In Cold Blood

 

"I didn't want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken, I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat" (244).

Coming away from my immense enjoyment of Breakfast at Tiffanys, I was looking forward to finally digging into Truman Capote's most renowned work. In Cold Blood is the first-billed listing in any conversation about true crime. All of the girls telling murder stories while putting makeup on have him to thank for their multitude of followers.

Unfortunately, due to no fault of Mr. Capote's, this one was a non-starter for me. I picked it up and put it right back down several times. The writing itself is beautifully rendered, and the story is meticulously and creatively told. I can only conclude that the combination of genres (true crime told within a narrative format) killed the momentum (Ha. Set me up with my own comedic true crime YouTube). My reasons for enjoying the likes of Dateline and 48 Hours are very different from my motivation for reading murder or crime novels. 

The commentary in my head while finishing In Cold Blood was telling me contradicting things:

If this is true crime, I want the details and only that, not a lot of extra fluff around the criminals and victims before and after the crime itself.

If this is a novel, I shouldn't already know how it ends. Otherwise, what is the point of suffering through layers of foreshadowing, characterization, and plot development?

Against all odds, I finished the novel, and here I am to tell you my thoughts in the most balanced form that I can muster.

1. "Then, with the dog running ahead of him, he moved southward toward the fields, lion-colored now, luminously golden wit after-harvest stubble" (12).

Beautiful prose. Capote was a truly gifted wordsmith. He could write a symbol or description that cuts right into the reader's soul, and here he is able to utilize that prowess to the utmost. The Kansas landscape, a seedy gas station in the middle of the night, the family hound, a neighboring cellmate...Each detail is carefully crafted to communicate the emotion behind a scene. Not only can you picture it, but your bones can feel that place and those often-disregarded minutia. Even when I was bored of the story itself, such world building kept me going.

2. "And certain sounds returned--a silver dollar rolling across the floor, boot steps on hardwood stairs, and the sounds of breathing, the gasps, the hysterical inhalations of a man with a severed windpipe" (110).

Detailed characterization. Sometimes criticized for filling the gaps of the knowable a little too much, considering the books qualifications as literary NON-fiction, Capote delves into the inner lives of each person involved in this tragic story. The Clutters feel like your own family, and their murders cut like the proverbial knife to the heart. Questions of motivation, culpability, and guilt are explored through the psyches of two criminals: one a self-proclaimed "normal" with a familiar background, and the other with somewhat of an unfortunate or unconventional past. 

While Capote does not necessarily succeed (if it was indeed his intention) in creating sympathetic villains, he does invite the reader to delve into societal notions concerning the influencing roles of "nature and nurture" on criminality. 

3. "This biography always set racing a stable of emotions--self-pity in the lead, love and hate running evenly at first, the latter ultimately pulling ahead" (130).

Long-winded extraneous information. My final point, the only real literary criticism that I have to offer, has to do with the extreme amounts of information provided on this very topic. After the murder is committed and the perpetrators are overtaken, there is still a significant amount of book left to digest. Writings from the family members of Dick and Perry fill the pages, and it seems that nearly every person waiting on death row alongside them is described within their own short portion of plot.

I won't lie, I skimmed much of this decidedly unrelated information. I already wasn't vibing with the presentation of the content, and all of the "side quests" certainly did not hold my interest. If these aspects needed to be included for Capote's vision to come to fruition, my opinion is that they could have been severely shortened and summarized, to much greater effect.

Overall, I would not pick up In Cold Blood a second time, but I am glad that I was able to experience it. I understand Capote's importance in this genre, and while it may not be for me, I am certain that he continues to have an audience of incredibly engaged readers.