How Truman Capote's life shaped his literary works

Truman Capote

The Life, the Author

The purpose of this work is to critically analyze the works of Truman Capote through comparison of his works, his life, times and influences on his work.

Truman Capote was born in 1924 and died in California in the year 1984. He was an American novelist, playwright and short-story writer also writing novels, novellas, travel writing, profiles, reportage, memoirs, plays and films and was a noted stylist upon publication of his earliest writings. He was born in New Orleans to a salesman and a 16-year-old mother who was touted to be a 'beauty-queen'. His father worked clerking for a steamboat company and generally hopped from job to job never remaining employed at any one place for very long. The marriage of Capote's parents fell apart and the couple divorced when Capote was only four years of age. Truman Capote was raised in Monroeville, Alabama where he lived with relatives. His mother's second marriage was to a businessman who was financially affluent and Capote moved with them to New York adopting the surname of his stepfather.

Influences:

Capote begin writing when he was only eight (8) years of age attending the Trinity School and St. John's Academy in New York as well as public schools in Greenwich Connecticut but ended all formal school when he was the mere age of 17. Capote utilized some of those the areas of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, as settings for many of his works of fiction. One of the relatives, which he lived with in Monroeville, was an influence for many of the characters in Capote's literary works. Capote gives a brief sketch of his boyhood in the work, in Cold Blood as he writes:

was only a child, and very small for my age -- and always the smallest boy in school. When I was three, my mother and father divorced.... My father (who has been married five times) was a traveling salesman and I spent much of my childhood wandering around the South with him. He was not unkind to me, but I disliked him and still do. My mother was only sixteen when I was born and was very beautiful. She married a fairly rich man, a Cuban and after I was 10 I lived with them (mostly in New York). Unfortunately, my mother, who had several miscarriages and as a result developed mental problems, became an alcoholic and made my life miserable. Subsequently she killed herself (sleeping pills).

The first published works of Compote were those that appeared in magazines in 1945, which won him two prizes. Interestingly, during Capote's childhood he befriended Harper Lee and the author portrayed him as the character, 'Dill' when writing the novel to Kill a Mockingbird.

Impressions of Capote Expressed:

Joseph Epstein writes that, "Charm was Truman Capote's specialty, the propellant that lifted him early off the launching pad of obscurity and sent him, for a brief while, into the stratosphere of celebrity of a luminosity given to only few writers in the history of this country." Epstein relates the fact that, "until his devastating success Capote was a writer devoted to his craft and astute in his literary judgment." Epstein further writes that, "Today one thinks of Truman Capote, if one thinks of him at all, as the gay consort to the rich women of New York's designer East Side, a party-giver of high power in his own right and a spewer of gossip on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show (where among other things he said that Valley of Dolls author Jacqueline Susann looked "like a truck driver in drag." But then again Epstein turns back around and states that Capote was, "a savvy man, Truman Capote, and nothing was he more savvy than his own career. He cultivated editors and publishers with great care." Epstein further reveals that upon his career being launched that Capote 'dropped his agent and handled all business matters- and very cleverly too- on his own.

One of Compote's best-known quotes is as follows:

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor." --Capote

The Works of Truman Capote:

Truman Capote wrote many works beginning with the earliest one published in the years beginning 1948 entitled Other Voices, Other Rooms, the 1951 work entitled the Grass Harp that became a play in 1952, the 1956 work entitled a Christmas Memory ranks in the minds of most with the holiday Its' a Wonderful Life, all leading up to the 1966 "non-fiction" novel titled in Cold Blood that was made into a film in 1967.

Other Rooms- Other Voices

This was the first of Compote's books and was publish in 1948. In this work Capote dealt very candidly with the issue of homosexuality in a way that only 'few bestsellers did of that era.' (Minzesheimer, 2004) When Capote wrote the work Other Rooms- Other Voices he was only 23 years old according to Minzesheimer, 2004. This work is the depiction of a boy who grows up in the Deep South in a mansion and falls into a decadent relationship with an individual who is a transvestite. Compote claims success widely due to the handling of the homosexual content of this work

Minzesheimer, a USA Today author states that,

Berendt says discussion of the novel's literary worth 'became entangled with, and at times overshadowed by even livelier talk' about the provocative author photograph on the back cover. The photo shows 'an androgynous, barely post-pubescent Capote lounging on a sofa in a sultry pose, looking seductively into the camera.' Capote said the photo was taken when he was not aware of it and used without his permission. However Berendt writes, "Neither was true, but the pattern would continue through his career: Capote's personal publicity upstaging his own work. But at least Capote got what he wanted; he had become famous."

Compote said that when he read this novel himself that it was as though he was reading something by a stranger and that indeed he was a stranger to the book as though the person who wrote it had very little in common with his present self.

In Cold Blood

The work in Cold Blood was successful commercially but Capote was said to have never been the same afterwards. This one piece of work cost Capote six years of his life. The work in Cold Blood is based on a longitudinal six-year study of a murder in which two juvenile drifters murder a family in Kansas. "Herbert Clutter and his wife and two children were found, gagged robbed and shot by two ex-convicts who left with $40 and a pair of binoculars." The sensation it created sensationalized Capote as well. The New York University Literary Review states that, Capote took a "300-word article" that was published in the New York Times "about a brutal unsolved murder of a Kansas farmer and his family. Compote immediately went down to Holcomb in Kansas, to the scene of the crime. It was only six years later, when the two drifters were executed on the same day that Compote could finish his book."

When attempting to finish this book Compote wrote to Cecil Beaton, "No, I'm finishing the last pages of my book. I must get rid of it regardless of what happens.... my sanity is at stake -- and this is no mere idle phrase. Oh, the hell with it. I shouldn't write such gloomy crap -- even to someone as close to me as you are."

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Capotes real work of art is considered to be Breakfast at Tiffany's and became 'one of the most famous and influential works of his time.' Capote had difficulties with the ending in this work and by the time he did finish it Heart was demanding that he remove the four-letter words and the profession of the main character from the story but Capote firmly refused to do so because his favorite character was Holly Golightly. Holly was a character that lived lightly in a holiday spirit every day taking nothing seriously. This book was made into a film starring Audrey Hepburn, which assured his place among the upper crust of society. (PBS, 2002)

Capote and Writing Technique

When asked the question of "Are there devices one can use in improving one's technique? Capote answered by stating, "Work is the only device I know of. Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself. "(Paris Review, Interview with Compote)

The Influence of Other Writers

When asked the questions, "What writers have influenced you the most?" Compote stated that, "So far as I consciously know, I've never been aware of direct literary influence, though several critics have informed me that my early works owe a debt to Faulkner and Welty and McCullers. Possibly I am a great admirer of all three; and Katherine Anne Porter, too. Between thirteen and fifteen are the if not the only ages for succumbing to Thomas Wolfe....Just as other youthful flames have guttered: Poe, Dickens, Stevenson. These are the enthusiasms that remain constant: Flaubert. Turgenev, Chekhov, Jane Austen, James, E.M. Forster, Mauppassant, Rilke, Proust, Shaw, Willa Cather-oh the list is too long, so I'll end with James Agee, a beautiful writer....I think most of the younger writers have learned and borrowed from the visual structural side of move technique, I have.

Fiction or Non-Fiction?

When the interviewer enquired as to the basis in truth of Compotes work or as to how much of the work was autobiographical in nature Compote answered stating very of his work was really based in reality or truth of his own life. This has been greatly speculated and discussed among literary minds.

Compote's Dreams or Goals in Life

Compote revealed during the interview, when asked the questions, "Were you ever tempted by any of the other arts?," that more than anything he wanted to be a tap dancer. Compote related that he had taken guitar lessons as well as studying painting but that he was not talented in those areas.

Control in Compote's Writing Style

In the interview Compote states that "Whatever control and technique I may have I owe entirely to my training in this medium." The Interviewer asked Compote exactly what he meant by 'control'. Compote answered stating that what he meant was "maintaining a stylistic and emotional upper hand over' one's material. Compote believed that "a story can be wrecked by a faulty rhythm in a sentence -- especially if it occurs toward the end -- or a mistake in paragraphing, even punctuation." Compote called Hemingway a first-rate paragrapher and said that Henry James was the semi-colon maestro. Finally he claimed that a bad sentence was never written by Virginia Woolf.

Compote's Style of Writing:

The New York University Review states that Compote's style of writing is, "Objective and is highly innovative prose; it combines the factual accuracy of journalism with the emotive impact of fiction. Further stated is that, " He understood the suspense that could be garnered by lengthy descriptions and by letting his characters speak extensively." A David Remnick state of Compote's writing that: "Truman Capote was "a writer of brilliance, capable of economic, evocative prose. His technique was mature, professional in the best possible sense." PBS American Masters states that, "Throughout his career (Truman Compote) remained one of Americas most controversial and colorful authors, combining literary genius with a penchant for the glittering world of high society. Though he only wrote a handful of books, his prose styling was impeccable and his insight into the psychology of human desire was extraordinary. His flamboyant and well-documented lifestyle has often overshadowed his gifts as a writer, but over time Compote's work will outlive the celebrity."

Summary & Conclusion:

Although many believed that Compote wrote for the fame and success the following that Compote once wrote give a deeper view into his life's work in writing:

One day, I started writing, not knowing that I had chained myself for life to a noble but merciless master. When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended solely for self-flagellation...I'm here alone in my dark madness, all by myself with my deck of cards-and, of course the whip God gave me." (Truman Compote)

The last ten years of Compote's life was one which Gerald Clark in his biography of Compote reveals as a life in the 'shambles of drugs and booze and law suits and ugly gossip and betrayals perpetuated both upon him and by him. This once delicately beautiful and richly talented young man became a talk-show buffoon, a booze-bloated bag of neediness, the subject of New York Post gossip headlines, and one of the first victims of the celebrity culture he had helped to create." (Epstein, 2004) Indeed this is a sad ending and as stated in the biography written by Clark, one that unfortunately "he did not retain the lucidity to write it himself. Its' theme might have been that charm is a gift that, when abused, can bring a man down hard." (Epstein, 2004) it appears to the reader that there exists much within the work of Capote that is based on his actual life, although Capote denied this throughout the course of his life and indeed since Capote is no longer among the living it is a matter of pure speculation henceforth.