So Truman Capote and In Cold Blood bring up the same ideas of truth- this time bringing memory into play.
Capote claims that everything written with his non-fiction novel is the truth, YET labels the work a novel, implying crafting and manipulation of the writing, which obviously means he's shaping the facts to suit his purpose. Which is what any writer does whether creating fiction or writing a front page news report.
I don't know why I'm such a sucker, but I believe Capote. I believe he is telling the truth when he says that he is telling the truth. I also think that many people believe their memory to be better than they actually are. People forget things all the time like how I forgot what I was trying to say just now.
Capote believes that he's writing with 100% accuracy and I believe it too, it's just that he's perfectly accurate about his own recollection of all he saw and heard. So in the end, he's mostly right. Plus the way the whole novel is structured and written is so masterful, that it hardly matters whether it's fact or fiction.
I don't think that someone that was this obsessed over an event, someone who would sit on an amazing novel until someone he had befriended had been killed to finish writing and publishing it, would go about wanting to distort the truth as he saw it just for the paycheck. The whole point of writing something is in some form, self-serving- so I do not get the argument that he wrote things/made things up to better serve himself. That's what writer's do. They write- for money, for a grade, or even just for self satisfaction. But you always are serving yourself.
I'm still surprised that this is the same writer who came up with Holly Golightly and is the reason that Moonriver is stuck in my head right now. What a jerk.
I believe Capote, too. It has the ring of truth, even when we don't know what he is fabricating. If he is fabricating. Barring some further insight into his actual process, we may never know. But he was serious about his work and his art and his vision. We can't know if he was as dedicated to Truth. But I think he was. And, of course, he was not yet devastated by drink and drugs, not yet the angry burnout. Still, I know Capote was sly enough to know that we are saps, we are suckers, and we will tend to believe him because he says it's true. Hmmm....
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