The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

Wonderful writing

Bought for daughter birthday. Excellent read

These collected stories clearly indicate the two worlds Capote lived in. The hot and steamy deep South with the spinsters and aunts and grand holiday meals with many real and imagined childhood memories, and the New York elite among whom he mingled as an adult. The former was clearly more genuine and personal; nostalgic for bygone days. The latter world was filled with rich snobs being bitchy to each other, drunk, cheating, and unsympathetic. What's great about all the stories is Capote's use of language. His vocabulary and sentences are wonderful and worthy of anyone at any stage in their writing career.

The big bird went berzerk, absolutely bonkers. While great flapping crow wings beat furiously, mercilessly, ruthlessly and repeatedly against the tinted glass side window of the neighbors' new white Japanese import parked in their drive-way one hot, humid sunny summer day, a second crow which had been perched precariously on the edge of the garage roof peak observing every detail, swooped lazily, gracefully, effortlessly down, landed on the automobile roof to investigate the matter, and hopped around, wide-eyed and frantic in anticipation. R. Royce, who had just then walked outside his house to check his mail noticed, and immediately ran across the street and over to the vehicle to frighten them both away, thinking that they might scratch and damage it in their efforts to gain access to food or shelter. Within minutes after they had both flown away, he realized that the larger, over-protective male crow must have become inexplicably insanely jealous of his mate and had actually believed he spied another crow much like himself, a most formidable, territorial adversary, in the mirror of the car window. He flew into a rage. Essentially, he had been cock-fighting his own glass reflection. Later that very afternoon, while tending the roses in his own backyard, Royce saw the female crow perched quietly on the electric wire suspended between two telephone poles, high above, pondering him in awe, watching him in wonder: how quickly and completely the man had resolved their conflict, making their terrible problem vanish into thin air. "When fools rush in," she must have thought. Undoubtedly, they are highly intelligent, observant creatures and have very keen vision. On this particular day he would not have to "eat crow" for his sometimes callous actions and indiscrete, unprofessional behavior. After all, he was no bird-brain or idiot. Which curiously and fondly reminded him of his childhood at Grandma Lea's: You're a little kid at Grandma's house and you want to play in the muddy ditch filled with fresh rain-water and look for crayfish. She lets you explore these majestic surroundings to your heart's content. After a while, you want to go indoors for corn-bread, chili beans, and fried potatoes she's prepared especially for you--and a buttered dinner roll with strawberry jam and milk for desert. She lets you enter the house through the screen-door porch and glide across the linoleum-tiled kitchen, but only after spraying you down with water from a garden hose until you are squeaky clean. The tiny water-spray droplets sparkle and glisten, in contrast to the glorious blue sky. You are bathed in sunshine. You are barefoot, shirtless, wearing cut-off jeans. You feel overjoyed and comforted. You've seen the baby fawn, the pet racoon, and incredible swimming crustaceans. A few days later, July 6, the story was different. He had made a serious error in judgement: he should have worn gardening gloves. Royce had been stung five times simultaneously, reaching into the dense foliage of an ornamental bush planted in his backyard, as he attempted to grasp a clump of tall marsh grass and pull the blades of grass up, roots and all. The waxy-leaf bush had grown and thrived near the veranda, but so had the tall grass. Instead, he stirred up a nest of angry red wasps. Several of them flew out from the bush unexpectedly, and he ran toward the house to avoid further retaliation, agitation, and complications. His hand stung with sharp pain and it swelled up tremendously for a few days. He put ice on the hand, and was very fortunate that he did not exhibit dangerous symptoms of allergic reaction. A week later he was basically back to normal, with some slight visible scarring. The selections in The Complete Stories of Truman Capote, published in 2004 and written from 1943 to 1983, all exceptionally well-written, may be placed in four main categories: the family at home for the holidays; art and dreams; mid-life crises; and appeals to healers. In the first category, I would put my all-time favorite, "A Christmas Memory," then the other fine gems, "Jug of Silver," "Children on their Birthdays," "Thanksgiving Visitor," "One Christmas," and "My Side of the Matter." In the second category, I would place "Headless Hawk," "Master Misery," and "House of Flowers." In the third category, goes "Among the Paths to Eden," "A Mink of One's Own," "Shut a Final Door," "Preacher's Legend," and "The Bargain." In the final category you might discover "A Tree of Night," "Diamond Guitar," "Mojave," "Miriam," "The Walls are Cold," and "The Shape of Things." You should be forewarned, however, substance abuse and alcoholism; pervasive, extreme poverty; and pockets of ignorance are common threads that run throughout the stories as a whole. On a positive note, you have been gifted with the southern sun-belt version of a loving, caring, god-fearing family not too unlike the ones depicted in "the Waltons" of mountainous west Virginia and the "Little House on the Prairie" of corn-fed Iowa, seen in television re-runs.

He was such an amazing author and human,real in good times and best of times. Interesting! A good read.Look for his advice, hidden words within his proses of pain. Which is actually his beauty.

I could read Truman Capote's stories all day long and never tire of his writing. One of the greatest writers of the 20th century!

While this is a nice collection from one of America's best authors, I confess I was a bit underwhelmed by the stories themselves. Only two are standouts for me - Miriam - a masterpiece of creepiness, and The Thanksgiving Dinner - where Capote shows his funny side (I wish he would have done more like that). Jug of Silver is a good, but not outstanding read; however, the gossipy tales of elites hold no interest for me and many feel unfinished.

I had never read any Truman Capote when I was a younger person because I was not really interested in the subject matter of In Cold Blood. When the local theater company did a musical version of his short story, A Christmas Memory, I bought a children's edition of the book and found out what a beautiful short story writer he was so I bought this book so I could read more of his shorter works. This is a great edition to get all of his published short stories and they are very enjoyable! I will no longer just think of Truman Capote as the author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffanys and I think that some of his best writing may be these short stories! (I love the picture on the cover as well as we tend to think of him only as how he looked in his later years!)

Tooke too long to come, but it was well worth it! The book is in fantastic condition!

Fantastisk berättare

I racconti di Truman Capote sono bellissimi e si leggono ancora con piacere.Purtroppo la copia che ho ricevuto è danneggiata (causa imballaggio troppo leggero?) e non potrà essere regalata come aveva intenzione di fare. Lo terrò per me...

Sehr schöne Sammlung der wichtigsten Kurzgeschichten des Autors! Besonders ansprechend finde ich persönlich „Children on Their Birthdays“. Vermutlich aus seiner eigenen Lebenserfahrung heraus nahm Capote Kinder ernst und schildert ihre Gefühle und Träume in dieser Kurzgeschichte eindringlich und sensibel. Trotz des günstigen Preises eine Ausgabe mit guter Printqualität und nicht zu kleinem Schriftbild.

En cours de lecture