Reflections In A Golden Eye is the classic novel by Carson McCullers. She was 23 when her first book The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter was published to acclaim in 1940, followed the next year by Reflections. Both of these were made into films, as were A Member of the Wedding and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.
In a southern Army post, Captain Penderton is unremarkable, unregarded by his peers. His blowsy wife Leonora taunts his ineffectual masculinity and calls him a priss. Everyone knows she is sleeping with his friend Major Langdon, including Penderton, who allows it, as he is also enamoured with Langdon. When a Private is brought over to clear the garden, Penderton's desires arise - his feelings so strong and so repressed, it could only be that he hates the man. Private Williams has also been awakened after seeing Leonora walk around her house nude, he begins spending his time watching the house, entering her bedroom unnoticed as she sleeps. The increased presence of Private Williams sends Penderton into a spiral of obsession he cannot handle.
Her style is Southern Gothic, meaning she opens the pot of adultery, repressed sexuality, voyeurism, revenge, murder, ineffectuality, passion, racism, and mental illness and stirs it to a roiling boil. Leonora quells her frustration with sex and horse riding, Pendleton in fastidious habits and fantasies. Major Langdon's wife knows all about her husband's affair and has had a mental breakdown, aided by the loss of a child. Her only solace a friendship with her flamboyant Filipino houseboy. This is not wrapped up in a solution for these characters, the secrets once exposed may not be healed - this is an examination of passions stunted, lives stalled on the outskirts of the concrete barracks. The writing is superb, it seems far ahead of its time, that it was written in 1941 is stunning, the themes as raw as current fiction.
This was filmed in 1967 by John Huston, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, and Julie Harris, which I found a strange and haunting curio. I did not expect the novel initiated that tone. It has been cited as a landmark gay novel, along with Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar and Truman Capote's Other Voice, Other Rooms.
1941 / Paperback / 117 pages
Comments