Wednesday, November 29, 2006
In Cold, Unanswered, Bloody Prayers
“More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”
Granted, I pulled that quote not from In Cold Blood, but from Answered Prayers, Capote’s final, unfinished novel. But I thought it was such a beautiful quote, and certainly not out of context for In Cold Blood.
*edit: that epigraph is attributed to Saint Teresa of Avila.
Yes! I’ve finally finished In Cold Blood! Penguin calls it a ‘seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative’.
Well, who am I to disagree? Capote is mind-bogglingly good. I’m amazed I hadn’t heard of him till last year, when I was looking at the blurb of my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and saw a quote from his review printed at the bottom of the back of the book. I can’t remember what the quote was, but (for some strange reason) his name stuck with me. I truly am ashamed. If Capote was one of the most famous writers of the 20th Century, then I am a bigger ignoramous than I think.
It’ll probably too pompous to write a review or an analysis, and certainly very odd, especially since I’m on summer holidays. (No more homework for 3 months, woohoo!) But the book did affect me, more deeply than I had thought it would. Also being non-fiction, it was impossible to dismiss the account as a figment of someone’s imagination. I don’t know how many literary liberties Capote took but I’m pretty sure this book is quite faithful to reality. The investigators, the townsfolk who were neighbours with the slaughtered family, the killers, and the unspecified but always there Capote – they’re characters you care about, some more so than others. I have to admit that reading about Perry Smith, one of the killers, terrified me, not because he was scary or ugly or whatever, but because his life story simply tells me: you cannot escape the tyranny of your past. His a soul damaged and wounded beyond repair, condemned to amorality due to a childhood of abuse and abandonment. The Penguin edition blurb calls him (and the other killer, Hickock) “reprehensible, yet entirely and frighteningly human”. In my much less eloquent way, I say he’s you and me in another time, in another place, and in another life.
Granted, I pulled that quote not from In Cold Blood, but from Answered Prayers, Capote’s final, unfinished novel. But I thought it was such a beautiful quote, and certainly not out of context for In Cold Blood.
*edit: that epigraph is attributed to Saint Teresa of Avila.
Yes! I’ve finally finished In Cold Blood! Penguin calls it a ‘seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative’.
Well, who am I to disagree? Capote is mind-bogglingly good. I’m amazed I hadn’t heard of him till last year, when I was looking at the blurb of my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and saw a quote from his review printed at the bottom of the back of the book. I can’t remember what the quote was, but (for some strange reason) his name stuck with me. I truly am ashamed. If Capote was one of the most famous writers of the 20th Century, then I am a bigger ignoramous than I think.
It’ll probably too pompous to write a review or an analysis, and certainly very odd, especially since I’m on summer holidays. (No more homework for 3 months, woohoo!) But the book did affect me, more deeply than I had thought it would. Also being non-fiction, it was impossible to dismiss the account as a figment of someone’s imagination. I don’t know how many literary liberties Capote took but I’m pretty sure this book is quite faithful to reality. The investigators, the townsfolk who were neighbours with the slaughtered family, the killers, and the unspecified but always there Capote – they’re characters you care about, some more so than others. I have to admit that reading about Perry Smith, one of the killers, terrified me, not because he was scary or ugly or whatever, but because his life story simply tells me: you cannot escape the tyranny of your past. His a soul damaged and wounded beyond repair, condemned to amorality due to a childhood of abuse and abandonment. The Penguin edition blurb calls him (and the other killer, Hickock) “reprehensible, yet entirely and frighteningly human”. In my much less eloquent way, I say he’s you and me in another time, in another place, and in another life.
Labels: Capote, Literature
# posted by me lah @ 1:05 pm 
