Okay, well, a few months ago we rented ‘Capote’, the DVD, it centered itself on the four-year period in Truman Capote’s life when he wrote ‘In Cold Blood’.

I became fascinated with the man, and went to Amazon and ordered the book ‘In Cold Blood’ and also ‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’, his first novel, and ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’.

‘In Cold Blood’ was fascinating, I recommended it here before.

‘Other Voices, Other Rooms’ states on its cover ‘Critically Acclaimed first novel of Truman Capote’.  Mark Twain once remarked, “Critically accaimed means a book everyone talks about, but no one has read,” and I could see why!  I slogged through that 200-page non-eventful novel, which sometimes had paragraphs that spanned two full pages describing the shadow patterns of leaves upon the swampy terrain of upstate Louisiana.

Whew, what a chore!  I think I might perhaps be one of only three people who ever actually finished the thing:  Truman, the publisher, and me.

Then I got to ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’, which was about an incredibly fascinating and beautiful young woman (patterned after Bebe, no doubt), with the name of ‘Holly Golightly’.

The book is fun!  All the way through!  It is a short novel, about 125 pages, and centers about Holly and her brief encounters with Truman’s fictional self in a dumpy New York apartment building, and so on.

I finished it last night, and like all good books, one is mildly depressed at having to leave the fantasy-world that the author created.

Anyway, it is worth reading!

Dan, critic at large, now on to read the 6th Harry Potter book before he sees the movie

Thanks for the tip.  Maybe I’ll check it out of the library this week.  I know that the male character in the book is gay, but that’s about all.  Of course in the movie version (it was 1961, and nobody in the movies was gay, right?), he was a virile heterosexual male.  I’m suprised it hasn’t been remade with more accuracy in some horrible made for TV version.

Bebelicious - 08 July 2007 07:12 AM

I’m suprised it hasn’t been remade with more accuracy in some horrible made for TV version.

Because to gay men - especially drag queens, that would be sacrilege! Even though they were dissed in the movie version, that movie is so high up on the Queer Top 100 that any tampering with it would cause riots. I’ve seen drag queens riot before. It ain’t pretty.

I love both actually, for different reasons. I love the colours and clothing of the film, and the book is superb. I actually like Other Voices Other Rooms too

Dan Jr. - 08 July 2007 06:47 AM

I slogged through that 200-page non-eventful novel, which sometimes had paragraphs that spanned two full pages describing the shadow patterns of leaves upon the swampy terrain of upstate Louisiana.

Heh, it sounds like the American version of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

MadCarlotta - 08 July 2007 07:46 AM

Even though they were dissed in the movie version, that movie is so high up on the Queer Top 100 that any tampering with it would cause riots.

Ummmmm. . .why are they so taken with it?

Accipiter - 08 July 2007 04:45 PM

Ummmmm. . .why are they so taken with it?

Audrey Hepburn and Givenchy.

MadCarlotta - 08 July 2007 05:11 PM

Accipiter - 08 July 2007 04:45 PM

Ummmmm. . .why are they so taken with it?

Audrey Hepburn and Givenchy.

Okaaaaay. . .

Maybe I’m missing something, not being a drag queen myself.  Or else I just need to watch the movie again.

Well, even though the movie was “hetero-ized”, most gay men are quite aware that the original character was gay and that the novel is basically about a “fag hag” relationship. Throw in a diva and fabulous clothes and....what’s not to love?

Uhh, I saw none of that.  The reporting character, who chronicles on and on about Holly Golightly, never really mentions his own sexual preferences.

He never has any sort of romantic relationship with Holly, it is platonic, though he mildly hints she was desirable to him (as well as to every other hetero male in New York City).  Holly was truly a free-spirit in a healthy way.

I bet the movie changed a lot of stuff.  I never saw it.  Wasn’t Robert Redford in it, too?

Now of course, in real life, I gather that Capote himself was gay, or at least bi.  (Dan, the guy is flaming!  Are you blind?) Perhaps that is where the confusion orginated, as the reporting character is obviously quite closely based on himself as a budding author and one who loves his martinis.

Dan the not-so-observant reader sometimes

Dan Jr. - 08 July 2007 06:47 AM

Dan, critic at large, now on to read the 6th Harry Potter book before he sees the movie

You have lots of time, Dan!  The fifth movie opens this weekend.  I don’t even think they’ve started filming on the sixth one yet.

I also enjoyed Breakfast at Tiffany’s—both the book and the 1961 movie. (We heterosexual females are often extremely fond of Audrey Hepburn and Givency as well.) By the way, the movie didn’t have Redford in it, Dan—it starred Hepburn and a young George Peppard.

And I agree that even in the book, the narrator’s sexual preference remains carefully neutral, so as far as I can recall, the movie was actually a fairly accurate representation of the book except that George Peppard is about 1000 times more attractive than Truman Capote. Not that that’s difficult. Sorry, Tru was a gifted writer and I admire him for that, but he was a very odd-looking human.