Harper Lee and In Cold Blood
We watched Capote this weekend. The thing that sticks with me the most is that Truman Capote and Harper Lee were childhood friends. Indeed, Capote was the "model" for Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird. Which I guess you could say means two things: (1) one of the most outrageous American celebrities of the twentieth century is a character in a book we all read in the 9th grade, and (2) Scout and Dill grew up to write for the New Yorker. (What happened to Jem?)
This Slate article sheds some light on Harper Lee. (She's still alive, btw.) I'd always kind of assumed she was this kindly old Southern woman, who just happened to write one of the most sentimental books about childhood ever written. But to find out that she friends with Capote . . . this changes things. It makes me think that she was one of the most cynical writers who ever lived. I mean, is there any irony at all in To Kill a Mockingbird? Or is the whole thing one big trick, like, "Watch me make the saps tear up. Again. And again." I feel like I've been used.
posted by Number Three @ 6:55 AM
1 Comments:
We've been friends for a long time, but I certainly hope that no one ever tries to hold ME responsible for YOUR opinions and personality quirks. This goes triple for anyone I've known since I was in elementary school (cskendrick, take note!).
If the movie's depiction of Lee is accurate in the least, it demonstrates pretty clearly that these are very, very different people, and that Harper Lee was never down with the whole NY booze, sex, and snarkfest that became Capote's obsession. But think about that Mississippi town: how much real intellectual spark and vitality would you expect to find there? How could lil' Truman and lil' Harper NOT have been friends? As long as they were there, what they had in common would always be greater than what they had not.
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