I found this book particularly interesting, as despite being based on a true crime, the piece as a whole comes across as a fictional novel, mainly due to the involvement of the author's imagination in terms of the characters and plot. By this, I mean that although all of the characters really exist(ed), comments on specific events that happened over the period of the police investigation, and detailed insights into the character's lives are given, that could not possibly be proven.
This technique really intrigued me, as I had to continuously stop and remind myself that such two villains as Dick Hickock and Perry Smith did live, and did murder all four of the Clutter family in the brutal way described in 'In Cold Blood'. The tale, which is both intriguing, heartbreaking and harrowing, was like reading a textbook based around the Clutter murders, but with a fictional story to accompany it so that the criminals became human, neighbours became personable, and policemen investigating the affair became part of a normal family, showing the hardship that the case wreaked on their home lives.
Capote's use of words often seems deviant from traditional figurative language, yet he creates images that describe completely the picture he is trying to conjure, helping the reader reach a full understanding of not only character's personalities and thoughts, but also their appearances, for example:
'It was as though his head had been halved like an apple, then put together a fraction off centre. Something of the kind had happened; the imperfectly aligned features were the outcome of a car collision in 1950'
Another aspect to this book that I enjoyed, were certain passages that occurred now and again throughout, that hinted at the philosophical, and will stay with me as I found them quite thought-provoking. Two such examples are included below:
'If one bird carried every grain of sand, grain by grain, across the ocean, by the time he got them all on the other side, that would only be the beginning of eternity.'
''"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is a breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset" - said by Chief Crowfoot, Blackfoot Indian Chief''
Despite this being one of the longest of my course books so far, I zoomed through it in less than a week, as I found my curiosity was not satisfied until I had reached the final page. Overall, it is a breath of fresh air upon fiction, even now being 45 years old, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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