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AMOURAIns

COMMENTARY n2In Cold Blood (1966)by Truman Capote

This text comes from In Cold Blood, the novel written by Truman Capote and published in January 1966. But the genesis of the novel has been a long-drawn-out job. Capote actually began his research in 1959, when he came across a small newspaper item describing how the members of the Clutter family were shot dead in their ranch in Kansas. At that time, most writers simply used their imagination to fabricate good stories, but journalist Capote created a whole new category of writing which he called the nonfiction novel. Our extract is the incipit, that is to say the very beginning of the novel. Therefore, it gives the setting, introduces us to a literary style, and tries to give us the urge to keep reading. Thus, Capote leads us to Holcomb, the theater of the famous awful events that make his novels topic. But more than a factual description of it, he implements his literary journalism way of writing and turns this criminal case into an epic story. We will see how, beyond Holcombs presentation, Capote put his literary project in place, depicting reality as it has never been done before, and in the same time he prepares the ground for the incredible murder that is about to be committed and that will thrill both characters and readers.

Born in New Orleans in 1924, Capote was abandoned by his mother and raised by his elderly aunts and cousins in Monroeville, Alabama. As a child he lived a solitary and lonely existence. In his mid-teens, Capote was sent to New York to live with his mother and her new husband. He dropped out of school, and at age seventeen, he got a job with The New Yorker magazine. Within a few years he was writing regularly for an assortment of publications. Thus, he had no proper education but training in journalism. This fact determined many things in his process of composing and his urges as a writer. After the publication of Breakfast at Tiffanys and the film starring Audrey Hepburn, Capotes popularity was assured. His ambition, however, was still great, and so he began to work on a new experimental project that he hoped would revolutionize the field of journalism. Quoting him: This book was an important event for me. While writing it, I realized I just might have found a solution to what had always been my greatest creative quandary. I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry.Flipping through The New York Times, Capote noticed a brief article that outlined how the Clutters, a Kansas farming family, had been murdered. He decided it was good enough subject to consider for his new project. So, Capote left his socialite life and went to Kansas to listen to the townspeople of Holcomb. During his stay, the two murderers were caught: Capote followed the police investigation, and began an involved interview with both, until their execution in 1965. These interviews, and the research made to have journalistic styled details took him six years to complete. Besides, he created his own technique of interviewing: he never took notes nor used a tape recorder, but memorized it all and transcribed it later.

In Cold Blood: the title itself reminds of some thriller or detective novel. But, the subtitle reads: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. Thus, our text is filled up with many details that exceed the usual descriptions and are more of the journalists work. Capote gives us many figures, which are not related directly to the subject matter, but are facts belonging to the setting. For instance, he adds numbering two hundred and seventy to the inhabitants of the village (line 75); in the same way, he specifies around three hundred and sixty (line 53), in which we notice a discrepancy between around and the actual accuracy of the number following; or put the annual average is eighteen inches into brackets line 61. He also slips minute details concerning Holcombs history in his narrative. Thus, we read: the advertisement has been dark for several years (line 24), the bank failed in 1933 (line 27). The geographical organization of the town is given too: the rhythmical gradation lines 16 to 19 (on the south [] on the north [] and on the east and west) describes, in an ordered way, the surroundings of Holcomb by each cardinal point; the plan of its streets is given line 15 (an aimless congregation of buildings divided in the center by the main-line of the Santa Fe Railroad). Capote also tackles architecture writing about stark old stucco structure (line 22) and about one-storey frame affairs, with front porches (line 32). More generally, Capote puts details sidestepping the heart of the subject: the text is full of brackets, or dashes witnessing so: for example, the explanation, odd since it is written but concerns pronunciation, line 17 (pronounced Ar-kan-sas) or the listing line 56 [] German, Irish, Norwegian, Mexican, Japanese. These are details anchoring Holcomb to reality, reminding the readers that it actually exists and that what is said happened.Besides, Capote decided to eliminate himself out of the story developing an objective omniscient point-of-view. He is the narrator; however, he does not include himself in the story but uses a documentary, nonjudgmental manner. Some critics characterized his technique as cinematic. Indeed, his way of describing looks like the way the screen would show the edited shots. First, an establishing shot: the village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas (line 1) and Holcomb too can be seen from great distances (line 13). Then, some landscapes filming reminding of a documentary film (the land is flat [] horses, herds of cattle [] Greek temples lines 9 to 12). Follows a zoom in the haphazard hamlet (line 16) and its surroundings. Next comes a moving forward into the streets (lines 20 to 22) and a stopping on buildings (Dance, Holcomb Bank, the Teachery, post-office, the depot, filling stations, Hartmans caf, the Holcomb School, and farm ranches are quoted through the text). Therefore, it is not surprising that In Cold Blood was adapted for cinema by Richard Brooks straight away in 1967: in addition to its success, this novel must have been felt like easy to adapt.Capote uses cutting of different story strands, intense close ups, background detail in order to make the readers fell as if they were actually a part of the story.

So, such a documentary deals with A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. Capote, maybe helped by his rural childhood, opens a voyeuristic window into the heartland of America. But, it is not enough to create a work of art. Indeed, many readers probably had heard of the affair before they read the novel. Capote had to make it interesting even to people who knew the outcome: he had to combine good literature with journalistic information. Every detail he picked among his 8,000 pages of research must therefore be meaningful. Thus, Holcomb appears to embody the traditional American ideas: hard work and endurance, living close to the land, strong religious traditions, and a sense of community. Indeed, it is presented as an out there (line 2) that is to say a very ordinary place: we read a lonesome area (line 2), not that there is much to see (line 13), (Holcomb, like the rest of Kansas is dry.) And that, really, is all (line 45). Besides, there is a whole lexical field linking Holcomb to dirtiness and emptiness of the space such as the parallelism line 21 from the thickest dust into the direst mud outlining thanks to the superlatives the anticlimax that Holcomb can (and will) suffer; or such as the ternary rhythmic anaphoric listing line 20 unnamed, unshaded, unpaved emphasizing Holcombs seeming mediocrity. A quiet, unremarkable town, the kind of town where everybody knows everybody else, and nobody locks his doors. Until is here the keyword. From line 70, Capote finally tackles the main subject matter: the murder. Thanks to his literary skills, he creates suspense. The title of the chapter itself, The last to see them alive, conveys this thrilling expectation. Then, Capote, little by little, gives details: on morning in mid-November of 1959 (line 70), in the earliest hours of that morning in November, a Sunday morning (line 79), and eventually indeed, the drama (line 74) itself is described briefly line 85 four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives. But here again, these observations sound like factual policemens ones. Indeed, there is no need to overact: Capote wants the reality to be given intact, because it will grasp readers much more this way. Safety and security seemed to be appropriate in Holcomb: a prosperous people (line 54), ordinary life (line 77), townspeople [] unfearful of each other (line 86). But the Clutters American ideal life is abruptly and, above all, arbitrarily wrecked, and the ordinary quiet Holcomb marked by a cold-blooded crime: the contrast conveys the impression that every place is fragile, and everyone threatened.Capote emphasizes the inevitable (since already befell actually) deaths and its consequences: in the end of the extract, in this quote lines 88-89 somber explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare [], he chooses a light and fire metaphor leading to an exaggeration to worry the readers.

Truman Capote composed a fusion of journalism and literature, vividly recreating the events and describing in meticulous detailed prose. He captures the readers attention with a story about a horrific crime, and his style made his novel unforgettable. Thus, In Cold Blood reads like a thriller, and is even more frightening since it can be felt that it is based on actual events.