what they did ended up making complete sense. What was strange to me in the beginning made complete sense! What this says to me is that if we don't understand people, it is simply because we lack adequate information. For me this is a mystery because you want to figure out what has happened and why and how the people are as they are.
It is through McCullers talented writing that you become curious. The writing is sensual and tantalizing. It is important to note that McCullers herself was bisexual and here she is writing about homosexuality. She writes well of the pull, the physical attraction between people, and how you might act if how you feel is not acceptable. The writing is not graphic. She was ahead of her time, not that that influences my rating. My rating is purely personal.
The audiobook I listened to is narrated by Christopher Kipiniak. I understood him, but I disliked his dramatization. I do not think his intonations fit the characters speaking. I will give the narration two stars; it is just OK.
I like the book. It kept my attention. Details and lines are thrown in that had me thinking. Why did the author put in that? Why did she express herself in that way? What is she trying to have us think? There is a conversation between two men, discussing whether if you are a square peg should you try to shove yourself into a round hole or should you look for a square hole? The men disagree. This says a lot about the two men.
The story is laid up as a mystery. You are told at the beginning that it concerns two officers, two women, a soldier, a Filipino and a horse and that there will be a murder! You cannot help but be curious. The characters are strange and you cannot help but wonder how the elements fit together. There isn't a possibility of guessing what will happen. I was surprised at how the characters and what they did ended up making complete sense. What was strange to me in the beginning made complete sense! What this says to me is that if we don't understand people, it is simply because we lack adequate information. For me this is a mystery because you want to figure out what has happened and why and how the people are as they are.
It is through McCullers talented writing that you become curious. The writing is sensual and tantalizing. It is important to note that McCullers herself was bisexual and here she is writing about homosexuality. She writes well of the pull, the physical attraction between people, and how you might act if how you feel is not acceptable. The writing is not graphic. She was ahead of her time, not that that influences my rating. My rating is purely personal.
The audiobook I listened to is narrated by Christopher Kipiniak. I understood him, but I disliked his dramatization. I do not think his intonations fit the characters speaking. I will give the narration two stars; it is just OK.
I like the book. It kept my attention. Details and lines are thrown in that had me thinking. Why did the author put in that? Why did she express herself in that way? What is she trying to have us think? There is a conversation between two men, discussing whether if you are a square peg should you try to shove yourself into a round hole or should you look for a square hole? The men disagree. This says a lot about the two men.
May 31, 2023
I finished this yesterday and needed to think about it before attempting a review. I'm not sure that helped me make any more sense of it than the confusion I felt upon turning the last page. Set on a military base in the 30's and full of McCullers typical misfits and unusual characters, in this novel I was just not able to identify with any of the characters, and they were all unlikeable people.
The Captain was a sexually repressed lover of men, married to Leonora, a beautiful but stupid woman. Not a good marriage.
The Major was a womanizer married to Alison, an invalid. He was having an affair with Leonora. Again not a good marriage.
Private Williams seemed to be a psychopath who developed a strange obsession with Leonora and snuck into her bedroom every night to stare at her while she was sleeping.
The Filipino houseboy was an obvious gay man who was completely loyal to Alison.
Firebird was a horse.
And there you have it. The interactions of all these people with each other were strange, no one was happy, including the horse. It was a weird little tale that went nowhere and ended abruptly. I have no idea what the author was trying to say, except maybe that we are all lonely and living on ego islands of our own making.
The 4 stars here is for McCullers, not the novel. Crazy and depressing as it was, her writing drew me in and made me need to see what happened to these people, and what motivated them. This was the only book of hers I had not read, and I'm glad it was my last one, otherwise I would not have gone on the read Member of the Wedding and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, both masterpieces of southern literature.
The Captain was a sexually repressed lover of men, married to Leonora, a beautiful but stupid woman. Not a good marriage.
The Major was a womanizer married to Alison, an invalid. He was having an affair with Leonora. Again not a good marriage.
Private Williams seemed to be a psychopath who developed a strange obsession with Leonora and snuck into her bedroom every night to stare at her while she was sleeping.
The Filipino houseboy was an obvious gay man who was completely loyal to Alison.
Firebird was a horse.
And there you have it. The interactions of all these people with each other were strange, no one was happy, including the horse. It was a weird little tale that went nowhere and ended abruptly. I have no idea what the author was trying to say, except maybe that we are all lonely and living on ego islands of our own making.
The 4 stars here is for McCullers, not the novel. Crazy and depressing as it was, her writing drew me in and made me need to see what happened to these people, and what motivated them. This was the only book of hers I had not read, and I'm glad it was my last one, otherwise I would not have gone on the read Member of the Wedding and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, both masterpieces of southern literature.
September 21, 2020
En Reflejos en un ojo dorado (1941) encontramos la historia de un hombre enjaulado dentro de un mundo que no le permite ni siquiera ser consciente de su verdadera naturaleza. Pero esta apreciación también puede ser válida para el resto de personajes. Hallamos entonces una novela coral donde, en medio de la vida rutinaria e insulsa de un cuartel, descubrimos sus verdaderas identidades, sus miedos, sus deseos, sus inseguridades y, en definitiva, sus actitudes ante una vida que no es la que ninguno hubiera deseado.
Carson McCullers (1917-1967) traza una descripción de personajes de forma admirablemente concisa y no tiene compasión hacía ninguno de ellos, ni hombres ni mujeres. Todos son infelices (insatisfechos, atormentados, reprimidos, fracasados, resignados, deprimidos) o sencillamente son simples, tontos, ignorantes, tímidos… Respuestas diferentes para soportar un ambiente militar convencional y opresivo que exige rigidez de costumbres y de pensamientos, en el que prima lo colectivo sobre lo individual y que se erige como patrón del comportamiento de sus integrantes:
-Solo dos cosas me importan ahora: ser un buen animal y servir a mi país. Un cuerpo sano y patriotismo.
En la obra parece quedar claro que ante esa situación cada cual necesita buscar su propia salida, voluntaria o involuntariamente, aunque esto pueda significar un verdadero cataclismo. Un final trágico que no resuelve nada o quizás sí, quizás indica que lo único posible en ese mundo de engaños es seguir engañado, porque el deterioro es tan grave que ya no hay solución posible. En cualquier caso, a la autora no parece importarle las conclusiones del desenlace, se limita simplemente a describir ese mundo y a conducirnos hacía ese final. Lo único que resulta obvio es su intención crítica hacia ese decadente tipo de vida y lo que esto pudo significar en el momento de su publicación: 1941.
Reflejos en un ojo dorado está escrito con un magnifico estilo natural, sin sentimentalismos. Se trata de breves y precisas escenas, graves, pero envueltas en recurrentes alusiones al paisaje (aire, luz, sol, luna, cielo, clima…) que las dulcifican y producen una cadencia agradable en la lectura. McCullers me ha parecido una maestra de las descripciones y de las ausencias. Te das cuenta de que te oculta cosas, pero, al mismo tiempo, ves claro que no las necesitas para comprender: en ningún momento dejé de sentir el alma solitaria, reprimida y atormentada del capitán Penderton.
¡Qué excelente novela!
Carson McCullers (1917-1967) traza una descripción de personajes de forma admirablemente concisa y no tiene compasión hacía ninguno de ellos, ni hombres ni mujeres. Todos son infelices (insatisfechos, atormentados, reprimidos, fracasados, resignados, deprimidos) o sencillamente son simples, tontos, ignorantes, tímidos… Respuestas diferentes para soportar un ambiente militar convencional y opresivo que exige rigidez de costumbres y de pensamientos, en el que prima lo colectivo sobre lo individual y que se erige como patrón del comportamiento de sus integrantes:
-Solo dos cosas me importan ahora: ser un buen animal y servir a mi país. Un cuerpo sano y patriotismo.
En la obra parece quedar claro que ante esa situación cada cual necesita buscar su propia salida, voluntaria o involuntariamente, aunque esto pueda significar un verdadero cataclismo. Un final trágico que no resuelve nada o quizás sí, quizás indica que lo único posible en ese mundo de engaños es seguir engañado, porque el deterioro es tan grave que ya no hay solución posible. En cualquier caso, a la autora no parece importarle las conclusiones del desenlace, se limita simplemente a describir ese mundo y a conducirnos hacía ese final. Lo único que resulta obvio es su intención crítica hacia ese decadente tipo de vida y lo que esto pudo significar en el momento de su publicación: 1941.
Reflejos en un ojo dorado está escrito con un magnifico estilo natural, sin sentimentalismos. Se trata de breves y precisas escenas, graves, pero envueltas en recurrentes alusiones al paisaje (aire, luz, sol, luna, cielo, clima…) que las dulcifican y producen una cadencia agradable en la lectura. McCullers me ha parecido una maestra de las descripciones y de las ausencias. Te das cuenta de que te oculta cosas, pero, al mismo tiempo, ves claro que no las necesitas para comprender: en ningún momento dejé de sentir el alma solitaria, reprimida y atormentada del capitán Penderton.
¡Qué excelente novela!
July 27, 2015
I am humbled once again by the familiarity of Carson McCullers with pain, loneliness and alienation - the dark thread that ties together her novels and stories, the silent scream of despair that unites the patrons of a sad cafe with the unsuccesful hunters for love in a mill town, and now with the officers and their consorts on an army base somewhere in Georgia.
I am so immersed in my characters that their motives are my own. When I write about a thief, I become one; when I write about Captain Penderton, I become a homosexual man. I become the characters I write about and I bless the Latin poet Terence who said 'Nothing human is alien to me.'" declares the author in an interview about this novel. It makes me wonder though, when she claims to be familiar with all forms of human emotion, if she ever came across happy people? Because her characters are struggling in vain for peace and contenment. They are, as described by Captain Pendleton, square pegs trying to fit into round holes, pushed to the fringes of acceptable behaviour by a moralistic society much too concerned with 'normalcy'. ( 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 honorable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the rounded hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it? )
An army camp is a world in miniature, a diorama here for the study of human behaviour in isolated conditions - the boring routine of military life needs to be compensated by emotional adventures, whose appeal relies more on secrecy and the forbidden fruit than in actual passionate feelings. Some people are better suited for this game than others - predators who are only concerned for their well-being, and prey who get their hearts broken like fine porcelain vases dropped casually from the common table. (.)
This study of unfulfilled desires and repressed instincts tackles questions about personal responsibility for one's actions, about how much the environment and peer pressure can exarcebate emotional instability in persons with a more delicate constitution. Alcohol, ambition, broken channels of communication, lack of imagination or simple indifference also feature in the equation, but McCarson has the magic touch that tranforms this story from a psychological study into a lyrical lament about the human condition.
He had the strange, rapt face of a Gauguin primitive.
Between predators and prey (Major Langdon and Alison Langdon; Captain Penderton and his wife Leonora), the author interposes a mute witness / observer, an unsophisticated soul who reacts instinctively to life instead of trying to analyze it. Private Williams is not an innocent bystander, he has a ruthlessness of purpose that serves as a catalyst for the dramatic events that will be the focus of the story, but for me he is also an embodiment of the subconscious, the only honest yet the most helpless of the actors in the play. His ablity to care for and to relate to the horses under his care in the army stables is one illustration of this role:
The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect. The mind of Private Williams was imbued with various colors of strange tones, but it was without delineation, void of form.
Attracted by the external signs of beauty like a moth to the flame, the inarticulate Williams doesn't have the tools to analyze his position. He can only follow his instincts . I feel the need to re-read 'Of Mice and Men' to see if I can find a connection between the private and Lennie.
Art and the social graces can function as a temporary palliative for loneliness and despair. Treated indifferently by her husband, Alison Langdon turns to other misfits who share her love of music, gardening, painting and fine eating. References to Mozart sonatas echo here passages from the author's debut novel. Her Philipino servant Anacleto understands her soul better than anybody else, being himself a square peg in a world of round holes. But even kindred souls cannot keep the darkness at bay for long, nor does alcohol or sleeping pills:
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.
Is this golden bird from the title and from the vision of a tortured soul ( A peacock of a sort of ghastly green. With one immense golden eye. And in it these reflections of something tiny and ... grotesque.) a metaphor for unattainable love and beauty, drowned by petty concerns and inarticulate longing? Read this gem and decide for yourself!
September 25, 2014
I love the way McCullers's work is overrun with the most vivid queens. Some closeted, like Lieutenant Penderton here, but others gay and carefree, like Anacleto, Mrs. Langdon's Filipino houseboy. This is a story of sexual derangement, of what happens when the love impulse is forced underground, in an age when it dare not speak its name. The novel is in its way almost unutterably sad. It makes us glad that we live in comparatively happier times. Despite the fact that McCullers has these moments of marginally questionable usage--say, four or five instances where another word choice would have been better--the book is a wonder. And at 127 pages you can read it in one sitting. The book holds us in thrall. Highly recommended.
July 13, 2026
** Spoilers below **
This is my second Carson McCullers and, while it didn't leap straight into my list of favourite books as The Member of the Wedding did, this is far clearer in relation to why McCullers is regarded as part of the Southern Gothic school. This is full of grotesque emotions, situations and characters, with pretty much everyone revealed as an oddity in some sense. The concern with sex, sexualities, masochism, repression, self-inflicted violence and voyeurism is remarkably bold for a book published in 1941, as is the siting of the book at a US army base.
There are scenes which are seared onto my mind: Leonora Penderton stripping off her clothes and walking naked through the house in defiance and rejection of her husband, the repressed Captain Penderton ('Leonora Penderton feared neither man, beast nor the devil; God she had never known'); the off-stage self-abuse of Mrs Langdon ('she had been tortured to the bone by grief and anxiety so that now she was on the verge of actual lunacy'); the enigmatic Private Williams whose objects of his obsessive voyeurism seem to be both the Captain and his wife.
This hothouse of extreme emotions plays out to a not unexpected ending and McCullers is smart enough to keep this short so that the intensity is contained and sustained to that boiling point without ever dissipating.
All the same, I missed the voice of Frankie which made Member such a success for me. The objective narrator maintains a necessary cool distance from all the fevered and over the top emotions - definitely one to read as close to a single sitting as you can to really experience the craziness and claustrophobia.
Fascinating in so many ways, not least for the way McCullers boldly trangresses in sexual terms and breaks all notions of conformity.
He stood in a somewhat curious relation to the three fundamentals of existence: life itself, sex and death.
This is my second Carson McCullers and, while it didn't leap straight into my list of favourite books as The Member of the Wedding did, this is far clearer in relation to why McCullers is regarded as part of the Southern Gothic school. This is full of grotesque emotions, situations and characters, with pretty much everyone revealed as an oddity in some sense. The concern with sex, sexualities, masochism, repression, self-inflicted violence and voyeurism is remarkably bold for a book published in 1941, as is the siting of the book at a US army base.
There are scenes which are seared onto my mind: Leonora Penderton stripping off her clothes and walking naked through the house in defiance and rejection of her husband, the repressed Captain Penderton ('Leonora Penderton feared neither man, beast nor the devil; God she had never known'); the off-stage self-abuse of Mrs Langdon ('she had been tortured to the bone by grief and anxiety so that now she was on the verge of actual lunacy'); the enigmatic Private Williams whose objects of his obsessive voyeurism seem to be both the Captain and his wife.
This hothouse of extreme emotions plays out to a not unexpected ending and McCullers is smart enough to keep this short so that the intensity is contained and sustained to that boiling point without ever dissipating.
All the same, I missed the voice of Frankie which made Member such a success for me. The objective narrator maintains a necessary cool distance from all the fevered and over the top emotions - definitely one to read as close to a single sitting as you can to really experience the craziness and claustrophobia.
Fascinating in so many ways, not least for the way McCullers boldly trangresses in sexual terms and breaks all notions of conformity.
June 2, 2023
"Reflections in a Golden Eye" is a dark tale about obsession, voyeurism, isolation, and loneliness. It's a 1941 novel set on an Army base in Georgia. The characters are unhappy and unconventional, and two of them would have to be labeled as stalkers. They exhibit forbidden desires, both heterosexual and homosexual. The characters also have vulnerable, lonely sides that long for meaningful human connections. Carson McCullers writes very well, so even though you know there won't be any "happily ever after" for these emotionally struggling individuals, you'll want to keep turning the pages until the end of this Southern Gothic novel.
April 28, 2022
En un campamento militar, en tiempos de paz, la mirada se va posando sobre algunos de los que la habitan: un capitán envarado y su esposa, alegre e irresponsable; un comandante expansivo y vigoroso, su mujer enfermiza y atormentada, y su asistente filipino para quien su ama es la luz de sus ojos; y un soldado, que lo único que muestra de especial es una sensación de ausencia y vacío.
Con ellos, algunos encuentros, y caballos, va tejiendo la autora una historia atrapante, mientras se van develando secretos, y se va preparando un desenlace, sobre el que no comentaré nada.
La novela aborda temas y situaciones sensibles, levemente insinuados en su novela anterior (El corazón es un cazador solitario), lo que espantó en su momento a algunos de sus contemporáneos.
Una muy buena novela, de esta autora del sur de EEUU, con una enorme valentía, sensibilidad y creatividad, y que escribe de manera clara, con belleza y sutileza; y pareciera que sin esfuerzo, con ese talento natural que pocos tienen.
Con ellos, algunos encuentros, y caballos, va tejiendo la autora una historia atrapante, mientras se van develando secretos, y se va preparando un desenlace, sobre el que no comentaré nada.
La novela aborda temas y situaciones sensibles, levemente insinuados en su novela anterior (El corazón es un cazador solitario), lo que espantó en su momento a algunos de sus contemporáneos.
Una muy buena novela, de esta autora del sur de EEUU, con una enorme valentía, sensibilidad y creatividad, y que escribe de manera clara, con belleza y sutileza; y pareciera que sin esfuerzo, con ese talento natural que pocos tienen.
August 28, 2025
هكذا تبدوا روايات كارسن ماكالرز
سوداوية وكئيبة ورتيبة، إلى أن يحدث أمراً مريعاً ولكنه بمثابة النجاة لتلك البحيرة الساكنة...
تأملا في عين ذهبية، بداية من عنوانها الفريد الجذاب وصولا إلى نهايتها المأساوية..
تحكي الرواية عن ثكنة عسكرية في حالة سلم، ونتيجة لذلك يسود المعسكر حالة من الركود والملل وحياة رتيبة خانقة...
كارسن ماكالزر بحسها السيكلوجي اللماح وأسلوبها السوداوي تحتضن تلك الأرواح المثقلة بالهشاشة والضعف في تلك الثكنة العسكرية
وترسم الحياة اليومية الرتيبة لتلك الشخصيات التي عجزت عن فهم نفسها،
في ظل ملل قاتل وتصرفات غريبة غير قابلة للتأويل.
ذلك الملل القاتل والكبت المقموع ورتابة الحياة اليومية أدى إلى تضخيم الأحداث الأفكار وتفاعلات غريبة غير متوقعه للمشاعر في وجدان جندي أدى في النهاية لمأساة حركت ركود الثكنة....
الرواية سوداوية وقد تسحبك لعالمها السوداوي، وقد يصاحبك الملل والرتابة في فصول الرواية كرتابة الثكنة والحياة اليومية فيها بتفاصيلها الساذجة، ولكنها تستحق القراءة والتأمل....
إنها السيكلوجيا يا عزيزي
سلاح ذو حدين
سوداوية وكئيبة ورتيبة، إلى أن يحدث أمراً مريعاً ولكنه بمثابة النجاة لتلك البحيرة الساكنة...
تأملا في عين ذهبية، بداية من عنوانها الفريد الجذاب وصولا إلى نهايتها المأساوية..
تحكي الرواية عن ثكنة عسكرية في حالة سلم، ونتيجة لذلك يسود المعسكر حالة من الركود والملل وحياة رتيبة خانقة...
كارسن ماكالزر بحسها السيكلوجي اللماح وأسلوبها السوداوي تحتضن تلك الأرواح المثقلة بالهشاشة والضعف في تلك الثكنة العسكرية
وترسم الحياة اليومية الرتيبة لتلك الشخصيات التي عجزت عن فهم نفسها،
في ظل ملل قاتل وتصرفات غريبة غير قابلة للتأويل.
ذلك الملل القاتل والكبت المقموع ورتابة الحياة اليومية أدى إلى تضخيم الأحداث الأفكار وتفاعلات غريبة غير متوقعه للمشاعر في وجدان جندي أدى في النهاية لمأساة حركت ركود الثكنة....
الرواية سوداوية وقد تسحبك لعالمها السوداوي، وقد يصاحبك الملل والرتابة في فصول الرواية كرتابة الثكنة والحياة اليومية فيها بتفاصيلها الساذجة، ولكنها تستحق القراءة والتأمل....
إنها السيكلوجيا يا عزيزي
سلاح ذو حدين
July 22, 2018
A novella set in an army camp in the US south, presumably around 1940, when it was written, though it felt more like the 50s or 60s.
It concerns six characters (two officer couples, a servant and a conscript), each with an obsession with one of the others.
Unlike some of her books, race barely comes into it, but rank and sexuality do.
It's slow, painful, a little weird and beautiful. As with all her writing, there are literal and more metaphorical lyrical aspects to the writing (reflecting her musical training).
It concerns six characters (two officer couples, a servant and a conscript), each with an obsession with one of the others.
Unlike some of her books, race barely comes into it, but rank and sexuality do.
It's slow, painful, a little weird and beautiful. As with all her writing, there are literal and more metaphorical lyrical aspects to the writing (reflecting her musical training).
September 5, 2021
Uma boa surpresa. Gostei muito da escrita da autora e fiquei com mais vontade de ler O coração é um caçador solitário.
April 19, 2026
История, която макар и да е добре разказана, не успява някак да докосне или да трогне читателя си.
Надявам се, поне Анаклето да е добре…
Харесаха ми заглавието и българската корица.
Надявам се, поне Анаклето да е добре…
Харесаха ми заглавието и българската корица.
February 1, 2020
"Leonora Penderton feared neither man, beast, nor the devil; God she had never known."
- Reflections in a Golden Eye, Carson McCullers
Published in 1941, RiaGE is McCuller's second novel after The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Anthony Slide considered RiaGE one of the four great pre-1950 gay English novels (Djuna Barnes' Nightwood, Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms, and Vidal's
The City and the Pillar).
To me, it was patient, beautiful and sad. Nothing like the melodramatic movie that John Huston made in 1967 out of it later. It's six fabulous characters drill into you. Loneliness and repression run circuits throughout. I felt like Patricia Highsmith's entire ouvre was hatched out of this one egg.* For me, this is not so much gay lit as it is a fantastic psychological novel. Carson can bend the tension in people like a ridding crop and let it snap at will.
* I haven't read one way or the other if Highsmith EVER read this novel, but it almost feels like Highsmith's later works.
- Reflections in a Golden Eye, Carson McCullers
Published in 1941, RiaGE is McCuller's second novel after The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Anthony Slide considered RiaGE one of the four great pre-1950 gay English novels (Djuna Barnes' Nightwood, Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms, and Vidal's
The City and the Pillar).
To me, it was patient, beautiful and sad. Nothing like the melodramatic movie that John Huston made in 1967 out of it later. It's six fabulous characters drill into you. Loneliness and repression run circuits throughout. I felt like Patricia Highsmith's entire ouvre was hatched out of this one egg.* For me, this is not so much gay lit as it is a fantastic psychological novel. Carson can bend the tension in people like a ridding crop and let it snap at will.
* I haven't read one way or the other if Highsmith EVER read this novel, but it almost feels like Highsmith's later works.
November 28, 2021
“He crumpled up the paper he had been painting on and threw it aside. Then he sat in a meditative gesture with his chin in his hands, staring at the embers of the fire. ‘A peacock of a sort of ghastly green. With one immense golden eye. And in it these reflections of something tiny and’ … ‘Grotesque’ she finished for him. He nodded shortly. ‘Exactly.’”
This is a brilliant and troubling novella. It’s a story about a group of misfits on an army base. They’re thrown into an intimacy with each other, but each of them, in their own way, doesn’t fit. It’s the army, and they are indoctrinated in the belief that “it is better, because it is morally honorable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it," but they are to discover the danger of this assumption. Sexuality is repressed, but it just tops the list of what this group is hiding.
I like to write, and when I first started writing stories as a child, I modeled them after Little Women, and even long after wrote stories that were too quiet and peaceful. Then once in a class, I realized when I made one of my characters do something rash, my classmates liked it. As a reader, even me--someone who loves quiet, peaceful stories--gets a thrill when a character acts on some impulse we all have but usually hold inside. McCullers unleashes her characters to act on these impulses, and as readers, we feel the fear, but also the freedom.
What is it about this writing that made me hang on every word? It’s not that I wanted so much to know what would happen. I did, but had no urge to rush to get to the end to find out. It’s that--amazingly--every word is interesting, and I didn’t want to miss anything.
McCullers is like a sybl, a seer. She knows.
This is a brilliant and troubling novella. It’s a story about a group of misfits on an army base. They’re thrown into an intimacy with each other, but each of them, in their own way, doesn’t fit. It’s the army, and they are indoctrinated in the belief that “it is better, because it is morally honorable, for the square peg to keep scraping about the round hole rather than to discover and use the unorthodox square that would fit it," but they are to discover the danger of this assumption. Sexuality is repressed, but it just tops the list of what this group is hiding.
I like to write, and when I first started writing stories as a child, I modeled them after Little Women, and even long after wrote stories that were too quiet and peaceful. Then once in a class, I realized when I made one of my characters do something rash, my classmates liked it. As a reader, even me--someone who loves quiet, peaceful stories--gets a thrill when a character acts on some impulse we all have but usually hold inside. McCullers unleashes her characters to act on these impulses, and as readers, we feel the fear, but also the freedom.
What is it about this writing that made me hang on every word? It’s not that I wanted so much to know what would happen. I did, but had no urge to rush to get to the end to find out. It’s that--amazingly--every word is interesting, and I didn’t want to miss anything.
McCullers is like a sybl, a seer. She knows.
February 3, 2023
Lo que más me gusta de McCullers claramente es la forma de dibujar unos personajes muy poco definidos sexualmente, me explico: con la mayoría de ellos no sabes a qué atenerte, no existe la frontera clara y meridiana en cuanto a sus inclinaciones sexuales. Te lleva a pensar si son suposiciones tuyas como lector o buena parte de sus personajes tienen “intereses encontrados”. Sus personajes siempre están como ambicionando otra opción sexual. Esa lucha interna que llevan esos personajes entre lo que es y lo que creen que debiera ser, la lucha entre su yo interior y lo que se espera de su fachada externa. Esa batalla la refleja la autora como nadie, es muy grande.
Me gusta además, porque a todo eso le añade la valentía de tratar siempre los temas tabú del momento en que le tocó escribir: relaciones complicadas, cruzadas, diversidad de conflictos de género, personajes femeninos y masculinos fuera de lo estándar, triángulos amorosos…bien bien.
McCullers tiene una forma de narrar muy ágil y entretenida para el lector. Sigue el ABC de las buenas narraciones clásicas sin buscar grandes proezas, pero lo hace muy bien. Creo que su innovación literaria principal es el contenido de sus novelas según explicaba antes, más que la forma. Aquí crea una enorme expectativa de trama en el lector al anunciar al comienzo mismo del libro una catástrofe en esta historia; luego parece contar esa historia como sin relación con ese anuncio, como tratando de que olvides esa información inicial; no obstante no se puede olvidar y esa información ya pesa sobre la conciencia del lector durante toda la narración como una losa, ese supuesto final negro, dramático. Ahora que lo pienso bien, ese planteamiento de la narración es también una buena novedad literaria que no estaba tan extendida en los años 40.
El final me ha parecido bueno. Primer 10 del año.
Me gusta además, porque a todo eso le añade la valentía de tratar siempre los temas tabú del momento en que le tocó escribir: relaciones complicadas, cruzadas, diversidad de conflictos de género, personajes femeninos y masculinos fuera de lo estándar, triángulos amorosos…bien bien.
McCullers tiene una forma de narrar muy ágil y entretenida para el lector. Sigue el ABC de las buenas narraciones clásicas sin buscar grandes proezas, pero lo hace muy bien. Creo que su innovación literaria principal es el contenido de sus novelas según explicaba antes, más que la forma. Aquí crea una enorme expectativa de trama en el lector al anunciar al comienzo mismo del libro una catástrofe en esta historia; luego parece contar esa historia como sin relación con ese anuncio, como tratando de que olvides esa información inicial; no obstante no se puede olvidar y esa información ya pesa sobre la conciencia del lector durante toda la narración como una losa, ese supuesto final negro, dramático. Ahora que lo pienso bien, ese planteamiento de la narración es también una buena novedad literaria que no estaba tan extendida en los años 40.
El final me ha parecido bueno. Primer 10 del año.
December 29, 2023
Reflections in a Golden Eye is set on an army base during peace time. The army folk (two couples are the focus of the novel) are attending parties, getting drunk, indulging in gluttony and sleeping with others wives. But everyone's broken inside and struggling with their repressed desires. Some of them are wasting away from psychosomatic diseases.
McCullers writing is very imagistic - (for eg. She pulled off her her jersey, crushed it into a ball, and threw it into the corner of the room. Then deliberately she unbuttoned her breeches and stepped out of them. In a moment she was standing naked by the hearth. Before the bright gold and orange light of the fire her body was magnificent. The shoulders were straight so that the collar-bone made a sharp blue line. Between her round breasts there were delicate blue veins.)
And also the vivid descriptions of the woods around the army base and the colors in the sky. It is almost like you can see and feel what the characters are going through. Like Captain Penderton's horse ride. McCullers describes it through Penderton's eyes, so it is almost as if we are watching it through a movie camera placed on the horse. Very cinematic.
The horse is a sexual symbol - the voluptuous and flirtatious Leonora (the captain's wife) who is forthcoming about her sexual desires rides the horse with ease. But her husband Captain Penderton who is a closet homosexual struggles to control the animal.
There is a funny account of the fake persona of Major Langdon (On the Major's bedside table there was an open book - a very recondite and literary book. The place was marked with a matchstick. The Major turned over forty pages or so, a reasonable evening's reading, and marked the new place with the match again. Then from under a pile of shirts in his bureau drawer he took a pulp magazine called Scientification. He settled comfortably in the bed and began reading of a wild, interplanetary superwar.)
It is really depressing. I could identify with what some of the characters were going through.
(8/10)
McCullers writing is very imagistic - (for eg. She pulled off her her jersey, crushed it into a ball, and threw it into the corner of the room. Then deliberately she unbuttoned her breeches and stepped out of them. In a moment she was standing naked by the hearth. Before the bright gold and orange light of the fire her body was magnificent. The shoulders were straight so that the collar-bone made a sharp blue line. Between her round breasts there were delicate blue veins.)
And also the vivid descriptions of the woods around the army base and the colors in the sky. It is almost like you can see and feel what the characters are going through. Like Captain Penderton's horse ride. McCullers describes it through Penderton's eyes, so it is almost as if we are watching it through a movie camera placed on the horse. Very cinematic.
The horse is a sexual symbol - the voluptuous and flirtatious Leonora (the captain's wife) who is forthcoming about her sexual desires rides the horse with ease. But her husband Captain Penderton who is a closet homosexual struggles to control the animal.
There is a funny account of the fake persona of Major Langdon (On the Major's bedside table there was an open book - a very recondite and literary book. The place was marked with a matchstick. The Major turned over forty pages or so, a reasonable evening's reading, and marked the new place with the match again. Then from under a pile of shirts in his bureau drawer he took a pulp magazine called Scientification. He settled comfortably in the bed and began reading of a wild, interplanetary superwar.)
It is really depressing. I could identify with what some of the characters were going through.
(8/10)
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October 20, 2022التقيتُ بالكاتبة " كارسن ماكلرز" في صورة خاطفة التُقطت لها بينما كانت مُنكفئة على الكتابة...بدت لي شابة جميلة مُثابرة ، يكاد قلبها يلامس الكلمات التي تٌسطرها...
تساءلت كيف يمكن للمرء عندما ينحني على طاولة ما للكتابة يكون القلب قريباً جداً من الكلمات ولا تدري أيهما يبعث الحياة في الآخر..؟!...
هذه الرواية تدور في إحدى الثكنات العسكرية، يبدو لك أجواءها صافية هادئة ولكنها تحتشد بصمت مُروع...
تشارك أبطالها الانكسار تحت ثقل الوحدة والانعزال الروحي ، هشاشة الروح ، المشاعر المتناقضة والمتداخلة ، الأصوات متوترة مرتجفة بالرغم من كل المحاولات التي يبديها أصحابها لإبداء القوة والثبات...
الأصوات تأتيك من مسافة بعيدة ، لا وقع للخطوات هنا ليس لخفتها بل هى فارغة مُصمتة...
وجوه شاحبة..نظرات مُتقدة بالحب والكراهية في آن واحد..
يبدون لك غرباء الأطوار..اليس كذلك ؟
يظنون إنهم مُتنكرون وراء الدور الذي يقومون به غير أن حقيقتهم مُعلنة بفراغها اللعين...
المواجهات فيما بين الأشخاص صماء خرساء ...تنفلت من اللحظة التي تتوق لتسجيل تحققها...
الكاتبة حكاءة مرنة تعقد صداقة مع مفردات اللغة ، تجذبك للاندماج في عالمها...بالرغم من الهشاشة التي تعاني منها الشخصيات لكن هناك شيئاً جامحاُ في تصوير الكاتبة للوحدة..القسوة..الخيانة..التيه والانغماس في الذات...
قال لنفسه إنه يعرف كل شيء ، ولكن ما كان يعرفه لم يكن في وسعه التعبير عنه ، لقد كان متأكداً فقط ان تلك هى نقطة النهاية....
تساءلت كيف يمكن للمرء عندما ينحني على طاولة ما للكتابة يكون القلب قريباً جداً من الكلمات ولا تدري أيهما يبعث الحياة في الآخر..؟!...
هذه الرواية تدور في إحدى الثكنات العسكرية، يبدو لك أجواءها صافية هادئة ولكنها تحتشد بصمت مُروع...
تشارك أبطالها الانكسار تحت ثقل الوحدة والانعزال الروحي ، هشاشة الروح ، المشاعر المتناقضة والمتداخلة ، الأصوات متوترة مرتجفة بالرغم من كل المحاولات التي يبديها أصحابها لإبداء القوة والثبات...
الأصوات تأتيك من مسافة بعيدة ، لا وقع للخطوات هنا ليس لخفتها بل هى فارغة مُصمتة...
وجوه شاحبة..نظرات مُتقدة بالحب والكراهية في آن واحد..
يبدون لك غرباء الأطوار..اليس كذلك ؟
يظنون إنهم مُتنكرون وراء الدور الذي يقومون به غير أن حقيقتهم مُعلنة بفراغها اللعين...
المواجهات فيما بين الأشخاص صماء خرساء ...تنفلت من اللحظة التي تتوق لتسجيل تحققها...
الكاتبة حكاءة مرنة تعقد صداقة مع مفردات اللغة ، تجذبك للاندماج في عالمها...بالرغم من الهشاشة التي تعاني منها الشخصيات لكن هناك شيئاً جامحاُ في تصوير الكاتبة للوحدة..القسوة..الخيانة..التيه والانغماس في الذات...
قال لنفسه إنه يعرف كل شيء ، ولكن ما كان يعرفه لم يكن في وسعه التعبير عنه ، لقد كان متأكداً فقط ان تلك هى نقطة النهاية....
November 10, 2022
“Firebird is a stallion!”
This wounding accusation is flung like a knife by the frustrated wife at her repressed closeted husband, a military officer. They live on the base, and the young soldier with the cheekbones (played by Robert Forster in his first role) who takes care of the horses is the mute object of everyone’s attraction.
The story is difficult to separate from the movie, which is remarkable (starring Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Brian Keith; directed by John Huston). Adultery, obsession, repression. A campy yet infinitely wise houseboy plays the role of chorus and court jester.
The young soldier, stoic and silent, mostly loves the horses (riding naked is his secret pleasure) but is not adverse to the company of a neglected officer’s wife. All very melodramatic, over the top, and delicious!
This wounding accusation is flung like a knife by the frustrated wife at her repressed closeted husband, a military officer. They live on the base, and the young soldier with the cheekbones (played by Robert Forster in his first role) who takes care of the horses is the mute object of everyone’s attraction.
The story is difficult to separate from the movie, which is remarkable (starring Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Brian Keith; directed by John Huston). Adultery, obsession, repression. A campy yet infinitely wise houseboy plays the role of chorus and court jester.
The young soldier, stoic and silent, mostly loves the horses (riding naked is his secret pleasure) but is not adverse to the company of a neglected officer’s wife. All very melodramatic, over the top, and delicious!
April 8, 2022
”Hay en el Sur un fuerte donde, hace pocos años, se cometió un asesinato. Los participantes en esta tragedia fueron: dos oficiales, un soldado, dos mujeres, un filipino y un caballo”.
La sencillez con que Carson McCullers cuenta esta historia hace que personajes que tienen ciertas singularidades parezcan gente común.
Hay miradas que se cruzan, otros ojos que observan, y sabemos que en algún momento los deseos, miedos y rencores de los protagonistas van a salir a la luz, sin embargo, no dan ganas de apurar el final, dan ganas de quedarse un rato más en esa prosa que fluye con tanta naturalidad y magia a la vez.
Me encantó el modo de contar esta historia, pareciera que esta novela se escribió sola.
February 17, 2026
My first re-read of this novella since I was an impressionable young thing, lo many years ago. ~ probably around the time I also read 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter'... which I've also re-read, though I guess that was about 10 years ago now; and it still held up remarkably well.
McCullers fans know that the two books, both Southern Gothic (in their own way, more in their angst), are nevertheless separate, distinct animals. I imagine that most would find 'The Heart...' accessible in a way that 'Reflections...' simply isn't. ~ which is not to say that the latter is an inferior work in any way. In fact, for a story so brief, it's impressive for its density, its layers, its haunting 'poetry' and its depth of feeling.
But I can't kid ya: its worldview is unremittingly bleak. I think I noticed one or two instances of mordant humor, but if you blink you can miss them. By comparison, 'The Heart...' seems to be without the particular element of despair found in 'Reflections...'.
Published as it was in 1941, 'Reflections...' can read as a precursor to Edward Albee's play 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'. The latter was, of course, made into a 1966 film - and John Huston's still woefully underappreciated (esp. the alternate, golden-hued) film of 'Reflections...' was released a year later, making the connection a bit more viable.
In both, two married (army base) couples figure too-largely in each other's lives. The main couple - Captain Weldon Penderton+ and his wife Leonora - share (like Albee's George and Martha) an acute arrested development-bitterness. Their neighbors - Major Morris Langdon (having sex with Leonora) and his spouse Alison (emotionally fragile) - easily mirror the Nick and Honey of 'VW'.
However, the two pairs are (here) saved from savaging each other thanks to the inclusion of nancy boy-houseboy Anacleto (for Alison) and the mysterious Private Williams (the focus of Weldon's unrequited love / hate but mostly love):
~ and McCullers affords the reader a narrative-tightening arc: at one point, Alison becomes unwittingly privy to what the unknown casts in shadow. But even that revealed truth is a pitiless, obscured trap.
McCullers once said, "Writing, for me, is a search for God." In much of the author's work, that 'God' appears to be the Old Testament deity - the One who primarily tests or screws over or both. For McCullers, redemption is elusive - but, then, so is the definition of 'sin'. I mean, who asked for the certain temptations, vulnerabilities and terrors of the human condition? Certainly not the people who experience / cope with them.
There are things I'd forgotten since my last reading of this story. Though Huston's film version (which I've seen many times; again, esp. the originally intended gold-tint version*) is admirably faithful to the source material, the book contains a few more illuminating backstory / character elements which (though not essential) give Weldon and Pvt. Williams added depth.
Perhaps McCullers' wisest decision this time out was in maintaining a compact, novella shape. I can't begrudge the work a high rating, but I wouldn't necessarily have wanted much more on the page than what's given.
+ It should be noted that - though the film boasts a fine, capable cast - Marlon Brando's performance as Captain Penderton lifts the character to another level, presenting a searing portrait of a conflicted, closeted homosexual. It's brave screen-work.
* This version is readily available by way of the blu-ray of the film: a 2-disc set, comprised of the studio-mandated color version on one disc and Huston's gold-tint vision on the other disc.
McCullers fans know that the two books, both Southern Gothic (in their own way, more in their angst), are nevertheless separate, distinct animals. I imagine that most would find 'The Heart...' accessible in a way that 'Reflections...' simply isn't. ~ which is not to say that the latter is an inferior work in any way. In fact, for a story so brief, it's impressive for its density, its layers, its haunting 'poetry' and its depth of feeling.
But I can't kid ya: its worldview is unremittingly bleak. I think I noticed one or two instances of mordant humor, but if you blink you can miss them. By comparison, 'The Heart...' seems to be without the particular element of despair found in 'Reflections...'.
Published as it was in 1941, 'Reflections...' can read as a precursor to Edward Albee's play 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'. The latter was, of course, made into a 1966 film - and John Huston's still woefully underappreciated (esp. the alternate, golden-hued) film of 'Reflections...' was released a year later, making the connection a bit more viable.
In both, two married (army base) couples figure too-largely in each other's lives. The main couple - Captain Weldon Penderton+ and his wife Leonora - share (like Albee's George and Martha) an acute arrested development-bitterness. Their neighbors - Major Morris Langdon (having sex with Leonora) and his spouse Alison (emotionally fragile) - easily mirror the Nick and Honey of 'VW'.
However, the two pairs are (here) saved from savaging each other thanks to the inclusion of nancy boy-houseboy Anacleto (for Alison) and the mysterious Private Williams (the focus of Weldon's unrequited love / hate but mostly love):
The Captain was overcome by a feeling that both repelled and fascinated him--it was as though he and the young soldier were wrestling together naked, body to body, in a fight to death.This obsession bends and bends towards the angst-ridden threat of 'Snap!'
~ and McCullers affords the reader a narrative-tightening arc: at one point, Alison becomes unwittingly privy to what the unknown casts in shadow. But even that revealed truth is a pitiless, obscured trap.
McCullers once said, "Writing, for me, is a search for God." In much of the author's work, that 'God' appears to be the Old Testament deity - the One who primarily tests or screws over or both. For McCullers, redemption is elusive - but, then, so is the definition of 'sin'. I mean, who asked for the certain temptations, vulnerabilities and terrors of the human condition? Certainly not the people who experience / cope with them.
There are things I'd forgotten since my last reading of this story. Though Huston's film version (which I've seen many times; again, esp. the originally intended gold-tint version*) is admirably faithful to the source material, the book contains a few more illuminating backstory / character elements which (though not essential) give Weldon and Pvt. Williams added depth.
Perhaps McCullers' wisest decision this time out was in maintaining a compact, novella shape. I can't begrudge the work a high rating, but I wouldn't necessarily have wanted much more on the page than what's given.
+ It should be noted that - though the film boasts a fine, capable cast - Marlon Brando's performance as Captain Penderton lifts the character to another level, presenting a searing portrait of a conflicted, closeted homosexual. It's brave screen-work.
* This version is readily available by way of the blu-ray of the film: a 2-disc set, comprised of the studio-mandated color version on one disc and Huston's gold-tint vision on the other disc.
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