This is a quiet novel, set on a Southern Army Fort. On the first page, Carson McCullers tells the reader what will happen, but that does nothing to diminish enjoyment of the novel. McCullers is a master at description, immediately immersing the reader in the minds of these complex characters. She is not afraid to make her characters unlikeable, thus making them more realistic. I picked this up to read with two book buddies, but it is the third of McCullers' books that I have read. I will continue to try and become a McCullers completist. This novel was her second and was not nearly as well reviewed as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, but it stands on its own as a worthy novel.

Like McCuller’s other book, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, the characters of this book are plagued by mental and physical ailments. Yet you are unsure of whether you are supposed to feel sorry for them or not. It is my impression that McCullers isn’t concerned with the reader feeling sympathy for her characters, rather the reader is left perplexed by them. It’s this complicated view of human nature that compels me to read Southern Gothic books, and McCullers is a master of the form.

Reflections in a Golden Eye is a awkward title for what I think was and awkward book. This is one of those times where I am feeling guilty about a 3 star rating because there is plenty to like about this book. I think its a “good” book, it’s just there’s some “not so good” as well that even things out.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is one of my all time favorite books, and if you are here in search of what McCullers to start with, stop right here and just go read that. Her minimal style from that masterpiece is still intact as is her proclivity towards eccentric and complicated people.

Her commentary here on repressed desires and misogyny are clear and heartbreaking. She is also particularly heroic for not only writing about them in the 40’s but getting them published in Harper’s Bazaar (this book was initially serialized in the publication). There’s a wonderful dichotomy between the very closeted homosexual captain and the much less so “houseboy” Anacleto. The peeping Tom private “Elgee” acting simply on impulse is a particularly realistic touch.

The hardest hitting commentary for me was the sickly and ignored housewife, Alison’s story. She is not only dealing with the death of a young child her husband's affairs, but also physical difficulties that compound the. Both her husband and her doctor write her off as "morbid and female," to which their solution is to give her drugs and pay a servant to do the “women’s work.” Devastating.

There are also some moments of beautiful prose, particularly a conversation between two men that sums up a lot of the repression that goes on in the book and its opposition. The Major begins the conversation here, talking about his interest in enlisting Anacleto (the aforementioned houseboy) into the army and the conversation proceeds as such:

“Anacleto wouldn't have been happy in the army, no, but it might have made a man of him. Would have knocked all the nonsense out of him anyway. But what I mean is that in a way it always seemed to me terrible for a grown man twenty three years old to be dancing around to music and messing with water colors. In the army they would have run him ragged and he would have been miserable, but even that seems to me better than the other.
You mean,' Captain Penderton said,’ 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,' 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.”

Unfortunately, the book has some flaws. My largest issue being how much of a “Sophomore Slump” this book feels at times. The book moves to action very quickly and is hard to follow, as we switch between characters very quickly. We don’t get a lot of character development up front beyond some quirks or relationships to differentiate them. Then by the time we have enough interest in the characters, they either leave the story or are involved in the climax which closes the book abruptly.

This book also uses a mild amount of racist or derogatory terminology which in the context of the book is likely how these characters would have talked, and was unfortunately the way the world was when this book was written. I say this a lot in my reviews of older books, but to me these things are acceptable in that we should not erase history, but that we should see them for what they are and point out and condemn them.

It’s a little dated, but there are some really worthwhile aspects if you decide to read it. Reflections of a Golden Eye is still worth your time, and it won’t take much of it. Just know that you will leave wanting another 100 pages and that you might feel a little let down having read her other work. And if you have not read her other work, for the love of all things good, do not miss her first book.

On a Carson McCullers kick right now. I guess you could say I'm playing ninth-grade english. I like it better this time around. The sense of dread you get reading this book is overwhelming. McCullers does a great job stoking that without overdoing it when it comes time for the payoff, as it is.

This didn't resonate with me at all. The story was out of my head as soon as I finished the audiobook. It seemed a little weird (ahem,

Spoiler

Alison's self-inflicted nipple amputation

), but I expected McCullers to be more grotesque, I think? I will say that, relatively speaking, it was racier than I thought it would be, considering it was published in 1941.

There is a beautiful poem by the Hungarian poet János Pilinszky I really love. I think it summarises this incredible book perfectly! It goes like this:
Once upon a time
there was a lonely wolf
lonelier than the angels.

He happened to come to a village.
He fell in love with the first house he saw.

Already he loved its walls
the caresses of its bricklayers.
But the window stopped him.

In the room sat people.
Apart from God nobody ever
found them so beautiful
as this child-like beast.

So at night he went into the house.
He stopped in the middle of the room
and never moved from there any more.

He stood all through the night, with wide eyes
and on into the morning when he was beaten to death.

-Translated by Janos Csokits and Ted Hughes

Carson McCullers won her place in my heart with only two novellas and a few short stories. She is an author of incredible talent and I am both sad I have not read her books earlier, and happy I have started reading them now, when I believe I've reached the right level of appreciation for this type of writing and literature. Her writing is visual, cinematographic either, with the use of a lot of colors and descriptions of gestures and personal traits. Her characters are very human and from what I have read so far - quite often possess some sort of emotional or physical impairement. Loneliness and destruction are no strangers to her writing, and Reflections in a Golden Eye is no exception.
I cannot wait to read more from McCullers!

I've just read a list of all the awful things that happen in this novella, yet her understated, minimalistic style and impeccable insight makes you accept all these events as the inevitable consequence of the time and place in which these characters find themselves.

"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."
Wow what a book.
A short, dark and brooding tale of infidelity, self deception, obsession and murder.