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Okay, I'll try to read this book this month, should be good!
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Jun 5, 2015 16:07
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I'm having a harder time getting into this than I had to expected just because of the constant sense of impending doom. I had thought it would follow more of a whodunit model. I ended up finishing this yesterday. Definitely not what I was expecting. I had heard beforehand that it was not a whodunit, but I was surprised by how few mysteries there were and how they were handled. There were some at the start, i.e. I wonder about why they did it, how the police would figure it out, why Mr Clutter was so anxious (started smoking) the weeks beforehand, what the deal is with the insurance he got the day he was murdered, etc. But either they were answered quickly (with rather lame answers) or ignored completely. I guess that's just the result of writing about something that really happened, as real life does not always give all answers nor interesting answers. What I liked about this book was how it gives the reader some big questions to contemplate, like "do horrible criminals who are clearly guilty still deserve a fair trial?" and "is the dead penalty a fair punishment in some cases?". I'm still thinking about these. The attention given to the psychology and childhood of the murders was great as well, but maybe a bit too much somehow?
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Jun 17, 2015 17:06
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:Oh, hey Book of the Month. I haven't read ICB for a few years but I remember a bit. agree that the whodunit aspect is fairly low down on Capote's priorities. I guess because almost everyone who read it (especially at the time) already knew who did it and the fact that they were captured, tried and executed. I guess we have to factor in that readers knew the basic outline already. I read something interesting about how a lot of pleasure in reading isn't not knowing what will happen in a story but knowing roughly what will happen but not how or why it will happen. It is knowing the what already but discovering the how and why aspects that are key to enjoying stories. That is why we re-read and why we read different narratives of the same events, different biographies of the same person etc. I feel like pointing this out every time a goon complains on the Stephen King thread that he uses foreshadowing too much. Maybe he does but that kind of misses the point. Ah that explains something, I didn't realize Capote assumes knowledge about the case already (I had never heard about it before). You don't have to know the case at all to understand or like the book, but it seems he could have (would have?) written it differently if he hadn't expected the readers to know about the case before. I actually agree the procedural/evidence stuff isn't that gripping by itself (there certainly is no suspense), I just think he did a good job of making the readers think about the ethics of denying a fair trial to people and the right or wrong of dead punishment. I always considered myself to be against the death punishment, but while reading the book I was somehow happy when they got it which made me feel like a huge hypocrite. It's an interesting book in that sense.
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Jun 23, 2015 22:55
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I just read Disgrace by Coetzee based on recommendations in the loving child thread, it was pretty good, might be worth a consideration.
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Jun 26, 2015 20:37
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