In Cold Blood
Truman Capote
Penguin Books, 2008; First published 1965
A book that I always wanted to read, having heard so much about it. It's a factual account (written almost like a novel) of the brutal murder of an ordinary rural upper middle-class farmer family of four in Kansas by two men, whose initial motive is robbery. They are convinced the farmer has a safe full of money, they find it's not so, they kill all four, including two teenagers. The killing however seems completely random, not really connected to their frustration at not finding the money. Capote paints a good picture of the psyches of the two killers, though there is some psycho-babble, trying to 'explain' their personalities as a result of their childhood. However, the account is honest enough to admit Capote's defeat even after six years of research trying very hard to understand why the killings occurred, before he wrote the book. Capote also links up, if only tangentially, the randomness and meaninglessness of these killings to others of a similar nature that kept occuring while he was writing the book (and presumably keep occuring into the present day, maybe also here in India). A lot of the motive, means, characters, their actions, background, etc. seems essentially American, though some parts of it, especially characters, remind me of John Wainwright's novels set in England. A good, and, on the whole, honest book about a couple of very bad people (though Capote does not thrust his judgments such as 'good' or 'bad' on us).
Truman Capote
Penguin Books, 2008; First published 1965
A book that I always wanted to read, having heard so much about it. It's a factual account (written almost like a novel) of the brutal murder of an ordinary rural upper middle-class farmer family of four in Kansas by two men, whose initial motive is robbery. They are convinced the farmer has a safe full of money, they find it's not so, they kill all four, including two teenagers. The killing however seems completely random, not really connected to their frustration at not finding the money. Capote paints a good picture of the psyches of the two killers, though there is some psycho-babble, trying to 'explain' their personalities as a result of their childhood. However, the account is honest enough to admit Capote's defeat even after six years of research trying very hard to understand why the killings occurred, before he wrote the book. Capote also links up, if only tangentially, the randomness and meaninglessness of these killings to others of a similar nature that kept occuring while he was writing the book (and presumably keep occuring into the present day, maybe also here in India). A lot of the motive, means, characters, their actions, background, etc. seems essentially American, though some parts of it, especially characters, remind me of John Wainwright's novels set in England. A good, and, on the whole, honest book about a couple of very bad people (though Capote does not thrust his judgments such as 'good' or 'bad' on us).
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