The writer in his domain

[selenak]

A few years ago, when watching the film CAPOTE - which fascinated me - made me read In Cold Blood and Gerald Clarke's biography of Truman Capote (more about those books here. Back then, I noticed that Clarke called Truman Capote's profile of Marlon Brando, written for the New Yorker, in some ways a trial run for In Cold Blood. But lacking

Comments

[amenirdis]

There is a part of me, and usually the victorious one, that things: if you have a story in you that you regard as worth telling, then tell it, and tell it as well as you can. Until, of course, I imagine myself as the subject of a story instead of the writer, and can't stop cringing.

That would be the thing, yes.

I am always the subject and never the subject, if that makes sense?

[selenak]

It does. Your life informs your writing, choice of subjects and characters, but it is not autobiography: the art of metaphor. And no one wrote about you.

[nomadicwriter]

There's a George R.R. Martin short story called Portraits of His Children, the last one in his story collection Dreamsongs, that really struck a chord with me: it's about an author who writes a novel rooted in a terrible trauma that his daughter went through, and it's at once an absolutely horrific and unforgivable violation, and yet as a writer you can wholly understand the drive that compelled him to write it.

[selenak]

It reminds me of something Joyce Carol Oates said after her novel about Marilyn Monroe, Blonde, got published - that she founded it hardest to write about Arthur Miller not just because he was still alive (as he was then), but because she could identify a lot with him. Including the deed that Marilyn saw as a betrayal, that he made notes about her (and later did write about her), because, quoth Oates, she didn't see how you could be a writer, live with Marilyn and not write about her - she wouldn't have been able to.

[ponygirl2000]

Fascinating! I will bookmark to read the full article later. And I'm reminded with all the James Bond-ness of late what an excellent job Daniel Craig did in the other-other In Cold Blood movie Infamous.

[selenak]

I still haven't seen that one (I don't think it ever hit the German cinemas - Capote only got released over here after the Oscar). However my mental image of Perry Smith (half Cherokee, dark haired, dark eyed, small) is, err, not much like Daniel Craig. Not that I doubt he did a good job!

[ponygirl2000]

Certainly no physical resemblance but my memory is of the sheer neediness that he exuded. Of course Infamous had resemblances covered with Toby Jones - I love Philip Seymour Hoffman but as Capote it was a stretch, quite literally!

[itsnotmymind]

I actually like the idea of people writing about me, if it's tasteful, but I think I would prefer for it to be after I'm dead.

[selenak]

Oh, when I'm dead, I don't care what they write about me, as long as they still read what I've written as well. :)

[bwinter]

I'm biased, but I find the Sayonara-shenanigans fascinating as well - Capote's very good at describing in a culturally-sensitive manner just how big a faux-pas it was, as well as all the background (like the hostesses shenanigans). He does gloss over the fact that since the Takarazuka Revue was the production's mortal enemy, so was the whole Hankyu-Toho parent conglomerate that was - and remains victorious - the other movie-theatrical juggernaut. So between them and Shochiku the production really was backed into a corner. (And it does explain the... less than stellar revue scenes in the movie.)

[selenak]

This reminds me - have you read his article about touring with the Porgy and Bess troupe through the Soviet Union? It's tantalizingly mentioned in several of the articles I linked, but the New Yorker wants money for it, so I haven't read it yet.

[bwinter]

Alas, no, but it's on my list of things to track down.