Some First's

As I continued reading the book, I realized the Capote is in no way trying to confuse the reader or dissuade him/her from the truth. He is being perfectly blunt and honest about everything. I had never read a book that gives you all the information on the first few pages. Lack of information is what usually keeps the reader interested, since they want to be able to figure everything out. But this is certainly not the case here.

So I began to wonder what his purpose was. It is evidently not one of those typical mystery books, since the reader immediately knows the Clutter's will be murdered, and soon later figures out that the killers will be Dick and Perry. So what keeps the reader going? What makes him/her interested? And then I realized on of the only pieces of information that Capote is holding back: The reason why the two delinquents kill an entire family. After becoming aware of this, I realized that this was actually the reason why I  wanted to keep reading: Just to find out what reason this family might have given to the killers, what could be so bad to have them killed.

Not only is this the first book I've read where almost all the information is immediately revealed, but it is also the first one that does not have a main character. Sure, anybody might argue that the Clutter's are obviously the main characters, since they are the focus. But I disagree exactly for this same reason. They are the focus because they were murdered, and they are murdered before chapter two even begins. So how could main characters cease to appear in more than half of a book?

Instead of a main characters, this book shows different points of view regarding the murder. It shows how Bobby reacts to the news, "helpless to help but wanting to" (72) and then crying; tells about Mrs. Myrtle Clare, who considered the terrified attitudes of her neighbors to be ridiculous and reffered to them as "a lily-livered lot, shaking in their boots afraid t shut their eyes" (87); and follows Alvin Adams Dewey as he attempts to solve the mystery.

It is definitely a strange book, but this is exactly what makes it impossible to forget about. 

A Minute - Long Caesura

A Minute - Long Caesura

"Now on this final day of her life, Mrs. Clutter hung in the closet the calico housedresses she had been wearing, and put on one of her trailing nightgowns and a fresh set of white socks (P. 30)."

There are two reasons why we might say something. There's the obvious one: that we want someone else to know something. This one we use all the time: when we tell our friends or families good or bad news, when we give random bits of information about ourselves to people we dont know, etc. But there's also another reason why we might say something: because we want to hide something else. This one we rarely take into consideration, but we actually use very frequently. We might talk about something in order to distract our audience from something else. For example, if I know my mom is about to find out I was the one who stained her shirt, I might change the subject to something, and give tons of information on something that isn't even relevant.

In In Cold Blood, Capote gives us an enormous amount of information and details about the characters in the novel. The book is mainly made up of very long sentences clogged up with what the audience mostly considers as useless details. There's this sentence, for example, in which he even dares to subtly change the subject at least twice: "Now, upstairs, she changed into faded Levis and a green sweater, and fastened round her wrist her third most valued belonging, a gold watch; her closest cat friend, Evinrude, ranked above it, and surmounting even Evinrude was Bobby's signet ring, cumbersome proof of her "going-steady" status, which she wore (when she wore it; the least flare-up and off it came) on a thumb, for even with the use of adhesive tape its man-size girth could not, be made to fit a more suitable finger." It's quite a long sentence, isn't it? However, there's so many details, that the audience can actually retrieve bits of information that might come in handy later:
- Nancy's room is upstairs.
- She has a cat, Evinrude.,
- She has a boyfriend, Bobby.
- She lives in a town where people actually care who's dating who (inference of Mr. Tangen).
- She didn't wear the ring that much.
- She fought with Bobby quite a bit.
So if from just one sentence we can have all this information, imagine how much we have in a chapter? However, now the real question comes in: Is Capote giving us all this information as hints for further on? Or, is he using it as a way to hide other details and hold back on information to catch us off guard later on - well, as off guard as possible, since he already told us six people will die?