Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers (1941)

On a Southern army base in the peacetime of the 1930's, all that is wrong with two couples becomes tragedy.

Book Review: Reflections in a Golden Eye is one of Carson McCullers' lesser known works, but here she puts the "Gothic" in Southern Gothic with a vengeance. The tension builds from the first page. As with The Secret History we know there will be a murder -- involving six people and a horse. I liked the horse. The six characters interact, two married couples, an enlisted man, a servant. All misfits, saturated in feelings of isolation, alienation, obsession. All outsiders, all become grotesques, stunted by an impersonal world that refuses space for them, as outlined in McCullers' famous "square peg, round peg" conversation between two officers. As such they descend to instinct, to the animal, to primitive violence, silences, to the most basic needs. Predators and prey. Deformed reflections of humanity. The characters intertwine, overlap, hate and love and lust for each other, all living somewhere along the sexual spectrum. One, an officer forced to stay intensely closeted, denied his identity and impulses, lashes out sadistically at the world, at men and horses and kittens: "He stood in a somewhat curious relation to the three fundaments of existence -- life itself, sex, and death." Another a man indoctrinated, brainwashed since childhood to fear women, to reject their diseased, repugnant bodies. Mentally disfigured, he's almost more animal than man. As our involvement with the six continues, the tension and mystery grow, we feel the tragedy of being human, we all want to fit somewhere, we all seek something we can't hold. The tension builds until the reader knows something has to give, but is unsure what or where: there are many fissures in this volcano. Reflections in a Golden Eye is a daring book for 1940, addressing sadism, voyeurism, masochism, sexual neglect, repressed sexuality, gay and straight. Unlike her other books, here McCullers is detached from her characters; she does not love them. After reading, I realized I'd barely scratched the surface in understanding these characters, and needed to go back and read it again to more fully comprehend their roots and motivations. Reflections in a Golden Eye now seems even better than when I finished it a month ago.  [4★]