Bright Young Things discussion
Group Reads Archive
>
A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote - Whole Book Thread
date
newest »
newest »
Thanks for the invite, Ally. This is one of my favorite holiday stories. I work in a library and every year a local actor performs this book at a library program. The first time I saw it she had me crying at the end when she mentioned the kites. I'm from Birmingham, AL, and love the southern flavor of this book. And it's the only time I ever want to eat fruitcake. :-/
Hi everyone, and thanks for inviting me to discuss this sweet book. It's inspired me to re-read it. Just last week I read The Thanksgiving Visitor again. I don't love it as well as I do Capote's Christmas story, though.Tressa, I am also from Birmingham, and the language of the story takes me back to family events and conjures images of odd relatives and quirky Southern ways. Is it Dolores Hydock who does the performance? Can you post the date and time here?
And while I like the description, I must admit I never want to eat fruitcake...
Yes, Lyn, it is Dolores Hydock who does the performance. She has two performances this year:
December 8
Central Library
12:00-1:00
December 9
Central Library
6:30-7:30
I think I want Sook's fruitcake because it's dowsed with rum.
I'll take my rum in a nice, refreshing mojito.Maybe I'll see you at one of those readings!
Yes, it would be nice to meet another GRer. I usually attend the daytime program but might try to get my husband to come and watch the nighttime performance. I would like my son to see it, too, but he's only 6 1/2 so I might be pushing it expecting him to sit through a stage act like it was Toy Story 3 3D.
Come on over, Ivan. The more the merrier.
Mod
Ally
Maybe I can start the conversation. I've read the book and seen the 1966 film, and they're among my fondest memories of Christmas. It's about what Christmas SHOULD be--love, good friends, the joy of giving to others. It's also about growing up and losing the people you love as you and they grow older. There's really not a lot to say about it other than that, as the themes are right there on the surface, not buried under layers of plot and subplot.
It's also about our assumptions of people; how they can be so off the mark. The other relatives assumed Sook wasn't a good influence on Buddy and so they shipped him off to military school. Not everyone is perfect; some are a little soft in the head, but harmless and loving and a lot of fun.
I love this story. I try to read it, and/or watch it every year. I bought Sook's Cookbook and my great-nephew and I make the sugar cookies together.I grew up on a farm in New England many years ago, with a woodstove in the kitchen, and lots of odd relatives about. I could relate.
As I stated in another thread this is my favorite Christmas story. Truman is my favorite author, and this is one of his finest achievements. He specialized is short stories and novellas, and quite a number of these took place in this same era, and all were at least semi-autobiographical. I really don't care what people thought of Capote as a person or a personality (I didn't know him - why would I care?). What I do know is his work; it touches my heart. It seems somehow pure and honest and real; it often touches something that is raw - a nerve, a wound, a hidden secret feeling that is revealed to be not at all unique, but shared and special.
The entire last section is like a prose poem.
I agree; his work is brilliant, very sensitive. Just as I don't care that Richard Wagner was ant-Semitic or that Herbert von Karajan joined the Nazi party. Their work can be separated from their person.See the other thread about making a copy of the audio file.
Page was only 42 when she made that. She had away of playing much older women flawlessly. And she was primarily a stage actress, but I never had the pleasure of seeing her onstage.Could be his mother who shipped him off to military school, possibly upon recommendation of the aunts. He lived in Alabama after his parents divorced. His mother, second husband and Truman moved to NYC in 1933, and he attended military school around 1936. But in the story, we hear nothing about his mother, and the events are compressed. It's so much more literary to say "Those who Know Best", put into capitals to show sarcasm.
I believe The Grass Harp is also based on his 5 years in Alabama.
And a fine movie, I hear, with a first-rate cast.http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/revie...
And the trailer: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/13505...
Mod
Anyway - this was a very easy read - only took me around 30 minutes. - I now have a collection of Capote's short stories so I've vebtured into some others - I'm half-way through 'The Thanksgiving Visitor'.
I have to say that I find Capote's style of writing very engaging. He has a gifted turn of phrase. But I when I'd finished, at first all I could think was 'is that it?'. - I re-read it and picked up on more of the nuances and depths of feeling and tradition.
As an English person, whose winters and Christmases involve snowy cold mistletoe and holly infested scenes - I find the Alabama version very strange! - but despite the physical differences, the emotions, the sentiments and the seasonal good will are very much the same.
Mod
Ally
Ally wrote: "How ingrained into American culture is this story? - is it as big as, say, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickins?Ally"
Oh, no, not at all. It has a following, but nothing on the scale of the Dickens classic which is as popular/beloved here as in England.
Tell us about this English tradition of ghost stories at Christmas.
Mod
Well now - I wasn't aware that there was one! he he.
I can only assume that Dickins maybe set of a trend when A Christmas Carol was so poular and that ghostly tales were written to capitalise on this. Or maybe the English Chrismas weather and cold eeriness lends itself to ghostly tales...and there's always the Chrismas song 'Its the most wonderful time of the year' - thats go a line about ghost stories.
Unfortunately I don't know anyone who followa this tradition. perhaps its a popular myth???
Any other English members out there know anythng about a Ghost Tale tradition in England at Christmas?
Ally
I brought that up because I read "The Woman in Black" - which begins with the family telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve.
The song phrase, Ally, is probably a reference to Dickens. Comparing the 2 novellas in popularity: Capote's book has been filmed twice, Dickens' this many:
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=tt&q=a...
You should see Christmas in Florida, with the light strung on palm trees.
I'm in Florida - but north (Tallahassee is 28 miles south of the Georgia border) - so no palms (well, maybe one or two).
I'd about given up on finding this book. Not at any stores I went to and didn't feel like ordering on line.Last year for Christmas, my mother gave me the Everyman's Pocket Classic "Christmas Stories" (I can't find the link, it is too generic a title to pop up quickly) and it being Christmas, I thought I would take a look at it. Lo and behold! It has this story in it. I'll try to read it tonight.
But it looks like it has some interesting selections, including one from Evelyn Waugh, "Bella Fleece gave a party".
Mod
I have to wonder, though, why did he tell us the ending in the first story? Why did he tell us about Miss Sook and the little dog (name is escaping me at the moment) dying only to bring them back in the other stories? Did he not intend to write other stories involving these characters?
These stories were published independently of one another. The Thanksgiving Visitor was written a decade after A Christmas Memory (which was first published with Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1958). The dog's name was Queenie, and she's buried in Simpson's pasture with her bones. Jim Macy's horse kicked her real bad.
Jennifer W wrote: "I have to wonder, though, why did he tell us the ending in the first story? Why did he tell us about Miss Sook and the little dog (name is escaping me at the moment) dying only to bring them back in the other stories? Did he not intend to write other stories involving these characters? "This is really more of a memoir than a story.
She's based on the distant cousin with whom he lived for 5 years after his mother's divorce. Read the sections where we discuss the background of the book and the film.
Mod
Thanks, Ivan, that makes sense.
Lauren wrote"I thought this was a great example of how publishing has changed with the advent of the Internet - I feel like easy access to previously published material may have changed how Mr. Capote structured the stories."Could you please clarify that?
Here's an interesting article about how publishing has changed, not just with electronic books, but also in marketing methods.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/201...
Question some of the timing? Forgiving? It sounds like we're making excuses for the dumbed down readers of the current generation. If they're too limited to appreciate Capote, I can only imagine how they would view Austin or James or Virigina Woolf.
Lauren, some of these stories are really memoirs in disguise, meaning they don't have the exacting structure of beginning, middle, end of a fictional story. Nor do they have the chronology of straight autobiography. Memoirs of writers or roman a clefs are still very much in fashion. Philip Roth has written 9 novels about Nathan Zuckerman, a narrator based on himself. But the list of writers who base characters on themselves is endless.
OK, I see your point. But Capote's stories were not portrayed as memoirs, but fiction, so he could manipulate them however he wanted. Dinesen and Hemingway compressed characters and events and fictionalized in their books too. It's called "literary license." These writers were fortunate in living before the internet and did not have their every word and every minute of their lives reviewed in print by 16-year-olds, picked to pieces, analyzed and blogged upon. The internet has brought plenty that's obnoxious and anti-intellectual aside from its benefits. And there are about equal amounts of false and true information on the net.
Lauren - it was a brief comment, but not "small." Please, no need to apologize - your comment has kept the thread going and brought up an interesting question. Written conversation is so different from verbal conversation - it's easy to misunderstand a comment. I never reply to my supervisor's e-mails immediately (or I'd be fired). :O)James Fry should have called his memoir a novel - that was his mistake. Had he done so Oprah wouldn't have had grounds to attack him. Also, in the case of Fry, a memoir can be flawed (its allowed) because it's basically how one person remembers things; that doesn't mean you can simply make stuff up, as he apparently did.
Perhaps the internet will kill the "celebrity" memoir; what with their lives so well documented, they'll no longer be allowed to write about events, meetings or conversations "as they remember them." Instead they'll have to hire a team of fact checkers to go over each sentence. That'll be sad because LIFE is contradiction - look at the holy scriptures (they're filled with them).
Happily, Capote's stories are technology free.
Mod
Can I recommend John Carey's book What Good Are the Arts? - it's really fascinating to go into the concepts behind 'poetic licence' (mentioned by Rochelle) and the purpose of fiction, whether that is to reflect reality, to prove a point, to 'be beautiful' ...
The early 20th century excels in exploring what fiction is all about, whether that is based in memoir or fantastical imagination!
Ally
I think our ages play into this too. I was educated without computers or the internet, and although I'm an expert at using its resources, I still read pretty much the way I did 40 years ago. I use the internet for background on the author and insights into the book, but I don't hang on every word on the net, knowing that much of it is unreliable or written by the general public. I still read the reviews in the NY Times Book Review and The New Yorker to choose books, with a few literary magazines thrown in, if they have an online presence.
Mod
I wonder why capote sectioned it this way? or whether he didn't and publishers did? - does each section have a theme? - I've tried to work it out but I'm just not sure...can anyone help!?!
Ally
I count four parts, and really just view the breaks as natural stopping points where the reader can briefly pause and reflect.My copy has three stories: "A Christmas Memory," "One Christmas" and "The Thanksgiving Visitor" - could it be the internet site you saw was noting three Christmas stories in one volume?
Mod
I wondered whether it may denote the passing of time? - i.e. remembering the old woman (the past), the perparation for christmas, then Christmas eve and christmas day. - its a linear story - there arent really any flashbacks or forwards its just quite straightforwafrd in a timing sense (obviously the mood and emotions are more evocative). Unless of course you see the whole thing as a flashback!
Ally
It's straightforward in the story, but in reality he's condensing Christmas memories of 5 years, when he lived with the cousins in Alabama. I don't have sections in my copy, but there are natural stopping places.
Bright Young Things
Books mentioned in this topic
What Good Are the Arts? (other topics)A Christmas Memory (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
John Carey (other topics)Truman Capote (other topics)
enjoy!