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Other Voices, Other Rooms
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I think the presence or lack thereof of a father figure is essential to both Other Voices, Other Rooms and The Bill from My Father. While Bernard Cooper struggles to deal with a father who is sporadically present and emotionally distant, Truman Capote's surrogate Joel has to deal with a father who literally is not present. We feel the presence, and we know that the father is somewhere, but he's not emotionally available. Both authors struggle with that. There are several lines that back this up, but for a single example consider this line: "...there were four doors in the hall, impressive oak doors with massive brass knobs, and Joel wondered which of them, if opened, might lead to his father" (50). To find their fathers, both Joel and Bernard find the search overwhelming.While I find almost all the scenes and characters standout, I'm going to use Capote's language itself to show how well he illuminates his characters. When quoting Missouri, Jesus Fever's grandchild, he says, "Her voice, which was like melted chocolate, was warm and tender. 'Les us be friends'" (59). I get such a strong image of this young lady in these two (relatively) short sentences that it's almost overpowering.
I think it is rather "safe" to say that the writing of Bernard Cooper and Truman Capote both differ and resemble each other. First thing is that while Cooper maintains for the most part, a very personal narrative through both "Maps to Anywhere" and "The Bill From My Father," Capote's voice while still personal is shown through the characters he writes. Cooper writes of "I" and "me," or "my father," while Capote writes of "he," her" and "Joel." For example if you look at the back of Capote's novel, "Other Voices Other Rooms," compared to "Maps to Anywhere" or "The Bill From My Father," Capote novel is detailed as " novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity.. an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown up.." Other Voices Other Rooms," is detailed as a novel one that writes of not Capote personally like Bernard Cooper memoir style, but to a third person novel narrative.The similarity between both Cooper's and Capote's writing is found within the way theY describe the world. Their vivid, vibrant language can take the most mundane, and make it live. For example on page 27 of "Other Voices Other Rooms," Capote writes, " And now dusk was coming on. A sea of deepening green spread the sky like some queer wine, and across this vast green shadowed clouds were pushed sluggishly by a mild breeze" (27). Capote's use of language and imagery is very much like Cooper's on page 240 of "The Bill From My Father," when Cooper writes, "... the slopes of the memorial park descend to the valley floor and level out, the city its continuation, scoured by a wind that took history with it" (240). The language and imagery is very similar.
The character that most intrigued me is Joel, now I understand that this is most likely a common answer to this question. But it remains to be said that Joel is the main character, and to me that means he has the most to learn, experience, and tell through out this novel. I also love the line on page 10 of "Other Voices Other Rooms," when Capote writes, " It was as if he lived those months wearing a pair of spectacles with green cracked lenses, and had wax-plugging in his ears, for everything seemed to be something it wasn't, and the days melted in a constant dream" (10-11). How can you not be intrigued by this boy, really how?
One of the most prominent similarities that I picked up on while reading "Other Voices, Other Rooms" was the personalities of the protagonists. Besides the lack of a father figure, which Alex covered wonderfully, the overall mood and emotions of Joel and Bernard struck me as being from the same family. Despite being separated by both their ages and their uprisings (Joel has never met his father, while Bernard has met his father but is still disconnected from him), the two shared the same eager outlook on life, both desperate for something, anything, to happen or change. One example I found that stood out to me comes from a scene where Joel and Randolph are playing game together, and while he is trying to figure out where that darn tennis ball came from, he reflects on his situation: "He couldn't believe in the way things were turning out: the difference between this happening, and what he'd expected was too great. It was like paying your fare to see a wild-west show, and walking in on a silly romance picture instead. If that happened, he would feel cheated. And he felt cheated now" (88). As for a scene that stood out to me, I was most drawn to the scene from chapter one where Joel meets Idabel and Florabel on the wagon ride to the Landing. In particular, I loved reading about Idabel's wild adventures and her general independence. One line that I loved came from Florabel, who was talking about her sister's crazy antics: "She just went smack in the chicken yard and snatched up this rooster and ripped him wide open; never heard such squawking. Hot chicken blood draws the poison" (37). Idabel is an adventure-seeking tomboy, and honestly, part of the reason I like her character so much is because I simply wasn't expecting to meet a character like her.
In class last week we discussed the presence of a triad of characters in Cooper's memoir, "The Bill from My Father". While common in memoirs, triads are not generally utilized in novels. While Capote introduces several main characters in part one of "Other Voices, Other Rooms," it is not clear yet which of these characters will be most prevalent throughout the book. The reader has yet to be introduced to Joel's mysterious father and all of the other character's, such as Randolph, Zoo, and Amy are most certainly hiding something. This broader spectrum of characters creates a much different dynamic to the one presented by Cooper.The thing that intrigues me most is Joel's natural inclination to lie. In several passages including his conversation with Zoo when he tells her he has seen snow and that his mother died in the wilderness (57-59) and later the letter he writes to Sammy in which he lies about his father and new home (91-92). Joel seems to use his imagination as a coping mechanism for the hardships he is going through; they have yet to hurt him; however, I wonder if this will change.
Unlike Bernard Cooper's "Maps to Anywhere" and "The Bill From My Father," Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms" is written in a linear narrative, which is most often characteristic of novels. I think Part 1 as a whole is textual evidence in itself, as events occur chronologically rather than Cooper's series of narratives arranged in a non-sequential order, particularly in "Maps to Anywhere". Moreover, Capote's use of the third person compared to Cooper's use of the first person certainly separates him from the story. As a narrator Capote is engaged in the sensory experience, but as readers we are not exposed to his personal feelings about the characters like we were to those in Cooper's memoirs.I found the scene in the R.V. Lacey's Princely Place most intriguing. The silence that settled when Joel entered seemed so characteristic of "outsiders" or strangers entering a small town establishment where locals tend to congregate. The vivid, "zany" description of Roberta definitely accented Joel's discomfort and overwhelmed feelings toward the "madhouse" (23) environment. It seemed almost vaudevillian; Roberta's large, hairy figure and wart somewhat reminiscent of the classic "fat bearded lady", the strange decorations of shredded crepe paper and the Lying Award on the wall, Jesus Fever's "pygmy figure" (28) and candy-striped derby hat.
Cooper and Capote are both similar and different at the same time, from what they write about to the vernacular they use. However, since we are comparing the two, I thought it best to illuminate the former and show one instance of when Cooper and Capote are similar in their writing. An overlying theme with both male writers is the protagonists'--Cooper himself in "Maps to Anywhere" and "The BIll From My Father" and Joel in "Other Voices, Other Rooms"--dilemma of being acknowledged and accepted by their fathers. As a class we have discussed how Cooper threads this throughout the two books we have read and it takes more intuition and looking between the lines (if I may say so) in oder to first see that there is an issue/issues between Cooper and his father. However, in "Other Voices, Other Rooms," this problem is stated from the beginning is actually the reason Joel begins his journey in the first place. Once Joel finally arrives, he is haunted by the thought that his father won't like him: "And then, sitting alone in the quiet kitchen, he was taken with a terrible idea: What is his father has seen him already?...and thought: that run it an impostor; my son would be taller and stronger and handsomer and smart-looking." (51) This idea just unravels in Joel's mind until he is convinced that they are going to trick him and kick him out on the streets to fend for himself (52). Where as for Cooper, he was actually kicked out of his father's house and the two didn't speak for months.
I am going to have to agree with Shannon on this one, I am intrigued by not only Idabel's character, but the relationship between her and Joel that the back of the book promises: "and a fearsome little girl names Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever know to love."
I agree with many of you on the point that there many are some differences and similarities between Bernard Cooper and Truman Capote, in regards to their stylistic approach in writing these pieces. In both, "Maps to Anywhere" and "The Bill from My father",we see that Cooper has taken a personal narrative approach in his work. As Caroline wonderfully puts it, "Cooper writes of "I"". It is true, Cooper writes in the first person and does so in both of the works we read by him. Truman Capote, however, takes on a different approach when using the personal narrative in his novella,"Other Voices, Other Rooms". Capote uses third person to tell his story through the consciousness of Joel. Both, Capote and Cooper present similarities with presenting readers with the theme of isolation, specifically with the "lack of a father figure" that is seen through both their works.What stands out in Capote is the fact that the protagonist, Joel is abandoned by his father, yet he remains in search of a father/maternal figure through others, however, he has trouble expressing it. Both, Capote and Cooper have expressed the difficulties of communication. In class, we discussed about the masking of emotions and expression. I found that Joel's behavior of expressing this to be intriguing. Like Cooper, Joel is looking to find closure. Capote writes, "And then, sitting alone in the quiet kitchen, he was taken with a terrible idea: What if his father had seen him already? Indeed, had been spying on him ever since he arrived, was, in fact, watching him at this very moment?" (51). This quote in itself shows the isolation that Joel is experiencing with himself. He begins to question his father's abandonment and going in to blame himself for not being the son his father "expect" him to be.
I think some of the most striking differences between Truman Capote’s “Other Voices, Other Rooms” and Bernard Cooper’s “The Bill From My Father” is the content written about and the form of the two different pieces. Cooper’s memoir “The Bill From My Father” does not follow a linear progression like the form of a novel would, and this is what makes his memoir unique and interesting to read. On the other hand, Capote’s “Other Voices, Other Rooms” follows a linear progression, except for in the very beginning of part one, pages 9 to 13, where there is a brief flash-back to provide background about Joel’s life before, and directly after, the letter from his father arrived. While the lack of a father figurer is obvious in both Cooper and Capote’s work, the overall content, especially the setting, is vastly different. For example, Cooper writes as he is looking back on his interactions with his distant father during his childhood and early adolescents. There are still barriers that Cooper and father face latter in life, but they have also built a new relationship over time. Cooper also writes about his childhood home, and this experience of growing up in an upper-middle class neighborhood in California. Capote looks at completely different people in a very different part of the country. While, like Cooper, Capote’s character Joel Knox experiences a strange and broken family life as well, the economic and setting differs from Cooper’s memoir, and this content, specifically the setting of Noon City and “the Skulls,” plays a large part in Capote’s novel. For example, many people knew Cooper’s father because he had his own divorce law firm and was well known through his work. On the other hand, as early as chapter one in Capote’s “Other Voices, Other Rooms” Joel seems to assume that people will know of his father because of his name (8), but after a while it sets in that people do not know his father and some have never even seen him. The old, deteriorating mansion seems to convey that this life does not meet Joel’s initial expectations either: “The stifling room was musty; it smelled of old furniture and the burned-out fires of wintertime; gnat-like motes of dust circulated in the sunny air, and Joel left a dusty imprint on whatever he touched” (43).
Next, to return focus to Capote's talents as a writer, were there any characters or scenes in "Other Voices, Other Rooms" that struck you as intriguing, if so why?