Other Voices, Other Rooms in Queereaders

Mar 14, 2016 Joseph Longo rated it it was amazing

"Other Voices, Other Rooms" is Truman Capote's first novel, written when he was twenty-three years old, and published to critical acclaim in 1948. It is an hallucinatory story that mixes dreams, fantasies and reality in a not always clear, lineal fashion. At times it is confusing. (But again it is a first novel.) Some of the writing, however, is exquisite and poetic and a pleasure to linger over. The story concerns a somewhat effeminate, sensitive, smart 12 year old boy, Joel Knox, whose mother "Other Voices, Other Rooms" is Truman Capote's first novel, written when he was twenty-three years old, and published to critical acclaim in 1948. It is an hallucinatory story that mixes dreams, fantasies and reality in a not always clear, lineal fashion. At times it is confusing. (But again it is a first novel.) Some of the writing, however, is exquisite and poetic and a pleasure to linger over. The story concerns a somewhat effeminate, sensitive, smart 12 year old boy, Joel Knox, whose mother dies and he is forced to live with his father who abandoned him at birth. He moves from New Orleans to a decaying mansion in Skully’s Landing, a remote and ghostly area in the deep South. His father, however, is a bed-ridden, senile invalid. The boy is cared for by his dotty stepmother who likes to kill birds and his Uncle Randolph. Randolph is, I guess, one of the first gay characters to appear in (serious?) American fiction. He is a sympathetic but isolated, sickly, sad old queen who wears a florid kimono, sometimes dresses in drag, and is an alcoholic who drinks mostly sherry. Randolph pines for a straight prizefighter that he fell in love with years ago and, trying to locate him, writes him letters addressed to post office boxes around the country. The boy has a close fatherly friendship with Randolph. Joel also befriends a rebellious tomboy, Idabel, said to be model after Harper Lee, the author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” who was a childhood friend of Capote’s.

This is an involving, sometimes surreal coming of age story filled with odd situations and even odder characters. One of my favorite characters is a carnival midget named Miss Wisteria. She has a yen for Joel who is about her size.

Capote wrote this book when he was young - perhaps modeling Joel after himself and his experiences as a boy growing up in the deep south with relatives and without his mother. The character of Randolph, however, brought to mind the old Truman Capote as depicted in the one-man, 1989 play “Tru" - in which Capote is depicted as a sad, isolated alcoholic pining for the friends that cut him out of their lives. Was Capote foreshowing his future in his first novel?

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Sep 29, 2009 Bryan Ball rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, lgbtq, 1940s

Every time I read Truman I wonder why I haven't read more of him. And I wonder why it is that the world has chosen to remember him the way they do. So much more than the television personality he became later in life, so much more than the author behind the book the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is based on and-- I say this, without having read the work-- so much more than the writer of "In Cold Blood."

"Other Voices, Other Rooms" is, on it's own as a narrative, a milestone of a novel. Breaking Every time I read Truman I wonder why I haven't read more of him. And I wonder why it is that the world has chosen to remember him the way they do. So much more than the television personality he became later in life, so much more than the author behind the book the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is based on and-- I say this, without having read the work-- so much more than the writer of "In Cold Blood."

"Other Voices, Other Rooms" is, on it's own as a narrative, a milestone of a novel. Breaking ground for gay subject matter alone, when considered as a novel written by a young Truman Capote-- when he was twenty-three, no less-- the feat is even greater. There are so many ways to read this novel-- as an auto-biography of its author, a revolutionary milestone in documenting through literature the gay experience, the definition of a modern Southern Gothic-- or nothing so simple.

And the prose through which Capote accomplishes this is gorgeous. Lush, golden, sparkling hot summer breeze-- Truman's writing from start to finish here is the definition of what a brilliant talent can do. Put you in the shoes, the day of a seemingly orphaned boy, who has lost his mother and is traveling to meet his biological father. A style all his own, each word, and each sentence they compose, is a beautifully constructed piece of art that appears effortless, and effortlessly takes you to the middle of the twentieth century, to the deep south, to the expanse of Skully's Landing, to the world of young Joel Knox.

In a setting so awash with vibrancy, the characters truly manage to make the novel, while being of life rather than brighter than the world they inhabit. I won't forget Joel, his cousin Randolph or the young girl he befriends, Idabel (based, famously, on Capote's childhood friend and fellow talent Harper Lee.) It feels a rarity, that each character and her or his own, individual, story stand out so in the memory-- and also (but not because of) the relationships all of these characters have, they stand out, in their same, own way.

Here, Truman has written a classic coming of age story that only he could. Whether the child Joel's coming of age is related to some personal acceptance of his homosexuality or not, there is a proudly, openly explored view of the gay experience, through Joel's journey, and, especially, through Randolph. After finishing the novel-- and I warn any reader that I am about to discuss the novel's ending-- but before reading any criticism, I wondered-- what if. What if Joel's decision at the end, his choice to stay, is to directly mean he chose Randolph? And, if so, the acceptance of his own homosexuality? Or- what if, by staying, Joel does so and becomes romantically involved with (the much older) Randolph? Or nothing so simple? Perhaps Joel is accepting that his fate will be there, with Randolph at the Landing-- but alone? To become whatever man it is he is, or is meant to become? I don't believe I've decided, other than no such definite decision is possible.

In a novel with so many passages of beautiful writing, it was hard to decide on one to include. However, I have decided on the words to follow, which come late in the novel, from Randolph.

"Afterwards, and though at first I was careful not to show the quality of my feelings, Dolores understood intuitively what had happened: 'Strange how long it takes us to discover ourselves; I've know since first I saw you,' she said... The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface: and why not? any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell."

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Sep 16, 2015 Christine rated it liked it

Shelves: novels, southernfic

Some themes throughout this Southern gothic are grief, loneliness, the decrepitude of the rural South, homosexuality, rampant and casual racism. Worth reading for Capote's writing, though this work feels immature compared to his later work. Interesting in its treatment of gay themes, as there are 3 characters in this novel that are queer or seemingly so - the narrator, his tom-boy friend Idabel, and his almost cartoonishly fey uncle, who parades around in kimonos and satin slippers. ...more

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