About book Answered Prayers - The Unfinished Novel (1994)
Too bad that this is an unfinished novel. I could have given this at least 4 stars.According to Wiki, Capote was not able to finish this novel because he got busy with the stardom In Cold Blood (4 stars) gave him. In 1966, he signed a contract with Random House to write this book with January 1st 1968 as the delivery date. He missed the date and the contract was renegotiated in 1969 with 1973 as the new delivery date. He missed again so it was moved further to 1974. Missed again so on to 1977. Missed again so it was moved to 1981. Then he died of liver cancer in 1984. He was 59 years old.But he was able to finish these 4 chapters and they got published in Esquire. One of the four, "Mojave" was moved to his earlier book Music for Chameleons (3 stars) and only 3 got compiled in this book that was first published in 1986, the year of his death.The story revolves around P. B. Jones the 30ish masseur who is also the narrator of the story. Jones is also an aspiring writer so he always looks forward to meeting writers and entertainment personalities. Not contented with his income, he is lured to also sell his body as a male prostitute catering to the needs of rich gays and lonely matrons.Capote's original plan was to make this book the modern counterpart of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. The whole idea was to write his own experiences including the lives of the rich and famous in the high society but changing the names of his characters to protect them. Well, he did that in these 3 chapters and the result, for me, was very promising: the prose is well-written, the exposes are intriguing and the telling is frank and no-holds-barred. I do not know all of these people mentioned in the book except those famous ones whose real names Capote used such these three: here Montgomery Cliff is being touched by the drunk Dorothy Parker and Estelle Winwood is telling Dottie to stop but she continues: "Sensitive. So finely made. The most beautiful young man I've ever seen. What a pity he's a cocksucker."Kate McCloud (2nd chapter) or Ann Dillon (3rd chapter) are housewives of rich businessmen who they killed apparently to get their inheritance and marry their respective lovers. Well, another reason why Capote was unable to finish this book was that the characters in this book were his friends and upon publication of the stories, they started to stay away from him. An example of this is the chapter "La Cote Basque" that readers are saying to be a resemblance of what happened to Capote's benefactor, CBS Mogul Bill Paley and his wife Babe. Another Wiki entry says that Kate McCloud was in fact a real person who shot her husband in the shower thinking that he was a burglar. She went unpunished, got her inheritance but later killed herself. Their two kids also committed suicide some years later.These juicy exposes that Capote told in elegant fashion make this book really an entertaining read. Behind the posh and glamour of the American and Parisian societies are stories of prostitution, drugs, alcoholism, deceit and murder. However, the book does not end up like those showbiz gossip magazines, Capote is too brilliant to allow his last book to be like those.An example is this scene when Woodrow Hamilton is asking P. B. Jones about the novel that the latter is trying to write. Jones says that the title is Answered Prayers.:WH: "Answered Prayers. A quote. I suppose."PBJ: "St. Teresa. I never looked it up myself, so I don't know exactly what she said, but it was something like 'More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.'"WH: "I see a light flickering. This book - it's about Kate McCloud, and gang."PBJ: "I wouldn't say it's about them - though they're in it."WH: "Then what is it about?"PBJ: "Truth as illusion."WH: "And illusion is truth?"PBJ: "The first. The second is another proposition."WH: "How so?"PBJ: "As truth is nonexistent, it can never be anything but illusion - but illusion, the by-product of revealing artifice, can reach the summits nearer the unobtainable peak of Perfect Truth. For example, female impersonators. The impersonator is in fact a man (truth), until he recreates himself as a woman (illusion) - and of the two, the illusion is the truer."If that is not brilliant writing, I don't know what it is.
Truman Capote classificou “Súplicas Atendidas” como “um equivalente contemporâneo da obra-prima de Marcel Proust Em Busca do Tempo Perdido”.Na página 68, numa conversa sobre o escritor John Cheever, podemos ler:“Porque quando qualquer coisa é verdadeira não significa que seja convincente, quer na vida real ou em arte. Pensa no Proust. Em Busca do Tempo Perdido teria o impacto que tem se fosse historicamente literal, se Proust não tivesse transposto sexos e alterado acontecimentos e identidades? Se ele tivesse sido absolutamente factual, teria sido menos credível, mas – isso era o que eu pensava muitas vezes – mas talvez fosse melhor…A questão é a seguinte: é a verdade uma ilusão, ou a ilusão verdade, ou são ambas essencialmente a mesma coisa? Pessoalmente estou-me nas tintas quanto ao que os outros dizem de mim, desde que não seja verdade."Quem fala assim é o narrador, P.B.Jones, bissexual , escritor ou aspirante a tal, acrescentando que está a preparar um romance - “Se jamais o acabar. Claro está que nunca acabo nada.”-, cujo título será “Súplicas Atendidas” baseado numa frase de Santa Teresa:“Mais lágrimas são choradas por súplicas atendidas do que por aquelas que não o são.”P.B.Jones, boémio com uma vida de expedientes e incapaz de parar quieto, relata-nos a vida social de uma época com pormenores sobre a vida sexual e privada de artistas, milionários e até membros de famílias reais famosos, sem ocultar a sua verdadeira identidade.Livro incompleto(o que tem as suas vantagens, pois podemos dar largas à nossa imaginação), publicado depois da morte de Capote, gerou uma enorme controvérsia e contestação como se pode confirmar por três comentários publicados na revista Esquire:"Chocantemente repugnante e completamente difamatório."Tennessee Williams, dramaturgo"Capote morde as mãos que o alimentam."New York Magazine"Aquele serzinho desprezível e sujo nunca mais vai colocar os pés nas minhas festas."Nedda Logan, atrizNão me fez esquecer Breakfast at Tiffany´s , mas gostei de ler; é um livro muito masculino que me lembrou um outro escrito num tom muito diferente: “Paris é Uma Festa” de Ernest Hemingway, tanto mais que o velho Papa neste livro alerta o leitor nos seguintes termos:“Se o leitor preferir, poderá considerar este livro como uma obra de ficção. Mas existe sempre a possibilidade de semelhante livro lançar alguma luz no que se escreveu como realidade.”Por sua parte, Truman Capote é considerado como o iniciador de um género denominado pelo autor como “romance não ficção”.Para terminar a resenha, gostaria de referir que adorei o início e o final de “Súplicas Atendidas”, respectivamente:“Se pudesse fazer qualquer coisa, iria para o meio do nosso planeta, a Terra, e buscaria urânio, rubis e ouro. Punha-me à procura de Monstros em Estado Bruto. A seguir, iria viver para o campo. Florie Rotondo, oito anos de idade.Florie, minha querida, sei exactamente o que queres dizer…Porque eu cá estive no meio do nosso planeta; passei, em qualquer caso, pelas tribulações que uma jornada dessas pode infligir. Procurei urânio, rubis e ouro e, no caminho, observei outros nessa mesma busca. E ouve-me bem, Florie – encontrei Monstros em Estado Bruto! E mimados também. Mas a espécie não estragada é avis rara:trufas brancas comparadas com as pretas; espargos selvagens amargos em oposição aos cultivados em jardins. A única coisa que não fiz foi mudar-me para o campo.”“Reinava um ambiente de luxuosa fadiga, como uma rosa quase murcha com as pétalas a cair. Tudo o que me esperava lá fora era o entardecer de Nova Iorque.”Até ao próximo livro, Truman Capote! Prometo voltar.
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Capote nunca pudo igualar lo que hizo en Otras voces, otros ámbitos. Esta pequeña novela no es más que un roman à clef lleno de tribulaciones sexuales. No es lo mejor de Capote, ni de lejos, a pesar de que los dos primeros capítulos resultan interesantes; el último he de admitir que lo leí a medias: detesto que se introduzcan personajes pocas páginas antes de acabar la novela -pasó con Pastoral Americana, pasa con Plegarias Atendidas. Las primeras páginas son buenas, sin embargo. Si alguien quiere comenzar a leer a Capote, que no lo haga por este libro. Y la traducción de Anagrama es lamentable.
—Aaron Gallardo
I think I've read all of Capote's novels and short stories, save for two, and I can venture to say he was right to be a little vain, because he was a genius. To me, a genius is someone who is not only hypersensitive, brilliant in his or her field, and extremely original, but also someone who is avant gardiste, if there is such a word in English. Someone who is tuned to a radio station we can't hear just yet. And this last novel found after Capote's death proves he was already writing what is now common and sought after the most: celebrity gossip. He could have had a blog to compete with Perez Hilton. Of course, the subject of this book may be a little frivolous, I mean, La Côte Basque? But, I wasn't fooled. This novel has a serious undertone and I think it's because it has a sad clown feel to it. Like Capote was sitting around these boudoirs and high class dining room drinking his martinis and taking mental notes of conversations he was hearing and probably somewhere deep inside, he remembered how someone back home used to call him Buddy. Someone who had loved him before the Black and White Ball. After all, the novel is called Answered Prayers and those two words are taken straight from Therese Avila's quote: "There are more tears shed from answered prayers, than in unanswered ones.Truman Capote was catapulted into fame with a book jacket picture in 1948. And from then on, he craved to be accepted and adored by the rich and the glamorous, but he was a writer first and foremost, a sensitive, highly intelligent and bold writer. He proved it by writing things across all genres... From southern Gothic, to crime thriller, he did it all, and every time he tried something new, he was brilliant at it. He was a master at the short story form, which is very difficult, and his story, A Christmas Memory is but a few pages long but haunts me still. He once said that he felt it unjust that a writer as an artist could not use all the color of his or her pallet to render the full picture because as writers we have to commit to the form of the story and this restricts us, but if you look at the body of his work, you can see he found a way to be a different writer with almost every book.Yet sadly, in the end his prayers were answered. And if what Carson's wife says (she was the one with him when he died) is true, then Capote's last words were, "It's me Buddy..."
—Mel Bossa
The story of a mendacious hustler who rises through the layers of dissolute high society. In a way, an unfinished novel mimics life with an adeptness that the great books can not attain: an unfinished novel offers set-ups that go nowhere, potential unrealized, and unresolved mysteries. Luckily, Capote wrote his chapters out of order, so Answered Prayers has a sort of conclusion. In keeping with my metaphor, reading Capote's last work is a bit like running into a friend every ten years: each chapter represents a vivid glimpse into a life that remains mysterious due to the blind spots caused by the years between meetings. Overall, the book is poignant, witty, scathing, insightful, sad, and, of course, somewhat frustrating.
—Felisa Rosa
