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opinionAlso in this section:
Bernal, Where is Panama headed? Sánchez, Hispaniola as a major drug smuggling hub Hill, Free trade and immigration Gutman, Hugo Chávez is a disgrace Shelton, A better plan for the canal's expansion E. Jackson, Troubles at the alma mater Sirias, The price of perfection
The price of perfection --- on reading In Cold Blood by Silvio Sirias
I doubt that any writer in any language living at the time of the Kansas murders could have written In Cold Blood with the severe control that Capote exercised. By that I mean the depiction of an Aeschylean theme without morose moralizing; I mean the choice of precisely the right vocabulary; I mean the management of tension and horror without collapsing into bathos; I mean the telling of a highly personal story --- his interaction with two disgusting murderers --- without allowing himself to become a central character; I mean also the pioneering of a new style of novel writing. For all these reasons Capote can be praised for having produced a chilling masterpiece. No one but he could have done it at that time, and few could equal it now. James Michener
Every time I pick up In Cold Blood I read it all the way through, as if I didn’t write it. It’s really quite a perfect book, you know. I wouldn’t change a thing in it. Truman Capote The film Capote moved me to read In Cold Blood again. A little more than twenty years ago, when I had last done so, I wasn’t quite capable of appreciating the genius behind its creation; thus, at the time, I read Truman Capote’s masterpiece as merely a compelling account of a gruesome and cruel mass murder that took place in the wheat plains of western Kansas, in 1959. And then, a couple of years ago, I read Lawrence Grobel’s Conversations with Capote --- an engaging collection of interviews that Grobel conducted with the author between 1982 and 1984 (the year of Capote’s death). In his exchanges with Grobel, Capote is outspoken, candid, and biting in his opinions about art, film, literature, and people. What’s more, Capote places himself above his subjects throughout --- looking down from his pedestal on all of creation as he critiques everyone and everything in it. Yet in spite of Capote’s unflinching stance of superiority, the reader cannot help but be in awe of his remarkable wit and formidable intellect. After rereading In Cold Blood, I had to ask myself: how can a writer with such a seemingly enormous ego, a man with such an inflated sense of self, be the same as the virtually undetectable narrator behind the telling of the tale in In Cold Blood? This true crime story --- the brutal murders of a family of four on an isolated Kansas farm --- inspired Truman Capote to enter a bleak, forsaken world. But the account the author brings back from his incursion into the psyche of these irrational killings does, indeed, appear to tell itself, as if the story possessed a will and a mind of its own. Throughout In Cold Blood, the narrative moves forward at a relentless pace, and is told with a supremely authoritative yet virtually untraceable voice. Because of Capote’s mastery over voice and point of view, his most renowned work is bound to stand the test of time. I have no doubt that In Cold Blood will be long remembered as a bold and innovative literary creation. And, as Capote told Lawrence Grobel, that was his aim: “I wanted to write what I called a non-fiction novel --- a book that read exactly like a novel except that every word of it would be absolutely true.” Yes, Truman Capote fulfilled his objective --- totally and without question. But as the postscript of the film Capote suggests, writing In Cold Blood drained the man of his soul --- in the artistic and animistic connotations of the word --- and Capote never produced another work of consequence for the remaining 19 years of his life. He admits that the price he had to pay for writing In Cold Blood far exceeded what he had anticipated when he confides to Grobel: “I certainly wouldn’t do it again. If I knew or had known what was going to be involved, I never would have started it, regardless of what the end result would’ve been.” While in pursuit of a new literary form, Truman Capote unknowingly walked straight into the heart of darkness --- spending close to seven years exploring the dankest dungeons of malevolence. But in spite of the ghastly toll the experience had on him, Truman Capote managed to leave behind one of the greatest feats in literary history. Moreover, in spite of the dark, sinister subject of In Cold Blood, Capote was able to tell the tale of those senseless, cold-blooded killings in stunningly poetic language. The reader only needs to consider, and briefly at that, the astonishingly striking alliteration in the final clause of the work’s closing sentence: “Then, starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind the big sky, and the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat.” Never again, I would think, shall human wickedness be described so breathtakingly.
Silvio Sirias is a Nicaraguan-American who resides, teaches, and writes in Panama. He is the author of Bernardo and the Virgin (Northwestern University Press, Latino Voices Series). For more information visit his website at http://www.silviosirias.com
Also in this section:
Bernal, Where is Panama headed? Sánchez, Hispaniola as a major drug smuggling hub Hill, Free trade and immigration Gutman, Hugo Chávez is a disgrace Shelton, A better plan for the canal's expansion E. Jackson, Troubles at the alma mater Sirias, The price of perfection Unclassified Ads | Calendar | Outdoors | Dining | Science | Sports | Español | Front Page Archives | Wappin' Radio Show | Just Music
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