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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
[b:In Cold Blood|168642|In Cold Blood|Truman Capote|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1365125582s/168642.jpg|1940709] was a life-changer for me. It made me realize that non-fiction could be suspenseful, multi-dimensional, literary. This, too, is all those things.
A 13-y/o boy discovers that the father who abandoned him is still alive. He travels to meet his father and stays in his father's home (part of which burned to the ground years before) along with a unlikely cast of characters. Some of the house's inhabitants may even be ghosts. The boy also befriends a pair of female twins who provide him with entertainment and danger and distract him from the fact that his father has yet to appear.
I love books that screw with my mind. Unreliable narrators are great, but genuinely confused narrators can be even better. I'm going to have to reread this to get the depth of it. My brain got a good workout trying to separate dream from reality and put together some kind of chronological, logical narrative about what this kid was "really" going through.
This is the best book I've read so far in 2014 (lol), and it's one I need to revisit.
A 13-y/o boy discovers that the father who abandoned him is still alive. He travels to meet his father and stays in his father's home (part of which burned to the ground years before) along with a unlikely cast of characters. Some of the house's inhabitants may even be ghosts. The boy also befriends a pair of female twins who provide him with entertainment and danger and distract him from the fact that his father has yet to appear.
I love books that screw with my mind. Unreliable narrators are great, but genuinely confused narrators can be even better. I'm going to have to reread this to get the depth of it. My brain got a good workout trying to separate dream from reality and put together some kind of chronological, logical narrative about what this kid was "really" going through.
This is the best book I've read so far in 2014 (lol), and it's one I need to revisit.
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
"What we want most is only to be held... and told... that everything (everything is a funny thing, is baby milk and Papa's eyes, is roaring logs on a cold morning, is hoot-owls and the boy who makes you cry after school, is Mama's long hair, is being afraid and twisted faces on the bedroom wall)... everything is going to be alright."
I have no idea what happened at the end of this book, but the writing was beautiful and profound, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Truly couldn't tell you what it's about, though.
I have no idea what happened at the end of this book, but the writing was beautiful and profound, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Truly couldn't tell you what it's about, though.
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-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
The book is incredibly descriptive as is expected with Capote’s work. But it does drag on quite a bit, and the ending feels irresolute. It explores the trials and tribulations of a young boy at the end of childhood and into the murkiness of adulthood. It’s a book about a boy discovering the many different facets of death, and his near-grasp with death towards the end of the book. Everything about the plot is quite abstract so you may find yourself reading passages over and over again to comprehend it.
You might need to use outside sources to decipher the book and understand it in it’s entirety, as the book is difficult to understand on its own.
You might need to use outside sources to decipher the book and understand it in it’s entirety, as the book is difficult to understand on its own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Death of parent
Every time I go to a second hand bookstore I look for more books by my favorite authors. This will be the third one of Capote's that I have acquired. I am savoring every word...
To me, Truman Capote's writing is like a piece of music; poetry to read aloud; with just a few choice words, I am fed the sweetest nectar-- here are just a few examples:
"It seemed odd to Joel nature did not reflect so solemn an event: flowers of cottonboll clouds within a sky as scandalously blue as kitten-eyes were offensive in their sweet disrespect: a resident of over a hundred years in so narrow a world deserved higher homage."
"Now at thirteen Joel was nearer a knowledge of death than in any year to come: a flower was blooming inside of him, and soon, when all tight leaves unfurled, when the noon of youth burned whitest, he would turn and look, as others had, for the opening of another door."
“a crazy elation caught hold of Joel, he ran, he zigzagged, he sang, he was in love, he caught a little tree-toad because he loved it and because he loved it he set it free, watched it bounce, bound like the immense leaping of his heart;”
This is a book I will definitely mark to re-read again.
To me, Truman Capote's writing is like a piece of music; poetry to read aloud; with just a few choice words, I am fed the sweetest nectar-- here are just a few examples:
"It seemed odd to Joel nature did not reflect so solemn an event: flowers of cottonboll clouds within a sky as scandalously blue as kitten-eyes were offensive in their sweet disrespect: a resident of over a hundred years in so narrow a world deserved higher homage."
"Now at thirteen Joel was nearer a knowledge of death than in any year to come: a flower was blooming inside of him, and soon, when all tight leaves unfurled, when the noon of youth burned whitest, he would turn and look, as others had, for the opening of another door."
“a crazy elation caught hold of Joel, he ran, he zigzagged, he sang, he was in love, he caught a little tree-toad because he loved it and because he loved it he set it free, watched it bounce, bound like the immense leaping of his heart;”
This is a book I will definitely mark to re-read again.
Somehow I am living in the year of Harper Lee, in the sense that so many things I have read thus far in 2021 have some connection back to her. It was only a matter of time that I turned my attention to Truman Capote, her childhood best friend. Previously the only thing I have read by Capote was In Cold Blood which is of course an American classic. I figured that tackling his debut novel would show him in a nascent form, and indeed, that’s exactly what it is. I have definite mixed feelings about it, and it took some supplemental reading afterwards to really “get” it. Look, Southern Gothic, stream of consciousness is my jam, but a lot of this felt like a cliche. Joel is pretty insufferable, even though I recognize the moment of his liberation is an important one within LGBTQIA literature. Joel loves himself! That’s awesome! (Even if he is kind of a dick.) For myself, I would love a companion novel all about Zoo. Now that’s the story.
*read for The 52 Book Club Challenge, #15--A book mentioned in another book*
*read for The 52 Book Club Challenge, #15--A book mentioned in another book*
Oh, Truman - what happened to you?
This book is beautifully written, tells a beautiful, bittersweet story, and is a painful read when you think of what its author became. I'm not sure how he made it from the young man that wrote this amazing and beautiful book to the caricatured flaming celebrity-worshiping queen of his later years. In this, his first book, the depth of his talent is enormous and apparent and I finished it thinking of how sad it all makes me.
Wonderful Southern gothic characters in this one - the transvestite uncle, the evil stepmother, the quadriplegic father and the circumstances of his injury, the wonderfully realized Jesus Fever and his daughter, Zoo, and Idabel who is Scout/Harper Lee by any other name. All the yearnings of adolescence trapped in that crumbling old house down at The Landing.
The book is steeped in loneliness throughout and in the search for and sacredness of love in all its myriad forms. In the end, the narrator is as liberated as the adults around him are trapped.
This book is beautifully written, tells a beautiful, bittersweet story, and is a painful read when you think of what its author became. I'm not sure how he made it from the young man that wrote this amazing and beautiful book to the caricatured flaming celebrity-worshiping queen of his later years. In this, his first book, the depth of his talent is enormous and apparent and I finished it thinking of how sad it all makes me.
Wonderful Southern gothic characters in this one - the transvestite uncle, the evil stepmother, the quadriplegic father and the circumstances of his injury, the wonderfully realized Jesus Fever and his daughter, Zoo, and Idabel who is Scout/Harper Lee by any other name. All the yearnings of adolescence trapped in that crumbling old house down at The Landing.
The book is steeped in loneliness throughout and in the search for and sacredness of love in all its myriad forms. In the end, the narrator is as liberated as the adults around him are trapped.