Day 4.1: Carson McCullers and Summeriness
May. 19th, 2024 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunshowerdandelionI think Carson McCuller's writing is summery. I mean that in two senses.
First, in the literal sense, the plot of her stories usually take place during summer: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter's most pivotal chapters take place during summer, the story proper (when Singer settles into his melancholy persona) starts on the cusp of summer - in June, and Mick's pivotal moment (her sexual awakening), as the character Carson appoints as the heart of the novel, takes place at the height of summer. The Member of the Wedding begins by telling you it is summer. When the stories themselves do not take place during summer (say Reflections in a Golden Eye) there is often the memory of summer, the spirit of it: The warmth, the heat, the 'sky as hot as fire', the sudden sharp rectangles of light opening out on an evening, the warm nights. Her settings breathe out that summeriness, and her writing is full of loving (and not so loving - faithful) descriptions of heat.
Second, in the figurative sense, her prose drowses. I mean that in the best way possible: It's dreamy, it's languorous, it has the feel of an endless summer afternoon when everything is still, warm, and sleepy.
First, in the literal sense, the plot of her stories usually take place during summer: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter's most pivotal chapters take place during summer, the story proper (when Singer settles into his melancholy persona) starts on the cusp of summer - in June, and Mick's pivotal moment (her sexual awakening), as the character Carson appoints as the heart of the novel, takes place at the height of summer. The Member of the Wedding begins by telling you it is summer. When the stories themselves do not take place during summer (say Reflections in a Golden Eye) there is often the memory of summer, the spirit of it: The warmth, the heat, the 'sky as hot as fire', the sudden sharp rectangles of light opening out on an evening, the warm nights. Her settings breathe out that summeriness, and her writing is full of loving (and not so loving - faithful) descriptions of heat.
Second, in the figurative sense, her prose drowses. I mean that in the best way possible: It's dreamy, it's languorous, it has the feel of an endless summer afternoon when everything is still, warm, and sleepy.
The world seemed to die each afternoon and nothing moved any longer.
Her prose has really, really strong music and that's what I love the most about it. By using colloquialisms, descriptions of heat and small spaces, and the rhythm afforded by a lack of commas, and adjectives placed at the front (at least in her earlier novels) she evokes that wildness you get sometimes when you're bored, the way your whims flow on, the odd things you do and the stabs of emotion that result. As a person living in the tropics, I experience that summeriness every day, and I can point the exact time-span that Carson's prose evokes for me: 1 pm until 4.30 pm, the quietest, hottest, laziest part of the day. I strive to write like her.
Two of my favorite scenes in any novel are those in The Member of the Wedding:
Her prose has really, really strong music and that's what I love the most about it. By using colloquialisms, descriptions of heat and small spaces, and the rhythm afforded by a lack of commas, and adjectives placed at the front (at least in her earlier novels) she evokes that wildness you get sometimes when you're bored, the way your whims flow on, the odd things you do and the stabs of emotion that result. As a person living in the tropics, I experience that summeriness every day, and I can point the exact time-span that Carson's prose evokes for me: 1 pm until 4.30 pm, the quietest, hottest, laziest part of the day. I strive to write like her.
Two of my favorite scenes in any novel are those in The Member of the Wedding:
- Frankie, Berenice, and John Henry's dreams of godhood, and later
- when Frankie's frustrations run over, and she shouts nonsensically (and queerly): Boyoman! Manoboy!
