Customer Reviews:
 Crime, punishment, and more July 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote was published in 1966, and is based on events that happened almost fifty years ago. The events were real. This is not a work of fiction. The Clutters, an appropriately surnamed Kansas family, have their own complications within their rambling homestead. What family doesn't? Clutter the father is a farmer. Who isn't in these parts? Life is not so productive of late. Whose is? The two younger children, a daughter and a son, still live in. The others have left, happily.
And then, in November 1959, the four Clutters are found gagged, apart from the mother, all with their throats cut and their brains blown out by shotgun fire. The community is in turmoil. No-one can explain why anyone might have wanted to kill a whole family in Holcomb, a small, poor, rural community in the mid-West Bible belt.
Hickock (Hicock) and Smith are two lads on the move. Their families might be dysfunctional. On the other hand they might not. Their socialisation might have been lacking. On the other hand it might not. For whatever reason, individually and collectively they prey on others, prey in a way that renders them culpable, detectable and ultimately punishable. They know thieving is wrong. So, one of them says, we've stolen lives, so it must be serious. It was the two of them that pulled the trigger, that blew brains out, that slit throats, that did not quite commit rape. There are limits. And all for forty dollars and a transistor radio.
I give nothing of this book away when I reveal that the two lads did commit the murders - exactly how no-one ever admitted - and that, after years of litigious wrangling, both were hanged. The strength of In Cold Blood is not what happens, but how it happens.
Truman Capote offers us a vast book in just four sustained chapters, each of which is sub-divided as the narrative shifts between aspects of the different protagonists' lives. Throughout, the style is much more complex than mere journalism, but the clarity with which it communicates is at times breathtaking. We hear from those directly involved, both victims and perpetrators, their families, the police, the judiciary, the neighbours, the lawyers, the passers-by, the acquaintances, the cellmates. The detail is forensic.
It is essential that the reader is constantly reminded that this is not fiction. Truman Capote offers dialogue where a journalist would report, offers interpretation where an historian would defer, offer opinion where an observer might decline. And so In Cold Blood becomes and absorbing, multi-faceted, mid-twentieth century reworking of Crime And Punishment. The crucial difference that the intervening years have generated is that where the latter concentrated on the individual circumstances and motives of the perpetrator, In Cold Blood explores the social and the contextual alongside the psychological.
And this is where the book becomes deeply disturbing, because it seems to suggest that the individuality that contemporary society seems to demand of us might itself promote a degree of self-centredness, of selfishness, perhaps, that might give rise to nothing less than contempt for others. In the forty years since the publication of In Cold Blood, it could be argued that such pressures might have increased. Frightening, indeed.
A Truly Great Book January 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the finest books I have ever read. It is gripping and vivid from start to finish and evokes fascination and emotion. It is also cleverly worked in the structural sense in that a picture of the killers, the murdered family, the police and the community is painted through quotations from actual people who were there at the time.
Capote is also a very gifted writer and his penmanship adds great poignancy and heart to the gruesome story.
Terrifyingly Magnificent. September 8, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
'In Cold Blood' is one of the best books of all time. It should be required reading in all beginning college lit courses, if not in high school. I first read 'In Cold Blood' in high school (in the 80s), and I read it in one sitting- straight through the night- just because I couldn't put it down. I have recently purchased this newer edition, because this book is worth reading again.
To begin with, Truman Capote, for all his notoriety, was an incredible writer, and this book is one of his finest. The gritty and depressing existence of Dick and Perry that leads up to one terrifying night in Kansas is so vividly represented, you feel all the more frightened as you are reading it, because it seems you have become witness to the absolute terror and brutality perpetrated on an innocent family by these two men. Truman Capote not only presents in graphic detail the terror of this night, but he also reveals the personalities of Dick and Perry in such a way that, even though they are despicable human beings, you may feel a twinge of sorrow for them. The birth of each man's anger, and the inability of either one of them to integrate into society, was formed in childhoods of abuse. It truly is amazing how Capote got inside the heads of these pathetic men, capturing the pervasive sadness and despair, bizarrely coupled with hope for a "normal" future. The relationship of Dick and Perry is almost a symbiotic one. Separately, they may not have done what they did, but together, they are lethal. The gullibility of a person, who never felt like he belonged, combined with another person who thinks he needs to exact revenge on society- it's a sick combination of pack mentality and ignorance. Eventually, all of this culminates into a night of terror in Kansas wrought by these two men. The portrayal is so graphic in nature; no one could read it without being rendered silently stunned by the terror of it all. The sadness felt for this totally unsuspecting and wholly innocent family is overwhelming. Certainly there have been similar crimes, but the representation of it by Capote, and the intrinsic knowledge of these two men, makes you feel you had a front row view of the whole thing.
`In Cold Blood' is less about the particulars of that awful crime one terrifying night in Kansas; it is more about the insidiousness of what childhood abuse and feeling disenfranchised can do to a person. It would be easy to focus on the terror and sadness of this massacre, but the brilliance of Capote is that the focus is placed on the murderers and trying to engender compassion from the reader for them. With Capote's vision in writing, he almost gets us there. After the capture and imprisonment of these two men, you can physically feel the fear in their hearts for their own condemnation. Perry's fear of execution is especially haunting. This book is a must read for anyone who likes to read and makes no difference that it was written 40 years ago. It transcends all genres, because even though the story is terrifying, the writing is phenomenal, and you will NEVER forget it.
Deeply disturbing (but in a good way!) July 27, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It is difficult to argue that this book is not an incredibly powerful piece of work. A valid argument against it may be that it is not, in the truest sense of the word, 'literature'. It's an accurate, detailed account of events which actually happened. With this in mind, it is possible to read the book as an extended article of journalism rather than as a novel.
However, this would be missing the point somewhat. Yes, the book is non-fiction. Yes, it sometimes lingers for long passages on minute technical details - of either the crime itself, or the police investigation. And yes, knowledge that Capote, in his help with the convicted killer's appeals, played an active role in the story himself (albeit unmentioned in his book) lends a slightly surreal aspect to the work. But these points are simply dwarfed by the massive waves of emotion which run throughout the story.
The ironic thing is that Capote brilliantly creates this emotional reponse by writing in a very deliberate, very cold, very un-emotional style. He presents the story to us just the way it happened, fact layered upon fact. It is between these layers that we find the true heart of the book. Hidden in these places are the tragic circumstances that drove Perry and Dick to become men capable of not only committing murder, but of doing so and carrying on their lives seemingly without remorse.
Capote presents only factual events, gleaned from his meticulous research into the case and extensive interviews with those involved. The fact that these events are true makes it all the more unsettling when, as readers, we realise that our sympathies are with the killers. We find ourselves questioning our own perception of ourselves, and our fundamental taken-for-granted values of right and wrong. Indeed, Capote's detached matter-of-fact prose makes us question the very validity of such concepts as "right" and "wrong".
Therefore, the debate as to whether this book is "literature" or "journalism" isn't important. What is important is that this work is one of the most disturbing things you could ever read. Put simply, it will haunt you. It will dig uncomfortably under your skin, and stay there. And, factual or not, that is exactly what good "literature" should do.
This is how it should be done April 6, 2007
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
This is one of those books that I enjoyed so much it was just about `unputdownable`. However, because it`s quite short(especially compared with Mailer`s epic study in tedium The Executioner`s Song)I had to force myself to put it down from time to time just to make it last longer.
Very well written, and to the point. It`s an engrossing read.
GET IT !
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