The (too) warm-blooded genius of Truman Capote
Truman Capote. Dharamvir Bharati comes close with his deft handling of narrative nooks and crannies, most evident in his 1952 short novel 'Suraj ka Satvan Ghoda'.
But Capote is still better, because he was self-taught. Born dirt poor in the American South, he was raised by two maiden aunts in Alabama and had one close friend in childhood, Harper Lee, who too would grow up to be a prominent novelist. In Lee's 1960 classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, Capote appears as the character, Dill.
In the late 50s and early 60s, when Capote was writing In Cold Blood, Lee offered to be his research assistant and minder when they were in Kansas following the Clutter family murder trials on which the book is based. The 2005 movie Capote, with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in the eponymous role, captures the relationship wonderfully. While Capote never fully acknowledged Lee's role in the book, many of her observations about town folk, their routines and prejudices made In Cold Blood the true crime classic it is.
My first encounter with Capote was when I bought a copy of his 1958 novel, Breakfast at Tiffany's at Delhi University. I had seen the 1961 Blake Edwards movie, and while Audrey Hepburn's gamine charm and Henry Mancini's sharp score did make an impression on me, I thought the movie was too bland and too rose-coloured. I also felt it needed an edgier leading man than George Peppard.
The novel was witty and dark and had a tremendous narrative pace. I read it twice in a day and marvelled at the depth of Capote's talent and
