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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
I loved this book, I hated the ending. I just felt at the end it didn't explain the story. I kind of felt while reading the story that I would read these interesting little bits and then it seemed like the author just rushed through and made up some ending that so did not go with the rest of the book. There were great characters but I'm still unclear who played what part and why it ended when and how it did.
Unless you like being annoyed after reading a book, I would not recommend it.
Unless you like being annoyed after reading a book, I would not recommend it.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Fine southern gothic. Tight storytelling that winds in and out of straightforward and whimsical, reflection and self reflectoon. I don't know what its like to read something southern gothic without the context of living here but capote is able to translate it perfectly to text. Only half point off is because I would like to have had more time to get to know both Joel and some of the side characters. That being said capote does so much with each of them in a short time
The book starts so well, 10 out of 10. Classes should be taught about it. Southern Gothic at it's finest and a vivid window into the South in the 1940's.
The story doesn't really go anywhere, once he reaches his father's house there's a lot of sitting around chatting. This is followed by dreams and confusion and run-on sentences. The book loses its impact when you can't follow what is going on.
I liked Zoo more than Idabel, the Harper Lee character.
The story doesn't really go anywhere, once he reaches his father's house there's a lot of sitting around chatting. This is followed by dreams and confusion and run-on sentences. The book loses its impact when you can't follow what is going on.
I liked Zoo more than Idabel, the Harper Lee character.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
This is a gorgeous book, poignant and poetic.
I often get the sense that Capote is trying very hard to be poignant and poetic, though. This book, more than any of his others, makes me think I would dislike him intensely if had ever met him, but as a tale of a boy in a place that does not feel like his own, it is beautiful.
Joel is marvellously written. His innocence shines and what he doesn't notice tells so much more than the words themselves.
Cousin Randolph is the epitome of the enigmatic, at once terrifying-and-comforting presence every boy of Joel's age should have in his life, and his way of story telling sets the scene for the style of the entire book, even before we meet him, which I find deliciously satisfying.
As much as I love Jesus Fever, he and Zoo feel rather more like literary devices than characters. I wish Capote had written this book later in his career so that I could enjoy these guys, Little Sunshine and Miss Wisteria more.
And Florabel and Idabel. Who couldn't love these two and what they represent? I want a whole series of novels just about them.
I often get the sense that Capote is trying very hard to be poignant and poetic, though. This book, more than any of his others, makes me think I would dislike him intensely if had ever met him, but as a tale of a boy in a place that does not feel like his own, it is beautiful.
Joel is marvellously written. His innocence shines and what he doesn't notice tells so much more than the words themselves.
Cousin Randolph is the epitome of the enigmatic, at once terrifying-and-comforting presence every boy of Joel's age should have in his life, and his way of story telling sets the scene for the style of the entire book, even before we meet him, which I find deliciously satisfying.
As much as I love Jesus Fever, he and Zoo feel rather more like literary devices than characters. I wish Capote had written this book later in his career so that I could enjoy these guys, Little Sunshine and Miss Wisteria more.
And Florabel and Idabel. Who couldn't love these two and what they represent? I want a whole series of novels just about them.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.5***
Capote’s debut novel is a semiautobiographical coming-of-age story. After the death of his mother, thirteen-year-old Joel Knox leaves New Orleans to travel to rural Alabama, and the home of the father who abandoned him at birth. Skully’s Landing is his stepmother Amy’s dilapidated mansion, set far in the woods, and without electricity or indoor plumbing. Among the residents of the estate are a centenarian Negro, Jesus Fever, his granddaughter Missouri (known as Zoo), who keeps house for the family, and the mysterious cousin Randolph. The person who is obviously missing is Joel’s father. Nearby live two sisters, Florabel and Idabel, the latter a tomboy who provides a glimmer of love and approval to the lonely Joel.
This is a classic Southern Gothic novel, full of ghosts, haints, superstitions, secrets and closed off rooms. There are real dangers aplenty as well: poisonous snakes, quicksand, and people with guns. Joel is isolated not only by the remote location, but by the lack of connection with these people. He is confused and cautious, and his loneliness and despair are palpable.
Capote’s writing is wonderfully atmospheric. Here is what Joel sees on his journey to his new home:
Two roads pass over the hinterlands into Noon City; one from the north, another from the south; the latter, known as the Paradise Chapel Highway, is the better of the pair, though both are much the same: desolate miles of swamp and field and forest stretch along either route unbroken except for scattered signs advertising Red Dot 5c Cigars, Dr. Pepper, NEHI, Grove’s Chill Tonic, and 666. Wooden bridges spanning brackish creeks named for long-gone Indian tribes rumble like far-off thunder under a passing wheel; herds of hogs and cows roam the roads at will; now and then a farm-family pauses from work to wave as an auto whizzes by, and watch sadly till it disappears in red dust.
Like Joel, I felt somewhat lost in unfamiliar surroundings. Was Capote trying too hard to be atmospheric? Was he forced by the standards of the day to be so circumspect regarding his message of awakening homosexuality? It makes Cousin Randolph’s statement all the more poignant: ”The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries;... any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell. ”
Capote’s debut novel is a semiautobiographical coming-of-age story. After the death of his mother, thirteen-year-old Joel Knox leaves New Orleans to travel to rural Alabama, and the home of the father who abandoned him at birth. Skully’s Landing is his stepmother Amy’s dilapidated mansion, set far in the woods, and without electricity or indoor plumbing. Among the residents of the estate are a centenarian Negro, Jesus Fever, his granddaughter Missouri (known as Zoo), who keeps house for the family, and the mysterious cousin Randolph. The person who is obviously missing is Joel’s father. Nearby live two sisters, Florabel and Idabel, the latter a tomboy who provides a glimmer of love and approval to the lonely Joel.
This is a classic Southern Gothic novel, full of ghosts, haints, superstitions, secrets and closed off rooms. There are real dangers aplenty as well: poisonous snakes, quicksand, and people with guns. Joel is isolated not only by the remote location, but by the lack of connection with these people. He is confused and cautious, and his loneliness and despair are palpable.
Capote’s writing is wonderfully atmospheric. Here is what Joel sees on his journey to his new home:
Two roads pass over the hinterlands into Noon City; one from the north, another from the south; the latter, known as the Paradise Chapel Highway, is the better of the pair, though both are much the same: desolate miles of swamp and field and forest stretch along either route unbroken except for scattered signs advertising Red Dot 5c Cigars, Dr. Pepper, NEHI, Grove’s Chill Tonic, and 666. Wooden bridges spanning brackish creeks named for long-gone Indian tribes rumble like far-off thunder under a passing wheel; herds of hogs and cows roam the roads at will; now and then a farm-family pauses from work to wave as an auto whizzes by, and watch sadly till it disappears in red dust.
Like Joel, I felt somewhat lost in unfamiliar surroundings. Was Capote trying too hard to be atmospheric? Was he forced by the standards of the day to be so circumspect regarding his message of awakening homosexuality? It makes Cousin Randolph’s statement all the more poignant: ”The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries;... any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell. ”