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37th out of 106 books
—
29 voters
Music for Chameleons
'Everything is displayed in this book: insights and recollections of the famous and the obscure; old jokes and fresh wit... These stories and vignettes will endure.' - New Republic.In these gems of reportage Truman Capote takes true stories and real people and renders them with the stylistic brio we expect from great fiction.
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
January 25th 2001
by Penguin Books, Limited (UK)
(first published 1980)
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the biggest attraction to this collection is "Handcarved Coffins", an excellent account of serial killing in a small town. by turns mysterious, frustrating, tense, and bizarre, the accounting details Capote's relationship with the FBI agent assigned to the case, who has in turn romantically assigned himself to one of the potential victims. the modus operandi of the killer is original and very upsetting. the identity of the killer does not appear to be in question; what arises over the course of...more
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Review to follow. On a book buying trip. Whooopeeeee!
And after some nice finds, it's back to business.
Music for Chameleons: New Writing by Truman Capote Including Handcarved Coffins
Although Random House plugs Music for Chameleons as new writings by Truman Capote, when it was published in 1980, all of the pieces had appeared in the two preceding years in Capote's usual venues, "Esquire," "Interview," "McCall's," "New York Magazine," and "The New Yorker." Within four years, Capote would be dead.
Th...more
And after some nice finds, it's back to business.
Music for Chameleons: New Writing by Truman Capote Including Handcarved Coffins
Although Random House plugs Music for Chameleons as new writings by Truman Capote, when it was published in 1980, all of the pieces had appeared in the two preceding years in Capote's usual venues, "Esquire," "Interview," "McCall's," "New York Magazine," and "The New Yorker." Within four years, Capote would be dead.
Th...more
16 likes · like · see review
If you want to know more about Truman Capote, this is a better entertaining option for you. Composed of 14 short stories, Capote made himself a character in each. In the last one, in fact, he appeared as 2 characters conversing with each other. I had a nice time reading most of them because he seemed like a very versatile writer who was not afraid to experiment. I understand that these small masterpieces appeared in various magazines (New Yorker, Esquire, etc) during his time. So, probably that'...more
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Правя важното уточнение, че имам сборното издание, излязло през далечната 1984 година. Цензурирано и преминало през ситото на онова време, то е орязано и не в пълния вид, на който "Колибри" залага и който, надявам се, аз също ще си купя в близкото бъдеще.
Безспорно, "Ковчежета ръчноделки" е онази история, която заковава вниманието. Поставил себе си сред вихрушката от събития, превърнал се във важен герой, притежаващ ключова роля за повествованието, Капоти бавно, майсторски, в подробности проучва...more
Безспорно, "Ковчежета ръчноделки" е онази история, която заковава вниманието. Поставил себе си сред вихрушката от събития, превърнал се във важен герой, притежаващ ключова роля за повествованието, Капоти бавно, майсторски, в подробности проучва...more
I'd been teaching In Cold Blood for two semesters and used the preface to this to introduce In Cold Blood, so I figured I might as well read the rest of the book. This is late-period Capote, mostly a mishmash of personal essays, anecdotes, and a novella-length true crime story.
First of all, the preface makes Capote seem like a self-involved jackass (which he by most accounts was - remember the postscript to the movie saying he never recovered from writing In Cold Blood?), but it also reveals his...more
First of all, the preface makes Capote seem like a self-involved jackass (which he by most accounts was - remember the postscript to the movie saying he never recovered from writing In Cold Blood?), but it also reveals his...more
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Really good book of short true stories by Capote. If you have never read anything of his, this would be a good place to try on his style.
I liked the first two thirds of this book quite a lot. Capote was just an amazingly skilled writer, and his clean, thoughtful prose really worked for me. However, I found the last third (Conversational Portraits) pretty irritating. In the first part of the book, even though Capote is a character in all stories, and is a strong narrative presence, it didn't overwhelm the work. The third part, though, is Capote in full-blown egomaniac, name-dropping mode. I could've done without the nearly minute-...more
May 19, 2013
Aquileana
marked it as to-read
'Everything is displayed in this book: insights and recollections of the famous and the obscure; old jokes and fresh wit... These stories and vignettes will endure.' - New Republic.In these gems of reportage Truman Capote takes true stories and real people and renders them with the stylistic brio we expect from great fiction.
A complete Review by KD Oliveros
If you want to know more about Truman Capote, this is a better entertaining option for you. Composed of 14 short stories, Capote made himself...more
A complete Review by KD Oliveros
If you want to know more about Truman Capote, this is a better entertaining option for you. Composed of 14 short stories, Capote made himself...more
When 'TC' imagines that God faults him four things—alcoholism, drug addiction, homosexuality, and genius—in this book's last conversation, he isn't joking. they are the sins that make him impossible—maybe the three are the limits and deviations fixed upon the one, and yet the four were past some point indissoluble, the legs to his table. i imagine that when Capote was worked over by plastic surgeons it was half because he was vain for himself and half because he felt that someday a marble bust w...more
This book is kind of odd. It has what I can only call short stories at the beginning, a nonfiction novella in the middle, and “conversational portraits” at the end. It’s also written by the fabulous Truman Capote, so I was really looking forward to reading it.
Handcarved Coffins, the novella, I saved to read till last, and I’m glad I did. It’s a really sad story written in a similar kind of style as In Cold Blood, also about murder in a small town. I thought it was really well written, touching a...more
Handcarved Coffins, the novella, I saved to read till last, and I’m glad I did. It’s a really sad story written in a similar kind of style as In Cold Blood, also about murder in a small town. I thought it was really well written, touching a...more
Music for Chameleons is far more interesting and entertaining than The Dogs Bark, which I found to be very dry. So much so I put it down halfway through and haven't returned to it.
Although it can be a bit off putting to some that Capote is the protagonist in virtually every piece of writing it shouldn't come as a surprise. Capote was one of the biggest egomaniacial writers of all time. Fortunately, he had the talent to back up his ego. Unfortunately, his ego was also the cause of his eventual d...more
Although it can be a bit off putting to some that Capote is the protagonist in virtually every piece of writing it shouldn't come as a surprise. Capote was one of the biggest egomaniacial writers of all time. Fortunately, he had the talent to back up his ego. Unfortunately, his ego was also the cause of his eventual d...more
Este es un buen libro para iniciarse con la lectura de Truman Capote y familiarizarse con él.
Cuentos, relatos de gente que conocía, una supuesta crónica real de unos asesinatos (qué, según la omnipotente Wikipedia, parece ser que son otro invento... pero no se condena. Cuando se toma un libro: ¿Qué importa si es real o no? Al final lo que importa es lo que sucedió con el lector, como salió/transmutó/sobrevivió después de leer la obra).
Es un buen libro para conocer a Truman Capote, o más bien,...more
Cuentos, relatos de gente que conocía, una supuesta crónica real de unos asesinatos (qué, según la omnipotente Wikipedia, parece ser que son otro invento... pero no se condena. Cuando se toma un libro: ¿Qué importa si es real o no? Al final lo que importa es lo que sucedió con el lector, como salió/transmutó/sobrevivió después de leer la obra).
Es un buen libro para conocer a Truman Capote, o más bien,...more
Semi-ritratto di Truman Capote
(ovvero, cosa si deduce sulla sua persona dalla letture di Musica per camaleonti, ci saranno riprese letterali di fatti ben chiariti da lui stesso e mie deduzioni, tutto insieme a mo' di calderone)
Di sicuro quest'uomo ha un amor proprio decisamente maggiore del mio.
Lo stesso Capote recita a proposito del suo libro "E' un distillato su tutto quello che so sulla scrittura: scrittura di racconti, di sceneggiatura cinematografica, giornalismo..tutto." Non è esattamente...more
(ovvero, cosa si deduce sulla sua persona dalla letture di Musica per camaleonti, ci saranno riprese letterali di fatti ben chiariti da lui stesso e mie deduzioni, tutto insieme a mo' di calderone)
Di sicuro quest'uomo ha un amor proprio decisamente maggiore del mio.
Lo stesso Capote recita a proposito del suo libro "E' un distillato su tutto quello che so sulla scrittura: scrittura di racconti, di sceneggiatura cinematografica, giornalismo..tutto." Non è esattamente...more
1 like · like · see review
I love Truman Capote. The man was a prose-bound poet. His talent has always seemed to be an effortless, inborn genius: the seemingly-unlabored perfection of his words, the offhand brilliance of his dialogue, the razor-sharp vividness of his descriptions. Although all the stories in this book are gems, the shining jewel in the crown is the novella HANDCARVED COFFINS. It's a fascinating account of a small-town serial killer who sends his victims minature coffins with their pictures inside. I found...more
One of my former students said Capote was her favorite writer and raved about Handcarved Coffins. Let it be said: if you've read In Cold Blood, you've probably read the best of Truman Capote. The lengthy true-crime caper in this collection seems a retread to me, plodding along in the ruts of the "nonfiction novel" form Capote, preening in the preface, reminds the reader he created and Norman Mailer stole. Anyway, if you haven't read In Cold Blood, read that and the short story "A Christmas Memor...more
I initially took this book for what it's supposed to be: Capote showing his artistic ability with writing, something he believed at the time that he discovered a new level of (as per his prologue). I found the first few stories well written, but odd...almost pointless and near lack of closure.
As the stories progress in the book though, they get better. I particularly enjoyed the section called Conversational Portraits, which are basically a series of discussions or interviews that he has with v...more
As the stories progress in the book though, they get better. I particularly enjoyed the section called Conversational Portraits, which are basically a series of discussions or interviews that he has with v...more
The preface to Music for Chameleons talks about how the author thinks non-fiction is the only way to go and how he decided that the absolute ultimate pinnacle of writing would be literary non-fiction with himself as the star of the show. So he's centre-stage in most of the stories and he makes a compelling character. Reading some of the other reviews on here there's a lot of talk about how much of an ass Capote seems. I couldn't help but compare this book with a couple of the non-fiction books I...more
The essays in this compilation were uneven, ranging from the brilliant portraits of friends and acquaintances (including the author himself) in the third part, to a middling effort at a suspenseful "non-fiction narrative" in the middle portion (ironic given how amazing In Cold Blood is). I was most mystified by the fact that Capote explicitly laid out in the preface the difficulty he had maintaining an objective tone about things, suggesting his prose held more power when he inserted himself int...more
This is the book that sparked my appreciation of metaphor. "She sounds the way bananas taste" "a lemony slice of new moon" - floridly simple, but it impressed the hell out of me as a kid. Capote is telling stories even as he relates his true encounters with famous and infamous people, and memories of his Southern childhood. This collection contains Handcarved Coffins, written in similar style to In Cold Blood. You can never tell when Capote is telling truths or lies - I suspect he didn't know th...more
A book of short stories, and a mystery novella "Handcarved Coffins." I enjoyed the latter the most. But all the stories had their good points and maybe it was the time period during which it was written, but I only found 3 of them truly memorable - the title story, Beautiful Child and the one with the pot-smoking housekeeper (I wouldn't be surprised if that one was more fact than fiction, lol) - and I was thinking none of these were all that memorable to me, but I'm realizing that's not true. It...more
Egomanía, cinismo, decadencia. ¿Y qué? Él mismo lo dice. Y encantadoramente. Un libro de los que contienen imágenes virales: no olvidas ni el espejo negro en La Martinica, ni a Mary Sánchez fumadísima de rodillas en la iglesia, ni al Sr. Schmidt con su traje blanco... Miles de palabras se han escrito acerca de la no ficción. Todo para tratar de encasillar y etiquetar algo tan sutil que entra en la categoría de la inefable. Capote te arrastra a otros mundos, de donde salís un poco arañado y paran...more
A curious mix. Some of the short fiction is excellent, the rest good, but not to the standard you would expect of someone of Capote's stature. The nonfiction "Handcarved Coffins" is more likely than not truly fiction with some elements of truth. It reads better as fiction, but would Capote stoop to writing genre fiction after his success with "In Cold Blood." The nonfiction portraits at the end also mixed and need to be read with Capote's ego in mind. I suspect he wasn't entirely truthful throug...more
have only read two novels from capoto, but this one has to be my favorite -- sometimes don't really get the hype of capote -- his stories, like his persona, are highly meticulous, yet flamboyant; lucid, yet dubious. doe-eyed, i believed the implication of the title of the main novella, but after having delighted in the story, googled, and found it was most probably untrue. boo, but still a good tale. of the other clips, both fiction and nonfiction, my picks would be: hello, stranger; music for c...more
I'm usually partial to novels and I've put down a collection of Capote's stories before, but I didn't have a problem finishing this book. It contains some short stories, a novella, and some (supposedly) non-fiction "portraits." This collection was published when Capote was in his 50's.The writing is beautiful (in true Capote style) and the pieces are more mature and personal than some stories I struggled through in other collections. I probably would have given this collection a 3.5 if I could h...more
I picked up this book primarily for the novela "Handcarved Coffins." I had read "In Cold Blood" and it fascinated me. Perhaps I had too high of expectations but "Handcarved Coffins" was a let down. This book is supposedly a combination of fiction and non-fiction but it seemed all fiction to me. His stories were too black-and-white, too simple, too grandiose. While I was reading it, I pictured an unhappy, addicted author whose delusions of grandeur called him to write this book. There were some g...more
I had heared of Truman Capote as a creator of what is called "non-fiction novel". Though not sure about what it meant, I was absorbed by the idea this expression suggested. So I read Music for Chameleons and boy! That was something!
The book is conducted in three parts: Music for Chameleons, Handcarved Coffins, and Conversational Portraits. The first is a set of six "non-fiction" short stories, which are, to say, perfect stories from which the "tale" is taken. The second part is a short novel, wr...more
The book is conducted in three parts: Music for Chameleons, Handcarved Coffins, and Conversational Portraits. The first is a set of six "non-fiction" short stories, which are, to say, perfect stories from which the "tale" is taken. The second part is a short novel, wr...more
This was my first experience with Capote, and it was a strange and intriguing one. The plot of In Cold Blood never really intrigued me, so I never gave Capote a second thought, but I picked this book up in a thrift store and thought I'd try it out.
I basically loved 2/3 of it. I struggled and suffered through the "Music for Chameleons" section. I thought the short stories were hit or miss. The best by far was "Dazzle" and the worst was "Mojave." Yet even the stories I didn't like stuck with me l...more
I basically loved 2/3 of it. I struggled and suffered through the "Music for Chameleons" section. I thought the short stories were hit or miss. The best by far was "Dazzle" and the worst was "Mojave." Yet even the stories I didn't like stuck with me l...more
As I mentioned in a prior review, I LOVED the vignette Handcarved Coffins. Outside of this novella, however, this wasn't my favorite Capote work. I was a tad disappointed as his prologue suggested this was his best work, and as he is my fall back--when I am in a rut of average to poor books, I turn to Truman as he always delivers. This was not my favorite though. The short stories at the beginning were solid, but the end was just plain wierd, culminating with a story of Truman as a Siamese twin....more
I really enjoyed 2/3rds of it. Especially ''Beautiful Child'', ''Hospitality'', ''Mojave'', ''Dazzle'', very much ''A Day's Work'', and ''Hello, Stranger.'' those are really excellent. I like his writing style. There is a bright personality to it. ''Mojave'' is psychologically stunning. ''A Day's Work'' and ''Hospitality'' are wonderfully warm and funny. ''Derring-do'' is hilarious. ''Beautiful Child'' shows us a perfectly alive, bubbly and vulnerable Marilyn Monroe.
The book is divided into 3 sections -- a section of vignettes / short stories where Truman is in the room, the novella "Handcarved Coffins", and a section of snippets of gossipy dialog. While some of the first and third sections of the book are interesting and amusing, the real centerpiece and the reason to read the book is "Handcarved Coffins", an unsolved series of murders with well drawn, well observed heros, victims, and villains.
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Truman Capote was an American writer whose non-fiction, stories, novels and plays are recognised literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1965), which he labeled a "non-fiction novel." At least 20 films and TV dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.
He was born as Truman Streckfus Persons to a salesman Archulus Persons...more
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He was born as Truman Streckfus Persons to a salesman Archulus Persons...more
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“But I'm not a saint yet. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a genius.”
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“We all, sometimes, leave each other there under the skies, and we never understand why.”
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