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July 2018 Group Read -- Spoiler thread for In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
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I am having trouble finding a new psychiatrist. I had been seeing one four times a year, but he's getting ready to retire. It is much better to have a psychiatrist than any kind of general practitioner when dealing with Central Nervous System medications -- the Benzodiazepines like Valium or Ativan, the antipsychotics and antidepressants. Yet changes to the medical system (and I don't blame so much the so-called "Obamacare" as the reaction to it) ensure that unless everyone has it, no one gets it -- unless one can spend a lot of money seeking it. The USA was not supposed to become like the UK with lowest-common-denominator health care for the masses but the "posh" or "Harley Street" type medico's for those who can pay out of pocket. Instead, somehow our system has contorted itself into becoming scarce, increasingly insufficient, and expensive for practically everyone. (Sigh!)
The healthcare system is necessary but it needs to be tweeked. Our current president said he’d lower medication costs(“believe me folks”) but they’ve gone up.
The views of the towns people are well written. Imagine being part of the volunteer crew who cleaned the clutter home.
Sherry wrote: "The views of the towns people are well written. Imagine being part of the volunteer crew who cleaned the clutter home."I thought that same thing, Sherry! I think that even more about first responders to some of the mass killings we experience today. I'm sure traumatized for life.
So true Suzi. I can’t imagine any training would fully prepare you for a scene like this!
As I’m reading, I’m wondering what it would be like to live in a town where everyone knows everyone and there’s a murder and you can’t trust people you’ve known all of your life. At the stage I’m at in the book, I see Capote trying to humanize Perry but portraying Dick in a much darker light. (Not that light is ever dark lol)There is some prejudice there. Perry is the one who supposedly beat a man to death in Las Vegas for no reason. I don’t think the fact that he wrote poetry or tried to fix Dicks grammar problems or had bad dreams because of his childhood abuse can win any sympathy whatsoever. If a man can beat another man to death just because, he’s cold and cruel. Period.
There were rumors that Capote had sexual encounters with Perry which might color his view about him. If those rumors are true it’s very unprofessional of him.
Just a note to say thanks everyone for the lively and informative conversation about In Cold Blood. Thanks for picking my nomination - I enjoyed reading the book and hearing everyone's thoughts and feelings on the book and on Capote (and a myriad of other topics too!).Oh, and Nancy just reminded in the other thread, that these conversations stay open forever, even if it is the last day of the month when the book was picked!
Sherry wrote: "As I’m reading, I’m wondering what it would be like to live in a town where everyone knows everyone and there’s a murder and you can’t trust people you’ve known all of your life. At the stage I’m..."
I grew up in a farming community of 2500 people, so I definitely know what it's like for everyone to know your business! But then, we didn't have any murders and you are right, it would have been awful to not be able to trust your neighbors!
I guess the point should be made that Garden City and Holcomb probably didn't harbor any more "bad blood" than any other such small communities (after all, people rarely speak of "Midwestern Gothic"). It was an agrarian economy with a grain-elevators-by-the-tracks hamlet (Holcomb) and a white-collar administrative and retail center (Garden City, seat of Finney County). Most people were Christians and apparently belonged to "name-brand" denominations. Most inhabitants were white of Western or Northern European extraction. Homogenous. Things have changed, since -- an influx of Mexicans in search of jobs with the local pork processor, for example (note the shift from smallish family farms to megafarms concurrent with this). Probably a less "diamond-shaped" economic structure with fewer folks inhabiting the middle strata (that is true for most of the country, after all). But folks couldn't get their heads around the senselessness of the slayings, the sheer meaningless of it all. (At some point in the book, someone actually says something like "It wouldn't have been so awful if it were any family less respected than the Clutters.")
Remember that Capote and Lee did not head west to write the nonfiction "Crime and Punishment." They were there to research a modest two-parter for the NEW YORKER magazine after the effect of the killings on the townspeople. Then Dick and Perry were arrested and brought back to Garden City and the follow-up story became an epic.
Now that we've all read the book I can certainly recommend the two overlapping IN COLD BLOOD biopics from 2005 and 2006: CAPOTE and INFAMOUS. CAPOTE was the one in which the impossibly large Philip Seymour Hoffman (R.I.P.) played the "Tiny Terror" and Katherine Keener played Nelle Harper Lee. It is based on the middle chapters of Gerald Clarke's literary biography
(note movie tie-in photo on the second-most-recent revision). It is a quality picture with solid performances, and usually rates a skosh higher at the IMDb than the 2006 biopic INFAMOUS starring Toby Jones and Sandra Bullock as Capote and Lee. INFAMOUS is technically based on George Plimpton's affectionate Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career
and is enlivened by wonderful little performances by actors like Sigourney Weaver as "Babe" Cushing Paley, Capote's top society "Swan"; Peter Bogdanovich as Bennett Cerf, his publisher; and Juliet Stephenson as irrepressible magazine editor Diana Vreeland of VOGUE, all of whom knew Capote well. It also drew from the Clarke biography for the Kansas-related events. In other words, CAPOTE is a standard literary biopic about the writing of IN COLD BLOOD while INFAMOUS shows more of Capote's personal and social at the time this was happening. INFAMOUS may have a lower IMDb rating, but I think it's funnier, although it completely mis-represented a Santa Fe passenger train of its era (which got a huge laugh at the theater, I must admit). Why not stream both?PS: Now I do have a question I've been dying to ask: Why do you suppose Capote includes those paragraphs of (IIRC) Mrs. Archibald Warren-Brown and her high-anglophilic talk of "Monte (Carlo)" and "mod(ern) con(venience)s" and "bloody monsters (coyotes)." There was no follow-up. Why this (to me) irrelevant infusion of continental color?
Sherry wrote: "The views of the towns people are well written. Imagine being part of the volunteer crew who cleaned the clutter home."Unimaginable. I think thankfully there are professionals that now do that job - but then, poor people, what a job to have! I also feel so sorry for anyone who has to find a body, including police. Both would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Suzy wrote: "Just a note to say thanks everyone for the lively and informative conversation about In Cold Blood. Thanks for picking my nomination - I enjoyed reading the book and hearing everyone's thoughts and..."Well chosen, Suzy. If it wasn’t for this group, I’m not sure I would have stumbled across this Classic, so thank you! It’s certainly been a lively and in-depth discussion (I wish I had the health to join in more of the threads) but even though the book is a detailed look into the mind/minds of killers, there’s still so many questions! I think it’s genius.
Ellen wrote: "Suzy wrote: "Just a note to say thanks everyone for the lively and informative conversation about In Cold Blood. Thanks for picking my nomination - I enjoyed reading the book and hearing everyone's..."I agree - so glad that the group chose this because I don't think I would have read it otherwise. I thought I read it when it first came out, but I think I only saw the movie. I too think it's genius - I love Capote's writing, controversies and all!
I agree with both of you. Capote was very good. I feel dumb for commenting as I’m reading. Perry never did beat that man to death. He made it up. I spoke too soon about that lol. He was still a bad person though!
In the non-spoiler thread, a poster indicated familiarity with the "Walker" or "second family" theory. You may recall that after the slaying, flight to Mexico, and return, Dick and Perry wound up in the stolen car, driving from the Midwest to the South through the Ozarks (no mean feat for flatlanders even now, once you get off the Interstates) and enjoyed a 'leisurely' (or was it "expensive"?) lunch at a Florida seaside shack. Near Osprey, Florida, on December 19, 1959 (a month and four days after the Clutters died), it is possible that Dick and Perry laid waste to another family -- the Walkers, a man and wife and two children. The killers' m.o. was not quite the same as the atrocity back at Holcomb, as the Walkers were killed in two "waves" as opportunity presented itself. IIRC Capote even alludes to it very strongly by having Perry ask Dick something along the lines of "those other people, there must be something wrong with us."
It was probably clever of Capote, in the pages of ICB, to have Dick and Perry reference that killing through their own muddle. That technique hedged Capote's bets, because it would have been embarrassing to both him and Nelle, who had to become amateur criminologist in the research for ICB, to have missed a second and quite similar slaying by Hickock and Smith if it had become viable.
Here's Wikipedia's take:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_...
Fast-forward to 2012, when the dormant "Walker Case' was reopened and Hickock's and Smith's bodies were exhumed in search of DNA evidence. (Doesn't this sound like something out of CSI Miami?)
In 2016, a book for general readership was published, apparently self-published, which bears the (to me) unfortunate title of In Colder Blood.
Per Amazon: "Two families, mysteriously murdered under similar circumstances, just a month apart. One was memorialized in Truman Capote’s classic novel, In Cold Blood. The other was all but forgotten. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith confessed to the first: the November 15, 1959 murder of a family of four in Holcomb, Kansas. Despite remarkable coincidences between the two crimes, they denied committing the second: the December 19 murder of a family of four in Osprey, Florida."
In Colder Blood by J.T. Hunter.
I myself am agnostic about the "Walker Theory." - a.s.
ALLEN wrote: "I guess the point should be made that Garden City and Holcomb probably didn't harbor any more "bad blood" than any other such small communities (after all, people rarely speak of "Midwestern Gothic..."I think Capote might have added Mrs. Archibald -Warren-Brown because he seemed to see himself as he saw her. “A peacock trapped on a turkey pen.” Capote was a social climber and a snob. I think Mrs. Archibald Warren-Brown could well have been Capote himself.
ALLEN wrote: "In the non-spoiler thread, a poster indicated familiarity with the "Walker" or "second family" theory. You may recall that after the slaying, flight to Mexico, and return, Dick and Perry wound up i..."It’s so hard to say. They seemed to open up about the first one which sent them to death row. What would they have to lose by confessing the other one? It’s an interesting thought though. They had no conscience so it’s more than possible.
Sherry wrote: "ALLEN wrote: "In the non-spoiler thread, a poster indicated familiarity with the "Walker" or "second family" theory. You may recall that after the slaying, flight to Mexico, and return, Dick and Pe..."I guess you're right about Mrs. Warren-Brown, Sherry. A bit of local color and a stand-in for Capote himself. I like the way he used orthography to portray her speech patterns: wasn't it "co-YO-tes howling all the night!" or something like that. Probably Finney County natives would have called the critters "KIGH-otes." A symbol for the sophisticated 'flash' Capote thought he embodied. If you've seen either CAPOTE or INFAMOUS, perhaps you'll agree with me that his expensive scarf was also a symbol of unimpeachable urbanity and luxury (and, to Finney County natives, effeminacy).
I really can't say about the Walker Theory except that we'll probably never know for sure, and at one time or another, the Florida authorities had 587 people in mind as potential murderers. Just playing the odds would make Hickock/Smith far less than a slam-dunk. And it remains true today, as it did then, that most people are killed by people they knew, if only slightly.
I need to see those movies. I read somewhere that Harper Lee did a lot of the interviews for In Cold Blood because the locals couldn’t handle Capote’s effeminate personality. However or whoever did what to get the book written it’s very well done.True that a lot of murders are committed by people the victims knew. This whole story is unusual, and so brutal.
Sherry wrote: "I need to see those movies. I read somewhere that Harper Lee did a lot of the interviews for In Cold Blood because the locals couldn’t handle Capote’s effeminate personality. However or whoever did..."Sherry, that's right out of Gerald Clarke's literary biography: Capote: A Biography. It probably wasn't merely Capote's effeminacy but the whole impact. Maybe it was in that book that someone said words to the effect that Capote was a little scary, but Nelle with her small-town ways could charm herself into the house (she often knocked at the back door, which she knew would lead into the kitchen), then would sit at the kitchen table let the folks talk, talk talk. I find this key: Nelle understood that unless you were formally "come a-calling" you'd use the back or side door; but the more citified Capote proceeded as though he were there "on business" and knocked at the front door. (When I was a boy in a rural area people rarely knocked at the front door unless they were cold-calling salesmen or motorists who had lost their way).
Of the two movies: In CAPOTE (2005) Catherine Keener played Nelle Harper Lee, more straightforward (someone said Nelle was Capote's "Jiminy Cricket" i.e., conscience). In INFAMOUS (2006), Sandra Bullock played Lee a touch lighter, as befits the more relaxed tone of the movie, that was as much about Capote back home in NYC as Capote in "alien" Kansas.
I'd better shut up. Don't want to spoil the treat. Both movies are well worth watching, and even though there's considerable overlap (at core they are both 'Capote and Lee in Kansas') they are a good deal different, too.
There was an arrogance there with Capote. That would be intimidating to nice small town people. Andy Warhol admired him and wanted to meet him. He had no time for him until he was famous. That shows his degree of snobbery.Sounds like Harper Lee had the common touch and related well to people. Capote was glitzier. He loved his fame. She was quieter and stayed out of the limelight.
The movies both sound very good.
Sherry, I got so nostalgic for one of those movies that Chuck agreed to screen it this afternoon here at home. That will make the third time for each of us. I barely mentioned that a 1997 made-for-TV production (apparently a joint CBS/Canadian venture) is available for cheap at Ammy. It is for completionists and fanatics like me only -- tone-deaf to so many of the nuances. But it does have nifty tidbits like a very young Ryan ("DEADPOOL") Reynolds as Bobby Rupp, and Gwen Verdon as a tough-talkin' gal. Anthony Edwards tried his best playing Dick Hickock, but I think he lacked the real character's essential meanness. Note also that the term "Mini-Series" is a squeaker. The actual run time sans commercials is just under three hours; and it ran over two evenings on CBS, just one in Canada. Most of it was filmed in Canada. Currently an IMDb 6.3, but at least it's cheap:
courtesy Amazon:
In Cold Blood - The Complete Mini-Series 1996
Unrated DVD
$5.47 $ 5 47 Prime
4.1 out of 5 stars 54
Starring: Anthony Edwards, Eric Roberts, et al.
Directed by:Jonathan Kaplan
Runtime: 2 hrs 59 mins
************************
I have appended some of my three-star review of this TV-movie:
"Cold Blood, Warmed Over" --
This 1996 made-for-TV movie cannot come close to matching the original 1967 black-and-white film starring John Forsythe, but it has some merits of its own. Both are based on the immensely influential 1966 "nonfiction novel" of the same name by Truman Capote about a farm family murdered in late 1959, but are quite different.
On the plus side, we get to see actors on the way up (Ryan Reynolds as Nancy Clutter's boyfriend Bobby Rupp) and at their peak (Sam Neill as Alvin Dewey, lead investigator for the Clutter family murders), also some old pros pulling cameo duty (Stella Stevens as owner of a worn-out Las Vegas hotel; Gwen Verdon as an outspoken Kansas postmistress). The screenplay preserves a great deal of the language of Capote's source book, IN COLD BLOOD.
On the minus side, the choice to film this movie in Alberta was problematic. Capote presents Garden City, Kansas and nearby Holcomb, home of the Clutter farm, as paradigmatically middle-American (which indeed, at the turn of the Sixties, they certainly were). This medium-budget production did not attempt to present the county seat of Garden City, Kansas, where the two murderers were tried, hence nothing of the trial in which the two murderers were sentenced to hang -- and a larger town subbed for the little wheatland village of Holcomb. By choice or direction, Anthony Edwards played one killer, Dick Hickock, as a mere bully of average intelligencee at best (in reality Hickock was a very bright, pathological narcissist with an estimated IQ of 130). His partner-in-murder, Perry Smith, was played by Eric Roberts, a far cry from the "runty" (Truman Capote's term) real-life Smith, whose legs had been surgically shortened following a motorcycle accident. While the actor chosen to play Perry doesn't necessarily have to be short (he was played by a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig in one of the mid-2000's Capote biopics), Roberts never really gets to the heart of Perry's character -- the "elfin" (again, Capote's term) charm masking the homicidal ruthlessness.
[ --- ]
For those interested in this very American tragedy, I would first of all recommend the book IN COLD BLOOD (1966), after that the black-and-white semi-documentary movie of the same name that followed just a year after. (Both are available here.) This movie comes at a good price, but I should emphasize that the term "mini-series" is overblown: this Made-for-TV movie occupies just under three hours of screen time and was shown over two evenings on CBS, in only one showing on Canadian TV.
I’ve not heard of some of these. Our library has the Philip Seymour Hoffman version. I’m amazed at what a terrible liar Perry is. He speaks out his fantasies as though they are truth. He wants to deep sea dive and he can’t swim! He casually talks about beating a man to death and it never happened. If you knew someone like that you couldn’t believe a word they say.
Oh, Perry was majorly messed up in the head. (Some ungrateful critics have gone so far as to suggest that the intelligent, narcissistic, macho and apparently pedophilic Dick Hickock deserved more book time than did Perry). Apparently there were some people who loved him in spite of himself (Joe James, who took Perry in after his motorcycle accident and treated him as a member of the family; also Don Cullivan), while others developed an immediate dislike (Dick's mother, for example a generally mild-mannered woman who was repulsed by Perry's mannerisms, pomaded hair and ex-con status). But along with the folks who loved Perry in spite of himself, there were some who couldn't stand him. Capote was not obliged to elaborate on how many people were exposed to Perry's "firecracker" temper and concluded that, despite his good traits and budding talents, was "damaged goods" nonetheless -- though Perry's judgmental surviving sister who wrote that passive-aggressive letter is probably in that category. Usually to know Perry was not to love him, but to feel ambivalent about him or reject him outright. The cliches "short fuse" and "accident waiting to happen" occurred to me when I was reading about Perry.
Still, I can feel sorry for Perry. That doesn't excuse what he eventually became and what he did, but God knows the boy never had a chance growing up -- sadistic nuns, alcoholic father and mother, familial suicide, and the national disaster we call the Great Depression all conspired to harm him to the core. I also recall the point in which Perry had hoped to contact a fellow "alumnus" (ex-con) who had just been released, and the warden (or was it chaplain?) basically told him that he had a chance at a good clean (i.e. practicing Catholic and employed) life and that he wouldn't give Perry the other man's address even if he wanted to. I hear racism and perhaps homophobia coming out of that prison official. So Perry did have some justification in believing believe people wouldn't cut him an even break.
You'll recall that Capote talks at length about the state of Kansas' adherence to the M'Naughten rule (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, "McNaughten") and how it precluded any kind of analytical psychiatric evaluation -- this in spite of the fact that one shrink felt so strongly about the case he offered his services for free. (I do not deny that Dick and Perry, together, killed four souls that night in Holcomb.)
In the late Fifties and on into the Sixties, the rootlessness of Dick and Perry still shocked middle-class Americans. No intermediate-length or "regional" jet travel, no Interstate highways; and most "respectable" folk stayed in the town of their birth or moved once (as did Herb Clutter) to take advantage of economic opportunity. Itinerants and poor people who rented marginal dwellings did not have much of a say in the overall scheme of things -- I wonder how much better-off they are today?
Sherry, I'm not surprised you had not yet heard about all four movie adaptations. My partner and I hauled out IMFAMOUS (2006) last night and enjoyed it even on the fourth viewing. . .
An interesting feature of both CAPOTE and INFAMOUS is that at least one major character in each film was cast with complete disregard of the physical qualities of the character portrayed. Although standing nearly a foot taller than CAPOTE, Philip Seymour Hoffman was cast as the 'tiny' terror. (He couldn't be physically 'exuberant' in Capote's manner so he wisely played the man as fey and perhaps a little buzzed.) In INFAMOUS, UK actor Toby Jones played Capote, and although the late P.S. Hofmann's role may have been more impressive because he had been cast against physical type, most people feel Toby Jones "nailed it" in Capote's attitude, mannerisms, voice (In the movie, Gore Vidal said it was like a "Brussels sprout, if a Brussels sprout could talk").
On the other hand, a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig played Perry Smith (Robert Blake in the 1967 docu-drama was a near lookalike for little Perry), and played the role to emphasize his muscularity as well as his flash-fire temper. The real Perry Smith certainly exasperated Truman Capote in his researches, may well have threatened him, but did not achieve the towering dominance over Capote that INFAMOUS portrays. I also noticed on last night's viewing -- for the first time -- that while the actor portraying Dick Hickock always wore button-down work shirts with sleeves in prison, Perry (Craig) was usually put in a sleeveless muscle shirt, the better to show off his well-developed "guns" I suppose.
Nevertheless, both INFAMOUS and CAPOTE are fine movies.
Sherry, if your library doesn't carry Gerald Clarke's literary biography Capote, then perhaps it ought to abandon any pretense at video discs and go back to books. I still have a couple of copies left and will be happy to send you one, gratis. Contact me separately if you are interested. - ALLEN
ALLEN wrote: "Oh, Perry was majorly messed up in the head. (Some ungrateful critics have gone so far as to suggest that the intelligent, narcissistic, macho and apparently pedophilic Dick Hickock deserved more b..."Thanks so much for offering Gerald Clarke’s Capote. I found it on overdrive. That is a kind offer though.
I thought Robert Blake was a good choice for the movie. He was very good, The other guy was good too but Blake stole the show IMO.
I realize there are reasons to feel sorry for Perry but his sister chose to try to be decent. She had the same parents and tried to stay on the right track. She might have been preachy to Perry but she knew right from wrong and it seems her brother didn’t. He felt justified in ripping off the people he resented. He resents all emotionalism because he chooses to be hard and cold. He could take what his sister says to heart but he would rather hate her and wish her dead.
He made very disastrous choices. That’s all on him. I guess we could feel sorry for every dangerous criminal if we knew everything about them but the bottom line is that he was responsible for killing 4 people for no good reason. It’s poetic justice that they only got about 40 bucks.
At this point I’ve just started part 3. Capote has focused most of the book on Perry. I don’t really know what the motivation is. We know very little about Dick and everything Capote writes about him is ugly. He’s not the dreamer who makes people sad like Perry is. We just see his actions. He’s a cold smooth con man who uses people and tosses them. He depends on no one. Whereas Perry is attached to Dick and afraid to break away. It’s an ugly mix.
As Perry confesses the things he did he has this odd go soft while you brutally murder people thing going but manages to put the brunt of guilt on Dick. He continuously acts like Dick is the cold one. He’s pretty sick and Weasley. He slits a mans throat but blames his partner. For all of Capotes efforts to bring sympathy to Perry it doesn’t work. He’s actually the bigger monster of the two. He’s trying to make himself out to make himself a nice guy. They’re both slime. He didn’t have to follow Dick’s orders. I must have missed something along the way because as Perry’s sister is looking at pictures from the past she tells herself that she knows that Perry threw that guy off the bridge. It’s in reference to nothing as far as I know.
Another out of the blue thing is Perry talking about how Dick likes to rape young girls. It’s written in such a way that makes you think Perry has witnessed it or that Dick admitted it. It’s a paragraph from nowhere. I think with all of the research Capote did, these 2 parts are badly done IMHO.
Quite right, Sherry: To me Dick>Perry is like comparing crazy to CRAAA-zy: Dick was a smart psychopath who, like Perry, held a grudge against the world; Perry knew he was by virtue of his upbringing "damaged goods" which he thought excused him from moral responsibility. Perry was so messed-up as to be beyond Dick in the "hair-trigger temper" department, a point that is made over and over by Willie-Jay and others. I don't have ICB to hand but the point must be remembered that the closest thing the boys got to a psych. eval. was done at a distance based on secondary evidence by Kansas' Menninger Clinic (which has since moved to Houston, by the way). The study, part of which is quoted in ICB, talked about how the two personalities fused to form the rage that made such truly cold-blooded killings possible.
To Perry's strangely muddled, self-deprecating yet curiously self-aggrandizing way of thinking, Dick was the logical cold, analytical, "truly masculine" one, leaving Perry to be either the muse or the stooge depending on how he wanted to spin the scenario. As you say, Sherry, Perry wants to be taken for a nice guy though he was perfectly willing to trade on any pity that came his way.
Capote tells us that Dick could quickly transform himself into the appearance of a "nice guy" (or was it something like "All-American 'good kid', likeable but not too bright"?), when in fact Dick had an estimated IQ of 130 and was all about manipulation. If you get to see the 1967 IN COLD BLOOD docudrama, which follows the print ICB surprisingly well, pay close attention to the scene in the Kansas City men's store when Dick gulls the hapless store clerk out of half-a-wardrobe's worth of clothing, and then writes a personal check for more than that! ) The world is full of "amoral con men," and the way Scott Wilson played Dick in the '67 movie helps us understand that.
Absolutely Perry was irresistible to Truman Capote, with or without the largely fictional homoerotic sequence in the movie IMFAMOUS (2006).
Modern moralists, please note: The killings required no Uzi's, but only a couple of shotguns, some gags, white-nylon rope, an oversized Bowie knife or two, and lots of planning, which was impeccable except at core -- no money in the Clutter house. The "destructive dyad" is what did the killing. I can't help but think of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in Dave Cullen's admirable COLUMBINE book.
A Manual for Psychiatric Case Study: Menninger Clinic Monograph Series, No. 8 by Karl Menninger -- which if memory serves was one of the bases for today's DSM series;
Columbine by Dave Cullen.
There’s just something bizarre about tying people up in such a way that if they struggle they will damage themselves but make sure they’re on a soft mattress. Perry almost acts like a religious person who tries to justify sins except he’s extremely anti religion.
The Columbine killings were done out of self pity. How many kids are bullied and never think of violence? It’s someone else’s fault.
Dick and Perry were angry at the world. In both cases they could have chosen a decent life. Dick says people fell for his cons because they’re stupid. Perry hates his sister because he sees her as judgmental. Well... yeah he’s a criminal. In both cases it’s someone else’s fault. Criminals don’t take personal responsibility.
A friend of mine once knew quite well a former nun who later became an S/M prostitute. This is no slur on religion (or prostitutes), but something about people who fall into one authoritarian structure, want to replicate it in later life in a different form. You may recall that Perry and his buddy were not averse to "bopping" a woman and aggressively stealing the little bit of money she had, then using eat to eat themselves "under the table" in a "Chink" restaurant. Little Perry could have been no more than ten or twelve at the time -- As the twig is bent, so grows the tree?
BTW I think it's great to be having a discussion into August! This thread is open-ended. I wonder if anyone would like to me to talk -- briefly -- about an aspect of ICB I have long meant to touch on here, but haven't yet really -- Capote's prose style, the way his sentences read and sound?
Actually Capote has a talent in the way he strings words together but I’m still wondering about his out of the blue thoughts that have no grounding. Like I mentioned before, Perry’s sister says she has no doubt that Perry threw that guy off the bridge...what guy? Or how he talks about Dick’s sexual aggression towards kids. Something must have happened that wasn’t mentioned because they met in jail. So in this time frame, Dick must have said or done something to cause Perry to say these things (or think them)He writes things that come out of nowhere with no grounding.
Sherry, let's not confuse pure invention, the out-of-the-blue tales you mentioned just now, with how Capote portrayed them. Perry did mention in one of his interview sessions (he was musing and recollecting) that he threw a man off a bridge because there "wasn't enough room for both of them[paraphrase]." I know it sounds like something out of a Forties movie but then, Perry was no stranger to Forties movies. I do believe Perry told Capote that, and that it wasn't Capote's invention. We aren't sure if Perry actually DID that (consider the embellishment of his murder-a-minority-man theme), but surely his sister, the one in suburban San Francisco, the one who survived the family relatively unscathed -- lends validity to Perry's wishful bragging. I guess a TV lawyer show would call it "corroborating testimony."
Dick Hickock wound up in jail numerous times, for writing bad checks and otherwise playing a not-as-clever-as-he-thought grifter. I believe he wound up in prison as something with violence in it -- armed robbery, was it? (Right now, Sherry, you have me at a disadvantage because I put away my ICB copy several days ago.)
You might be interested in the attached Wikipedia biography of Dick. I was grimly amused by the fact that his career block mentions criminality ahead of such honest jobs as railroad worker. (Quite accurately -- he was a textbook example of a grifter-turned-con.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard...
I agree that Dick's presumed pedophilia is a little hit-and-miss. But it is entirely possible (indeed, typical) of most psychopaths that they can be completely remorseless and act in a completely cold-blooded manner, yet retain sympathy and human emotions for things in their life that are very intimate to them -- typically family. Recall that Dick felt ashamed at having "hung out paper" (passed checks) and left his poor ailing father in the lurch when the wronged retailers or the law come looking for next-of-kin. His folks were fine people. Nonetheless, he divorced his first wife, left her with his two children, married a second woman and (this amazes me) missed the first wife and kids. "Inability to form and pursue long-range goals" is putting it mildly, I think.
Like Perry, Dick had a way of trying to get what he wanted whether or not it agreed with common morality, and then blaming society for his deficits, not any character defects on his part. (This actually is the part of the boys' stories that rings most modern to me; my Depression-reared parents said "The world doesn't owe you a living" but whatever the current phrase is, that narcissism goes on and on.)
It's likely, I think, that Dick's human feelings toward his family were genuine, but he was so adept at playing the con man (passing checks in a fake Air Force officer's uniform, for example) -- to me that doesn't humanize Dick for me; the back-and-forthing between personalities frightens me in some ways more than Perry did. Psychopaths are always thinking, always manipulating, always wanting to be your friend and then lower the boom. Everything I've read or heard about psychopathic personalities says that plainly. Dick's "good kid" face-tightening smile, coupled with amazing amounts of insensitive gall, were great assets to him. I've met too many Dicks in my life -- most of them are the type who don't result to murderous violence, it's more a matter of stepping-on-people's toes on the way up and then forgetting all about it. You may have heard it said of people (I have): "He wants what he wants when he wants it." The indicated people aren't necessarily psychopaths, but lots of psychopaths fit into that description all too well.
Yet it is entirely possible to loathe Dick and feel sorry for Perry.
I'm not denying they were both slime by almost anyone's judgment.
They’re both scary characters and each one thought of killing the other and didn’t go through with it. That is the bottom line I think. If you met either one of them on the wrong day you’d be in trouble.I’d have felt sorry for Perry if instead of becoming a bitter cold and vicious killer he’d have tried an honest life. The problem is that his anger was uncontrolled and caused him to murder. I think the anger was always there. The hatred brewed all the time. He was evil and so was Dick. It’s not hard to believe that Dick had pedophile tendencies since both wives were only 16 yrs old. Yuck!
This is a case of nature va nurture. Perry had terrible parents and Dicks parents adored him. I wonder how Dick was before and after the car accident. It actually affected his face. I wonder if brain damage affected his conscience. It would depend on where his mind was damaged. Perry was very hateful of his parents and it seems his father was highly abusive of him. Who knows why they were the way they were or how much happened because they were together.
Rhetorical Question: Can a literary masterpiece be written about evil men?
I surely remember this imperfectly, but when In Cold Blood came out I noticed the comment of Norman Mailer that Capote's effort was a "failure of imagination." I am, and was, a Mailer (and Capote) admirer, and took it to be a confession that it was he (Mailer) who suffered the failure. Later he wrote the Pulitzer winner about Gilmore and caught up. I had not yet started writing novels in this period, but the "failure of imagination" has stuck with me during each of my novels. What am I missing? These remarkable insights, such as Capote's, come so fairly rarely, that whatever "It" is I take it I am entitled to miss it. I looked up some of Bram Stoker's novels in the university library storage archives. They aren't too good. Then out of the blue the amazing Dracula.
Jennifer wrote: "I surely remember this imperfectly, but when In Cold Blood came out I noticed the comment of Norman Mailer that Capote's effort was a "failure of imagination." I am, and was, a Mailer (and Capote) ..."Thanks for your insights as a writer, Jennifer!
Suzy wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "I surely remember this imperfectly, but when In Cold Blood came out I noticed the comment of Norman Mailer that Capote's effort was a "failure of imagination." I am, and was, a Mai..."It also behooves me to say (and I may have quoted more precisely way above) that pre IN COLD BLOOD Mailer typified Capote as "A ballsy little guy, prim as a maiden aunt, [but] word for word, rhythm for rhythm, [he] writes the best [contemporary] prose in our language[paraphrase]."
Very few times in my life have I read a book to read a book. I study books, entering the text from all directions looking for the neat thing, but I remember In Cold Blood as a case of wall to wall reading for the high. He delivered.
Jennifer wrote: "Very few times in my life have I read a book to read a book. I study books, entering the text from all directions looking for the neat thing, but I remember In Cold Blood as a case of wall to wall ..."Thank you for that lovely testimonial, Jennifer. What I remember of IN COLD BLOOD, in addition to all the other aspects we've discussed at this thread, are the brilliance of Capote's writerly choices. When he penned phrases like "those celebrated expresses" (instead of "Santa Fe passenger trains"), or "the day's arid glitter" (instead of "another beautiful Indian-summer day"), I recall those choices. In fact, for the longest time (and perhaps yet today), teachers of creative writing often cited this book for its examples of powerful writing. IN COLD BLOOD helped me, if only in a modest way suiting my modest talents, when I undertook to write and review professionally.
I must say I'm also pleased that a "July" discussion still bears fruit!
Hi Allen,I don't have that many favorites. I took to Capote when I read In Cold Blood and then stayed with him. I very much enjoyed his appearances on late night shows. He had a very strong presence. A man of considerable courage. That was a big part. I also read in his work the uncanny talent to relate to people. People responded to his honesty. Courage was a part of this. Come to think of it the Playboy interview with Marlon Brando got to me first.
I'm not sure I should make a commercial recommendation, but that "celebrated" Esquire magazine essay, "The Duke In His Domain," is available now not only in volumes of collected Capote essays, but as a standalone at Amazon and Book Depository:https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Du...
Hi Allen,Recently the family was sitting around after dinner reluctant to death to even think about Netflix, so I suggested a movie from long ago. Groan, groan, but they agreed they wouldn't leave the house for ten minutes. "You have ten minutes. Make us laugh." So I put on Five Fingers. They admitted they loved it in their own ways, which, without prompting included an appreciation of the dialogue. I tossed out the name, Michael Wilson, and left it that they could look him up. One of the greats. This kind of stuff is what I love about the writing thing.
Charles
Hi Allen,A mistake. I thought I was on the James Mason Community Book Group.
Charles
The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group
Books mentioned in this topic
Columbine (other topics)A Manual for Psychiatric Case Study: Menninger Clinic Monograph Series, No. 8 (other topics)
Capote (other topics)
Capote (other topics)
In Colder Blood (other topics)
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I think the stigma of getting mental help is finally fading. The knowledge of mental illness seems to have grown quite a bit in a relatively short time.