Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintences and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career by George Plimpton ISBN: 0-385-49173-5 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 10 November, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (14 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: what a great read!
Comment: this book is an interesting form of biography with all the little snippets from a myriad of folks who knew truman capote. it's fun to compare the stories as all these people remember them just a little bit differently. it's gossip-y, sure, but it's also fun (and a little bit sad). i never really knew a lot about capote--except from "Murder by Death" and reading in cold blood-- and although i cant say this book makes me want to read much more of his material, it did give me an interesting insight into who he was, or, at least, how others saw him.
Rating: 5
Summary: Capote the Writer was Lost in Ten Years - Sad Tale
Comment: The most moving aspect of this collection of oral recollections is how it highlights that Capote as a promising fiction writer existed only for ten years: 1948 to 1958. Between that time came his best (and pretty much ALL) of his fiction: his wonderful, lyrical novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms; his first short story collection; and, in 1958, Breakfast at Tiffany's. After 1958 the slide began. The oral stories in this book movingly underline the point that despite the huge success of In Cold Blood, that book was mere journalism (friends who cared about him as a writer noticed), and that Capote never got back to the promising fiction of his first decade.
After In Cold Blood which there was nothing but the parties - the now faded and tawdry-looking ball ball Capote threw at the Plaza Hotel (check out the telling photos Plimpton includes); a friend who attended cried in disbelief "This is supposed to be a great writer we're talking about." The period of playing mascot to wealthy cafe society is also included in all its irrelevant detail, as are the final, dismal years when Truman found it easier to go on Johnny Carson to "do" his "Truman Capote" routine rather than write. The decline in his personality is painful to read about and his constant lying and slandering of friends and other writers (a bizarre attack and libel on Gore Vidal, for example), makes him look an unpleasant irrelevance. His final brain-addled message to his lawyer ("I WANT to die!") and his tawdry death in the house of an ex-wife of Johnny Carson, add an odd, ironical pathos. Capote was a figure of fun in later life but this book, for all its cheapness and relying on (mostly) shallow "friends" for insight is a sad and moving testimony to a potentially great literary writer who never fulfilled the promise of his amazing first decade. I found it unexpectedly moving.
Rating: 5
Summary: All the dirt that's fit to print.
Comment: Truman Capote was a media whore - not unlike Orson Welles. His writing talent was prodigious, but nothing compared to his talent for self-promotion. He was a true master of the short form, producing a series of award winning short stories -"The Headless Hawk," "Miriam," "Children on Their Birthdays, "Shut a Final Door," the novels "Other Voices, Other Rooms" and "The Grass Harp," with all of his talents finally coalescing with the brilliant "Breakfast at Tiffany's." He wrote the film scripts of "Beat the Devil" and "The Innocents," and the musical "House of Flowers." He adapted his great short story "A Christmas Memory" for television and won an Emmy Award. 1966 brought his masterpiece - "In Cold Blood." His achievements were justly celebrated. Then came the famous Black and White Ball - and when the party was over, it was truly over. Want to know what happened? Read this wickedly funny book. It's an honest portrait of a shining literary star who simply burned himself out. My hat goes off to the late, great George Plimpton.
 |
Title: Conversations with Capote by Lawrence Grobel ISBN: 0306809443 Publisher: Da Capo Press Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
 |
Title: Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel (Vintage International) by Truman Capote ISBN: 0679751823 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke ISBN: 078670912X Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers Pub. Date: 10 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
 |
Title: Music for Chameleons (Vintage International) by Truman Capote ISBN: 0679745661 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: The Best of Plimpton by George Plimpton ISBN: 0871135035 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1991 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
