On the literary front recently I finished In Cold Blood and A Complicated Kindness. In Cold Blood had been on my list for years and years, and the release of the movie Capote finally nudged me to go get a copy (mainly because I wanted to avoid the inevitable spoilers that might come my way). I am not sure how A Complicated Kindness ended up on my list, but I’m not sorry it did.
In Cold Blood is a mesmerizing, well-written tale about the brutal murder of a farmer’s family in Kansas in 1959 that focuses on the two young men who committed the homicide. What is especially amazing about this book is the tenderness in which Capote writes about the two killers, almost endearing the reader to them. Capote does not deny their guilt or the brutality of their crime, but his enlightening look into the minds and backgrounds of the murderers brings a humanity to them that is unexpected. The story also opens up a dialogue about capital punishment, but I felt it was presented without any sort of judgment or bias from the author.
A Complicated Kindness is set in a Mennonite community in Canada and is told from the point of view of a Mennonite teenager, stunned by the disappearance of her mother. The story is tragic yet funny at times, and the girl’s pain and loss is deeply felt by the reader. Not being familiar with Mennonites I cannot speak to the authenticity of the community represented in the novel, however, it is seems to be a community torn by its strict adherence to the religious rules of their sect. The main characters – the teen and her father – are richly written and quite disturbed, yet somehow the girl manages a glimmer of hope, or at the very least, acceptance.
Right now I am reading The Robots of Dawn to satisfy my increasing robot/scifi fetish. Who knows where I will end up from there.
3 comments:
Oh, In Cold Blood is just amazing, isn't it? I've read it several times over the years, and reread it before Capote was released here. Mesmerizing is a good word for it.
Have you seen Capote yet? It tells the whole story from a slightly different, but also fascinating angle.
Sorry, Mel, but I just couldn't "get" In Cold Blood. Like you, it had been on my list for years and I finally got around to it last year. Maybe I've just seen too many Investigative Reports and City Confidentials, but it didn't do much for me. Still, glad you liked it.
I haven't yet seen Capote, Emily. We might get to a movie this weekend, and I'm hoping Capote is playing at the Plateia here in the center near us.
St. Caffeine, really, you didn't like it? Maybe it is because I haven't watched Investigative Reports and City Confidential in awhile. I don't know, I enjoyed the "voice" Capote gave to the murderers, and the whole background, the quiet farming town in Kansas, the ideas of capital punishment, the time period.
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