On the Southern Literary Trail discussion

We can start our discussion here, but no spoilers please.

I have high hopes that others will choose to read this one, since I really need the discussion to make sense of it.

about 15 pages in told myself... slow down, and enjoy it, because it will be over too fast. So I'm not too far along but I can already tell these are going to be some memorable characters. And I'm wondering what took me so long to read McCullers...

Diane wrote: "I have high hopes that others will choose to read this one, since I really need the discussion to make sense of it."


I'm starting it later today or tomorrow but I purposefully read very slowly and I'll likely avoid any reviews and discussions until I'm done.

I cannot start until mid-week, but I will be so happy to have this discussion. McCullers is always worthy of the time and seems to stir everyone to bring something different to the table. I love her work and this will be one I have not read before.

Dang, I have a book "The Complete Works of Carson McCullers", so I never checked, just knew I had it. Surprise, not so "complete" after all, does not include this novel. Which means I will not be reading with you guys after all. Sorry, Diane. I was really looking forward to this one.

I'm really not surprised it didn't
have this novel, I had never even heard of it before it was nominated. Even though it's her last work, I believe it to be the weakest. Maybe she was really sick and not at her best when she wrote it.

She was in terrible shape at the end of her life, so that would make good sense. I don't think you should call a volume "complete" though if you don't include everything. A lot of her writing was done and originally printed in magazines. I wonder if this was one of those.

Sara wrote: "Dang, I have a book "The Complete Works of Carson McCullers", so I never checked, just knew I had it. Surprise, not so "complete" after all, does not include this novel. Which means I will not be r..."

That’s strange, Sara. I can’t find that title (The Complete Works of Carson McCullers) anywhere. I have Library of America’s Complete Novels: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter / Reflections in a Golden Eye / The Ballad of the Sad Cafe / The Member of the Wedding / Clock Without Hands and it’s definitely in there. A newer version of the Library of America collection was published earlier this year with the title “The Collected Works of Carson McCullers” but the book description on Amazon indicates that it’s in there too. Is it possible your mystery volume was published before CWH was in 1961?

I’m just 10 pages in this morning and I’m liking it a lot so far, but then I’m a fan of angst and ambiguity.

Great first sentence: “Death is always the same, but each man dies in his own way.”

I liked that line too. There are a lot of great lines in this book. McCullers definitely had her finger on the pulse of the South.

Man, this book is full of big personalities, in need of a lot of attention. Everyone sure can talk, talk, talk. Do we know how big of a town Milan is supposed to be? Some of these meetings and interactions are feeling a little bit disjointed, but I'm saying it's just because it's a super small town- and everyone already has at least a gossip's understanding of everyone else's business..

I don't think Milan is a very big town at all, because people go elsewhere for big shopping trips and to Atlanta for entertainment. McCullers grew up in Columbus, Georgia, so I think she models her settings on what she knew.

I'm 1/4 in, and here are my initial impressions: 1) Judge Fox Clane is a pompous ass; 2) Jester has the potential to become an interesting character; 3) J.T. Malone has a low IQ; 4) I suspect McCullers did not use an outline when writing this - it's all over the place; and 5) yes, Dustincecil, there's an overabundance of chitchat. The only person so far that I'd like to know better is J.T.'s wife: "Malone could not understand the change that had taken place in his wife. He had married a girl in a chiffon dress who had once fainted when a mouse ran over her shoe - and mysteriously she had become a gray-haired housewife with a business of her own and even some Coca-Cola stock." Go, Martha!

I agree with all those assessments, especially Martha. But you didn't mention Sherman Pew, the strangest character of all.

I haven't found any I'd like to know better... not yet, and I'm halfway done. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, is my only other McCullers, and I see hints of Biff from that, in Malone, but Biff seemed more kind, and less Jaded.

Sherman Pew, the chatterbox know-it-all (Gemini?) .I'm giving him a couple more chapters before settling on my opinion.

I read Member of the wedding This year and I loved it .

Sherman isn't a factor yet - he's only been introduced so far as a "blue-eyed Nigra" with shades of menace.

I’ve only read the first chapter so far so I don’t know all of the characters yet but I do find myself immediately empathizing with everyone, even the asshole Judge and the weak-willed protagonist dying of Leukemia. We’re all imperfect humans after all. The thing that is haunting me the most here is the overall theme of death which seems significantly more pronounced than in her earlier novels. McCullers must have known she was dying when she wrote this and it’s like she’s showing her own interior thoughts about it here. It’s on every page.

You may be on to something, Doug. After all, she mentions death twice in her first sentence.

You nailed it, Doug. My thoughts exactly: ""But the terror that choked him was not the knowledge of his own death . . . The terror questioned what would happen in those months - how long? - that glared upon his numbered days. He was a man watching a clock without hands."

As we're reading Clock Without Hands, I'm using The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers by Virginia Spencer Carr as a reference. The novel was published in 1961. McCullers died in 1967. However, from 1947 until her death, McCullers was a virtual invalid. McCullers wrote this novel over 14 to 15 years. She had suffered from rheumatic fever in adolescence. At the age of 31 she became paralyzed completely down her left side. Death was an issue she struggled with through the years. While married to Reeves McCullers, she attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills in 1948. Reeves McCullers persuaded her later to commit suicide with him. She refused. Subsequently Reeves did commit suicide. In 1953 McCullers became a patient of Dr. Mary Mercer who became her longtime psychotherapist. McCullers dedicated this novel to her. Check the copyright dates for this book. 1953 and 1961. McCullers and Mercer remained close friends until McCullers died. McCullers left one third of her estate to Mercer. When this novel was published reviews were generally favorable. However, Tennessee Williams tried to get her to hold the book from publication. AND...

"I believe it is the worst book I have ever read."

– Flannery O'Connor on Clock Without Hands, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor.

That is the most blatantly unfavorable comment I have found.

Mary Mercer died in 2013. She left an abundance of McCullers papers and McCullers' home in Nyack, NY to Columbus State University in Georgia. Among the papers are transcripts of all her therapy sessions with McCullers. Columbus State has the largest research collection regarding McCullers in the U.S.

Here’s the full quote from O’Connor in The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“Last week Houghton Mifflin sent me a book called Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers. This long-awaited-by-the-faithful book will come out in September. I believe it is the worst book I have ever read. It is incredible…It must signal the complete disintegration of this woman’s talent. I have forgotten how the other three were, but they were at least respectable from the writing standpoint.”

That last sentence (“I have forgotten how the other three were...”) is so catty that I can almost see her claws. The lady doth protest way too much methinks. O’Connor also not-so-subtly hates on Capote in that volume. So petty and such a shame. I love all three.

In my opinion as a reader, not a critic, when an author takes several years to write a book, for whatever reason, it's never a good thing for the book. I think they lose continuity, and focus, and their constant dickering around with it makes it spotty. The same thing happened to Willie Morris with "Taps", and other authors that I can't remember right now.

ouch! I wish O'connor would have left us with a few more novels... (just sayin')

I wish there was a female character in Clock without hands- to add some balance to all this ego and angst... all these men are starting to sound the same to me.

Doug wrote: "Here’s the full quote from O’Connor in The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“Last week Houghton Mifflin sent me a book called Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers. This..."

O'Connor could be brutal. Regarding To Kill a Mockingbird, she said,
It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they are buying a children's book."

A little late to this one, but I'll be starting soon and catching up on the comments and posts.