Other Voices, Other Rooms

Rating:
Summary: The best book i have ever read
Review: So good i gave it one star out of five, go figure

Rating:
Summary: It is a great book
Review: This book was very good. I really enjoyed it and I couldn't get away from it. It is incredable what a 17 year old can do.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most beautiful and haunting books ever written.
Review: This haunting first novel of Truman Capote is a brilliant work. It is a story of youth alienation and coming of age that could be the male companion piece to Carson McCuller's "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter." The story is told in a beautifully lyric style. It follows young Joel after his mother has died when he is sent to live with his father that he has never known. Capote paints a vivid picture of the eccentric family of which Joel finds himself a part. Joel desperately tries to find his way in a world that makes little sense. Capote is a master at making depravity beautiful and haunting without losing the sense of corruption or sugar coating the sadness. He delivers a novel that will forever live with the reader as a voice in the rooms of the soul. It is an exquisitely sad voice but not one that should ever be silenced.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most beautiful and haunting books ever written.
Review: This haunting first novel of Truman Capote is a brilliant work. It is a story of youth alienation and coming of age that could be the male companion piece to Carson McCuller's "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter." The story is told in a beautifully lyric style. It follows young Joel after his mother has died when he is sent to live with his father that he has never known. Capote paints a vivid picture of the eccentric family of which Joel finds himself a part. Joel desperately tries to find his way in a world that makes little sense. Capote is a master at making depravity beautiful and haunting without losing the sense of corruption or sugar coating the sadness. He delivers a novel that will forever live with the reader as a voice in the rooms of the soul. It is an exquisitely sad voice but not one that should ever be silenced.

Rating:
Summary: A lyrical feast!
Review: This poetic coming of age novel quickly whisks you into a world of whispers, half truths,and superstitions, where ghosts and the living share equal space. Capote is a master of imagery and symbolism. I cannot think of a more powerful image than Jesus Sunshine's mule struggling from the enormous crystal chandelier, swinging silently like a pendulum, deep in the woods of this immense, etherial hotel - all slowly sinking into the swampy floor of the lake. Time stands still in this book, and you struggle along with the main character to make your way out of the deep Southern mist that obscures midgets from little girls, men from women, and offers you the many sides of truth. The reader will find himself shaking his head, as if waking from sleep, trying to cast off the heady spell Capote has cast. Hauntingly sad and exquisitely beautiful all at once

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This was such an excellent book. One could vividly picture the surroundings of Joel Knox and truly feel his emotions. I truly enjoyed it. An excellent book!!!

Rating:
Summary: A Let Down
Review: Truman Capote is one of my favorite writers, but I thought this book had none of the life and charm of his other books. The writing is too self-conscious. The symbolism is heavy-handed (the broken sun-glasses representing the protagonist's view of life being altered. Contrived!) For this book he was trying too hard to be literary. Capote's subsequent writing was more natural, and was brilliant.

Rating:
Summary: A wandering searcher
Review: Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms" tells the story of a young New Orleans man sent to live with his mysterious father in rural Alabama. Joel Knox is a tender, slight boy who is eager to make a good impression on the dad he has never known. When he gets to the "Landing," a falling apart plantation, nothing is as it seems or as he had imagined it. His father is nowhere to be seen, and there are ghosts and other devices of his imagination that scare young Joel.

Gradually Joel takes a lesson about life from this place. His youthful notions are replaced by an awareness of coming to terms with the more complex vagaries of real life. He learns to accept things for what they are instead of waiting for them to live up to his dreams.

In the prologue of the 20th anniversary edition, Capote says that when he wrote this book he didn't believe that it came from autobiographical inspiration. With hindsight, he calls his statement laughable and arrogant. This seems like an honest realization, because the book seems like a logical extension of the imagination of someone like Capote. He wrote this book when he was only 24, and in his later years his life did take on somewhat of a fantastic perspective.

I really enjoyed In Cold Blood, his greatest nonfiction. This book wanders. I read that it was similiar to "The Heart is A Lonely Hunter," which is true in that it concerns a collection of lonely sad souls. But it lacks the character development of McCuller's book. It never gets as deep as I had hoped. At best, its valuable as a window into the pysche of the author.

Rating:
Summary: A wandering searcher
Review: Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms" tells the story of a young New Orleans man sent to live with his mysterious father in rural Alabama. Joel Knox is a tender, slight boy who is eager to make a good impression on the dad he has never known. When he gets to the "Landing," a falling apart plantation, nothing is as it seems or as he had imagined it. His father is nowhere to be seen, and there are ghosts and other devices of his imagination that scare young Joel.

Gradually Joel takes a lesson about life from this place. His youthful notions are replaced by an awareness of coming to terms with the more complex vagaries of real life. He learns to accept things for what they are instead of waiting for them to live up to his dreams.

In the prologue of the 20th anniversary edition, Capote says that when he wrote this book he didn't believe that it came from autobiographical inspiration. With hindsight, he calls his statement laughable and arrogant. This seems like an honest realization, because the book seems like a logical extension of the imagination of someone like Capote. He wrote this book when he was only 24, and in his later years his life did take on somewhat of a fantastic perspective.

I really enjoyed In Cold Blood, his greatest nonfiction. This book wanders. I read that it was similiar to "The Heart is A Lonely Hunter," which is true in that it concerns a collection of lonely sad souls. But it lacks the character development of McCuller's book. It never gets as deep as I had hoped. At best, its valuable as a window into the pysche of the author.

Rating:
Summary: A moving coming-of-age tale
Review: Truman Capote's novel "Other Voices, Other Rooms" opens with the main character, 13-year old Joel Harrison Knox, traveling to the home of his long-estranged father. As the book progresses, Joel becomes more intimately involved with the people of his father's household and of the larger community; there is a stress on oral history as Joel learns their stories. Overall, plot struck me as secondary to character revelation.

The people of Joel's new world are colorful, often pathetic, and sometimes grotesque; at times it really feels like Capote is putting on a human freak show for the thrill-seeking reader. He leads us through a world of decaying old buildings and broken spirits. But Capote always respects the essential humanity of his troubled characters.

There is a pronounced theme of alternative sexuality and/or gender identity throughout the book. Capote establishes this theme early on in his description of the main character. Joel is described as not looking like a "'real' boy": "He was too pretty, too delicate and fair-skinned." "Other Voices" thus has a lot to offer readers with an interest in gender issues as they have been explored in American literature. Capote also does an interesting job of portraying a mixed-race household where the African-American servants are as vividly drawn as the Caucasian family members.

Throughout the book there is some richly descriptive language, as well as intriguing representations of American vernacular English. Although at times "Other Voices" seems more an exercise in style than a fully satisfying narrative, it is for me quite a remarkable coming-of-age story.