Thursday, February 18, 2010

Book Review: Reflections in a Golden Eye


Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers was a really dark novel. There were six characters in the novel: The Langdons, The Pendertons, a Filipino servant and a young soldier. Each character was greatly disturbed in his/her own way. Mrs. Penderton was having an affair with Mr. Langdon and even though their spouses knew about it, they ignored it outwardly, but suffered their own demons. Mrs. Langdon was suicidal, caused so much stress to her body that she ended up dying of a heart attack at a young age. Mr. Penderton was extremely angry and took it out on the poor soldier--who was was just a weird character himself. Mr. Penderton actually ended up murdering the young soldier. The little Filipino servant was extremely flamboyant and I could just imagine him dancing around like a fairy. He faithfully served Mrs. Langdon until her death.

And that, there, is pretty much the entire novel in a nutshell. It was short (127 pages!) and the content pretty much surrounded the characters, their interactions and struggles.

Although I didn't love this book, I wouldn't recommend it above two of other McCullers works, which I thoroughly enjoyed: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding.

15/30

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