About book The Complete Stories Of Truman Capote (2005)
"Тези разкази може и да сте ги чели. Кратката проза на Труман Капоти не излиза за първи път на български език, но предимството е, че в тази книга е събрано почти всичко. А това позволява да се проследи развитието на Капоти като разказвач – от автор, който е внимателен към детайлите и създава поетични метафори, до стегнатото журналистическо писане, с което го свързваме и днес. Историите са подредени хронологично – от първия разказ, „Стените са студени“, написан още през 1943 г., когато Капоти е на 19 години, до последния – автобиографичния „Една Коледа“, завършен през 1982, две години преди смъртта на писателя.truman1И въпреки че Капоти е познат предимно с романите си „Хладнокръвно“ и „Закуска в Тифани“, разказите му също са висока топка. Най-вероятно самият той си е давал сметка за това, защото в едно интервю от 1957 г. казва, че краткият разказ му се струва най-трудната и дисциплинираща форма, която съществува.Сборникът „Събрани разкази“ е добър повод да видим как Капоти се справя с дисциплината. Тук са включени всичко на всичко 20 истории – 19-те разказа от „Дървото на нощта“ (сборника, издаден на български език през 2009) плюс „Мохаве“, преведен от Димитри Иванов. Включително и онзи разказ от 1947 г., „Затвори една последна врата“, за който 24-годишният Труман Капоти получава през 1948 г. наградата за кратка проза О’Хенри.Затова и не е някаква кой знае каква изненада, че ранният Капоти е безупречен стилист, а първите му разкази не отстъпват на онези, които създава през 70-те и 80-те години. Писателят е все така наблюдателен, успява да влезе под кожата на героите си и да създаде атмосфера, която е на границата между обикновеното и фантастичното. Капоти успява само с дума или жест на героите си да превърне баналното в изключително. Успява да превърне децата във възрастни, а възрастните в деца, така както кара възрастния затворник от разказа „Китара с диаманти“ да дялка дървени кукли. Подобно на десетгодишната госпожица Бобит от разказа „Децата на рождените им дни“, която с някаква свръхестествена сила подчинява останалите, или като дванайсетгодишния Апълсийд, който успява да преброи монетите в едно стъклено шише само с дълго взиране. Възрастните при Капоти също не са загубили способността си да бъдат деца – като възрастната госпожица Сук от „Гостът за Деня на благодарността“, която умее да вижда в хризантемите лъвове и по детски наивно да се опитва да подреди света.Иначе тези разкази трудно се поддават на описания – едни от тях са автобиографични, други приличат на мистични приказки, има и коледни разкази, но всичките са написали с уважение към героите, без страх да се навлиза в психологически дълбочини. А сигурно това е тайната как да се създават герои, които дълго се помнят – като момичето, което продава сънищата си, като онова шестгодишно момче, което пътува само в автобуса за Алабама заедно с огромен самолет, или като Отили, най-щастливото момиче в Порт-о-Пренс, което няма нищо против любимият й да я върже за дървото."РЕЦЕНЗИЯ НА ОЛЯ СТОЯНОВА В ПОРТАЛ КУЛТУРА ОТ 03.09 2015 http://kultura.bg/web/всички-разкази-...
There are those rare and precious short stories—James Joyce’s “The Dead” and Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” come straight to mind--that are so perfectly written, and so profoundly speak to some place in my soul, that I never forget them, and never tire of rereading them. Upon finishing The Complete Stories of Truman Capote, I’ve added another to the list: “A Christmas Memory,” a gorgeously bittersweet tale of a young boy and his beloved aunt, both misfits in the outside world who fit perfectly in their own magical, vastly more rewarding—and yet inevitably ephemeral--self-created world. It’s not only by far my favorite in the collection, but one of the most moving short stories I’ve read in some time. And I read a lot of short stories.Capote has been called one of the best writers of his generation, and it’s easy to see why. Nearly every paragraph drips with those poetry-prose lines and phrases that most writers strive to hit even once in an entire story. Lines like “In the country, spring is a time of small happenings happening quietly” and “Earlier in the evening it had rained, and now icicles hung along the station-house eaves like some crystal monster’s vicious teeth” more than earn Capote’s reputation for an almost sorcery-like ability to summon entire sensory worlds from words upon a flat page. Which is why I was all the more surprised when the first set of stories in this collection fell a bit flat for me. It certainly wasn’t any failure of that lush, gorgeous language or the crisp narrative structures that lead you down one uncertain yet meticulously placed stepping stone at a time. I suppose the themes and characters just didn’t reach me—the cold disconnect of the women in “The Walls are Cold,” and “A Mink of One’s Own,” or their hapless, hopeless counterparts in “The Shape of Things” and “A Tree of Night.” I enjoyed the Southern satire and dead-on character studies in “Jug of Silver,” “Preacher’s Legend,” and “Children on Their Birthdays;” but it still didn’t quite feel like the Capote who would go on to captivate me so entirely with his masterpiece In Cold Blood.That Capote began to show up, though, in stories like “Miriam,” about a woman lost in her own ordinariness who may be either saved or destroyed by a strange little girl who may or may not exist. Here we also begin to find that surreal, haunting Southern Gothic that spreads like soft, creeping moss across the best of Capote’s work (including “The Headless Hawk,” a fascinating tale of art, connections and disconnect, love and lovelessness, and gender and genderless that I’d love to study further; and “Master Misery,” about a man who buys dreams and thus steals away the dreamer until there’s nothing left to steal). By the time I hit “A Diamond Guitar,” about the mutually seductive, destructive power of illusion, I wasted no time putting Music for Chameleons, Capote’s nonfiction collection of true stories, on my to-read list.I’ve recently read quite a bit about Capote’s final “masterpiece,” the unfinished Answered Prayers, a behind the scenes tell-all about the scandals and self-involved, self-created whirlwinds of New York’s elite social set, based upon the real life women who formed the core of Capote’s own social set (and who promptly exiled him from their ranks in return for what they saw as his betrayal). Apart from four chapters published in Esquire magazine, the novel was never published, and the completed manuscript Capote claimed to have written has never been found (some speculate that it has never been found because it never existed). One always pines for more work from a brilliant artist whose life ends too suddenly, too soon (as Capote’s did after his exiled downward spiral). But minus the reasons why, a part of me is glad that Capote’s legacy doesn’t include Answered Prayers. Whether in his devastating exploration of America’s peculiarly violent, yet poignant soul in In Cold Blood or his most deeply resonant short stories, Capote for me is at his best not in the coldly glittering air of the most lofty heights but in the denser, darker, more commonly breathed but vastly richer air of the misfits and the odd worlds they create and inhabit. Those are the worlds that I most look forward to visiting again.
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Capote's short stories are well worth the read. I had already read "In Cold Blood" but never any of his fictional work, but he is excellent at both. They are not as ambiguous as J.D. Salinger's short stories and that is why I preferred them - they have a beginning, middle and an end, and they are just as well-written. He conveys the feel of New York through many of his stories, which is why they remind me of Salinger sometimes, but he also has many stories which take place in the south and those seem to me more personal and full of life. The stories which pertained to his childhood with Miss Sook and his other relatives as well as Queenie the dog were the most touching, to me, and they show what a sad childhood he had, although Miss Sook was certainly a ray of sunshine and warmth during that time. He has a very dark side, as can be seen from certain stories like "The Headless Hawk" and "Miriam," so I can see why he was able to write "In Cold Blood" so well. The edition I read had an introduction by Reynolds Price and that was the only part of the book I disliked, as I got the feeling that Price didn't really think Capote was that great of a writer and instead of celebrating him in the introduction I felt like he mostly pointed out Capote's faults. It just seemed like an introduction should be written by someone who really truly appreciates the writer, not just someone with credentials. True, Capote's life was very sad and his demise into drugs and alcohol was a terrible end to his life, but he was a great writer and in this circumstance his works should be celebrated rather than focusing so much on the negativity. I feel that Capote is one of those great American authors who doesn't always get his due nowadays and this is a big mistake. His writing is rich and his stories are engaging, his characters are interesting and he has a great way of carrying a story along.
—Camille Mccarthy
Es sorprendente que el autor de la objetiva, periodística, casi despiadada reconstrucción de un asesinato múltiple (A Sangre Fría) haya creado una colección de cuentos donde lo mas notable es su sensibilidad e intimidad. Cada cuento, que refleja pequeños momentos, memorias, encuentros, todos casi furtivos, algo etéreos, se cuenta con la delicadeza de un alma, quizá dolida, quizá hasta torturada, pero gentil y delicada. Uno tiene la impresión de ser un testigo involuntario, hasta indeseado, de pedazos de vida a los cuales uno no ha sido invitado, pero que es imposible obviar. Un buen descubrimiento.
—Julio
I can see quite easily why Truman Capote referred to his collected short stories as his "Great Love". He was a rare master of words, possessed of a talent for prose that I've seen myself only in F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the scant body of work that he left behind before his passing (the same month and year that I was born; we were alive on the earth together for only days) is enough to keep me full until my last breath. Each of his tales sparkle with flawlessness and the emotion inherent in them teased tears from my eyes (especially the last lines from 'A Christmas Memory' and 'One Christmas'). Truman Capote was a master, a writer's writer, and I'm exceedingly thankful for the literary fruit that he left behind for us to feast upon.
—Nicholas Trandahl
