Other Voices, Other Rooms (Vintage International)
by Truman Capote
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1097)
Read in March, 2008
It wasn't until after seeing "Capote" (excellent film, by the by) that I got the itch to read something by the film's namesake. Thus far my first choice, "In Cold Blood," has been checked out every time I've gone to the library, so I settled instead for his first novel, "Other Voices, Other Rooms."
Given the author's obvious conceit, I was not surprised to see Capote's protagonist, Joel, as a reflection of himself, exemplifying his tendency towards writing semi-...more
Given the author's obvious conceit, I was not surprised to see Capote's protagonist, Joel, as a reflection of himself, exemplifying his tendency towards writing semi-...more
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Read in November, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
"The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes, lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory."
I didn't expect to love this book. I guess going into it, I thought it would be a funny, quirky look at growing up in the South in the 1930's...with little family-friendly stories reminiscent of...more
I didn't expect to love this book. I guess going into it, I thought it would be a funny, quirky look at growing up in the South in the 1930's...with little family-friendly stories reminiscent of...more
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my favorite quotes:
"...all his prayers of the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved."
"...so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has alwa...more
"...all his prayers of the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved."
"...so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has alwa...more
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Read in June, 2006
I hadn't picked up a Capote book in years when I saw this one on my shelf. I suppose I had bought it years ago and forgotten about it, but after reading it I soon realized why I'm a Capote fan. Nothing beats a good southern writer, especially one as self absorbed and flambouyant as Capote.
This book was about an orphaned boy going to live with the only relatives he had left in the world, and meeting them for the first time on their doorstep. He soon realizes that like he, they too, have ...more
This book was about an orphaned boy going to live with the only relatives he had left in the world, and meeting them for the first time on their doorstep. He soon realizes that like he, they too, have ...more
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Read in January, 1993
Oh man. I read this in the tenth grade, for English class. I'd seen the made-for-TV version of "A Christmas Memory," which was narrated by Truman himself, and had developed a really, really good impression of his voice. The weird thing was, my teachers liked it too. A lot. Both my physics teacher and my English teacher would ask me to do it in class. So my memory of this book basically consists of me reading passages of it aloud in my Droopy Dawg Truman Capote voice. I would always end...more
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I had just read "In Cold Blood" appreciating it a lot and I was looking for other Truman Capote's books in the huge library of my parents. There I've found this novel.
When I've begun "Other Voices, Other Rooms" I was optimistic about it, but I've lost this sensation pretty soon. We're talking about a novel which seems to aim too high for its novelist possibilities. This book has remembered me a lot the Nabokov obsession for detailed descriptions of every apparently meanin...more
When I've begun "Other Voices, Other Rooms" I was optimistic about it, but I've lost this sensation pretty soon. We're talking about a novel which seems to aim too high for its novelist possibilities. This book has remembered me a lot the Nabokov obsession for detailed descriptions of every apparently meanin...more
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Read in March, 2007
You know Truman Capote's famous quote about how he felt that he and Perry Smith grew up in the same house, and then one day he got up and walked out through the front door, while Perry left out the back? Also, you know the unnecessary speculation that Capote actually wrote his friend Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird? I really enjoyed this book with its odd, closely observed detail and gothic, Southern, open claustrophobia. Still, it kind of feels like this book and To Kill a Mockingbird inc...more
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Read in July, 2007
I have a week in between finishing "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and the Harry Potter 7 release (ohmygodicantwait) so I picked up the first Capote book. It's excellent... of course.
Cont...
no it's not excellent. He's an amazing writer but there is no plot. I got 3/4 the way through and turned to my boyfriend to ask me how it ended so I wouldn't have to carry 2 book on vacation. Turns out, he couldn't tell me... there was no damn ending.
Fantastic writing for a first novel, but it...more
Cont...
no it's not excellent. He's an amazing writer but there is no plot. I got 3/4 the way through and turned to my boyfriend to ask me how it ended so I wouldn't have to carry 2 book on vacation. Turns out, he couldn't tell me... there was no damn ending.
Fantastic writing for a first novel, but it...more
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Read in February, 2008
Started brilliantly then devolved into a pretentious stream-of-conscious Faulkneresque mess. My guess: the build-up of Random House's public relations machinery of the yet-to-be published author caused Capote to try too hard to live up to the hype and to fashion the novel into something that it wasn't. Shame. First 1/2 to 3/4 is really terrific. Especially like the chapter on Joel and Idabel swimming naked then turning on each other -- fucking great.
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It's a sweet little read I spose, but hard to not picture what'shisface from the movie reading these big purply prose paragraphs of the South aloud to applause from Manhattanites. Thought the book was fairly hot when it seemed as though it was going conceptually nowhere - when he brought it somewhere, boooring, those old intellectual loop-de-loops and tie-ins are wicked played in your hands, Capote, suh. First I've read by him, I think.
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Read in January, 1995
Eh. I've heard that this is considered his best writing ever. He apparently wrote it at Yalta, while Carson McCullers was staying there. It's the novel that put him on the map. See there I go again, caring more about his bio than his actual writing. The truth is, this might be his 'best' work ever, but it just didn't do it for me. I've read most of what he's written, and none of it has been as interesting as his actual life.
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Read in June, 2008
i have never read capote before, but for some reason always felt like i would like him (maybe because of Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird).. but so far this book is great... the descriptions bring me back to the old south and it makes me feel at home in some way.. especially up here in the damn north!
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Read in October, 2007
i kind of liked this book, but i wanted to like it more- mainly because there was a sassy redhead in it, and i wanted her character to become more developed. i thought she was supposed to have something more to teach.
there were some beautiful lines and descriptions for things in this book. but i don't think i read the last two pages.
there were some beautiful lines and descriptions for things in this book. but i don't think i read the last two pages.
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Read in November, 2006
as a southerner, we had to read short stories by truman capote in high school. he is an amazingly sensitive writer- i'd love for his words to be the only thing i know about him- not his bitchy-ness, his alcoholism, his hauntingly infantile voice. STUPID MOVIES. this man was a genius and institution!
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Paige, I agree with you. I read it as the first selection of Page Pals, Greensboro; selected by Nadia C. I think I was twenty-one. I remember it fondly but you're right: if I was sixteen I would've run away to Nollins... things would have been better for a while... though I might now be a refugee.
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Read in May, 2007
recommends it for:
I don't know. Effeminate men?
I don't know what really to say about it. I really had to put my nose to the grindstone just to get through it. It's very well written, just to damn flowery and the story just crawls into nothing. If there is some great discovery in the end, I missed it amid transvestites and senile old women.
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Read in February, 2008
the writing is superb! so many of the vivid descriptions stick in my mind more than anything plot-related. very southern gothic. shadowy themes of racism, sexuality, homsexuality, deviant family structures. wasn't sure what to take from it, except for a general uneasiness after i closed the book.
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Read in November, 2007
If you haven't read Truman Capote's work before, you may not appreciate this book. The story is secondary to his fabulous writing style. Truman Capote is a born story-teller and in the fashion of great story telling, what is important is not the story, but rather, how it is told. I loved it!
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Other voices, other rooms...brilliant. One of the darkest short stories I ever read.There is no contrived darkness here. It is obvious that Truman Capote had personally experienced the dark underbelly of the American South. He knows the beast. Story is painfully haunting.
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Read in December, 2005
recommends it for:
Gypsies
Compelling story of Southern miscreants filled with wonderful wonderful imagery. required reading for living the New Orleans area. Maybe it was the time and place I was at when I read this, but this book is probably in my top 10. Definitely read!
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.79 (880 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.81 (820 ratings) number of reviews: 72popular shelves
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quote
"But we are alone, darling child, terribly, isolated each from the other; so fierce is the world's ridicule we cannot speak or show our tenderness; for us, death is stronger than life, it pulls like a wind through the dark, all our cries burlesqued in joyless laughter; and with the garbage of loneliness stuffed down us until our guts burst bleeding green, we go screaming round the world, dying in our rented rooms, nightmare hotels, eternal homes of the transient heart."
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