Author's brief introduction truman capote (1924 ——1984) is a famous American novelist who was born in New Orleans and died in Los Angeles. The author once described his life like this: "I was born in New Orleans in 1924 and grew up in several areas in the south-in New Orleans in winter and in Alabama and New Georgia in summer. I started studying before school age, and since then I have been living in my own way, never caring what others think. My education is mainly self-study. To this day, I can't recite the alphabet or multiplication table. /kloc-started writing short stories at the age of 0/4, and several of them were published. /kloc-dropped out of school at the age of 0/5,/kloc-went to work for People magazine in new york at the age of 0/6. This is my first and last formal job. I look so young that they never dare to send me out for an interview. So I retired to a farm in Louisiana for two years and wrote Other Voices, Other Rooms. I have lived in Greece, Italy, Spain, Africa and the West Indies, and I have also been to the Soviet Union and the East. " Capote's early works, such as the collection of short stories The Night Tree (1949) and the novels Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) and The Grass Harp (195 1), explored dreams, reality and fiction. However, after the publication of his famous novella Morning at Tiffany's (1958), he changed his direction, wrote the so-called "non-fiction novel" and repeatedly denied that he was a southern writer. The non-fiction novel "Massacre" was published in 1965, which caused a sensation and controversy and sold 3 million copies. Since then, he has devoted himself to writing news reports, and no major works have been published.
Summary1957165438+10 In mid-October, in a beautiful house in the courtyard of Valley Farm not far from Garden City, Kansas, the Clutter family of four, a wealthy wheat producer and a director of the Federal Agricultural Credit Committee personally appointed by former President Eisenhower were killed. All four were tied up, gagged and killed with 12 inch shotguns. The murderer is at large, leaving no clues. Mr. Clutter is an out-and-out gentleman and treats people kindly. His wife is mentally ill and often stays in bed. They have three daughters and a son. The eldest daughter is married, and the second daughter is taking a nursing course in the city and is about to get married. At that time, there were only 16-year-old daughter Nancy and 15-year-old son kenyon. Nancy is smart, beautiful and very kind. On the day of her murder, she was still teaching a neighbor girl aged 13 to make cherry pie. Kenyon is making a big wardrobe for his second sister as a wedding present. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation set up a 18 reconnaissance team under the command of Dewey, director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, to handle this case. However, the Clutter family was kind-hearted, had no enemies, couldn't find any obvious motive for killing, and left no trace at the scene of the murder, so without a clue could follow. Therefore, although Dewey is very smart and his men are experienced old detectives, he is helpless about this case. The biggest problem they face is that criminals are cruel and cunning, and they can't analyze obvious motives for committing crimes. But one night shortly after the murder, Wells, a prisoner in Lansing Prison in Kansas City, heard a report about the murder in the news broadcast, which was condemned by his conscience and finally provided important clues to the police. It turns out that Wells once worked as a short-term worker in a farmer's house. Mr clutter is very kind to the workers. Not only did he earn a lot of money, but he also gave an extra $50 red envelope at Christmas. Wells was arrested and imprisoned for theft in September 1959. In prison, he met Dick, the prisoner, and inadvertently talked to Dick about the Clutter family, saying that Clutter was rich and spent $10,000 in less than a week. He also talked about a safe behind the desk in his office, which contained money. From then on, Dick kept asking Wells about the Clutter family. Shortly before he was released from prison, Dick threatened to rob the Clutter family with another prisoner, Bailly, and kill all the witnesses. At first Wells thought Dick was just talking. Before getting out of prison, prisoners often threatened to rob and be thieves to show their courage and indifference to those in prison. Now Dick has really done such an evil thing, which is the information provided by Wells. No wonder Wells fidgeted and finally revealed the truth to the police. Dewey took immediate action to find photos and files of Dick and Bailly, and found them. They went to Dick's parents first. They are honest and kind farmers, but they are always poor and can hardly fill their stomachs. Dick can't afford to go to college. 19 years old, railway bureau worker. He married a girl at the age of 16 and gave birth to three sons. After marriage, Dick changed jobs several times-driving an ambulance, working as a mechanic and painter-and earned more and more money, but his living standard became higher and higher, and finally he embarked on the criminal road of gambling, writing fake checks, cheating and stealing. During this period, he also hooked up with women and girls, divorced and married, and the second woman divorced him again during his imprisonment for stealing shotguns. After being released on parole, Dick went home to stay with his friend Bailly, and then went out for the weekend. After 24 hours, he went home alone, stayed for a few days, and then disappeared. Detectives visited Bailly's sister again. Bailly's father is an adventurer who is good at peeling bears, repairing watches, building houses, making pancakes and fishing. His mother is an Indian rider. The family used to drive around in a broken truck, and the children cried all day because they were hungry. Later, the mother died of alcoholism, the eldest son committed suicide because of love, and the eldest daughter degenerated into alcoholism. Once, she fell from the window and committed suicide. Bailly grew up unruly and eventually became a criminal. Only Bailly's sister, Mrs Johnson, lives an ordinary middle-class life. Her husband is an employee of a life insurance company. She has two men and one woman. At that time, she had just moved into a new house with a garden on the hillside north of San Francisco. She told the detectives that her brother Bailly never considered others, and everything else was worthless to him. Two years ago, Bailly asked a young girl to bring a personal letter saying that he had an accident and asked his sister to take care of his wife. Mrs. Johnson later found out that the girl was actually only 65,438+04 years old and was not his wife. She left without saying goodbye in less than a week. At the same time, she asked people to remove everything that could be removed from her house-the wife's jewelry, the couple's clothes, and even the kitchen clock. Since then, Bailly has never looked for his sister, and she doesn't know her new address. Detectives didn't find the whereabouts of the two suspects from their families, but they were surprised to find Dick and Bailly in Kansas City again, which made them very excited. It turned out that two criminals went to Mexico after committing crimes. Finally, they spent all their money and had to return to Kansas City, because Dick could only write fake checks that could not be cashed locally. However, this deception exposed their whereabouts. A shop assistant wrote down the license plate number of their stolen car. The police watched the car closely along the road. After arriving in Las Vegas, the detective arrested two criminals. At first Dewey was worried that the criminals had destroyed the physical evidence, and it would be difficult to convict if they refused to confess. Who knows that the boots they wore when committing the crime were found in Bailly's suitcase, which coincided with the footprints left by the body. After a lightning-fast trial, the two criminals confessed their crimes one after another. Bailly had a miserable childhood. After his parents divorced, he was sent to the church orphanage and the Salvation Army children's shelter for abuse. 16 years old, worked as a slave in a merchant ship, participated in the Korean War, was seriously injured in a car accident, and often had leg pains. He hated everyone since he was a child. Once he turned against his father, he wandered around. He was wanted by the FBI for theft and escape, met Dick in prison, and once admired him a little. In order to win Dick's respect, he boasted that he beat a black man alive for no reason. Dick appreciated his cruel character, so he partnered with him and encouraged him to go to Clutter's house to commit crimes, trying to rob nearly 10,000 yuan in the safe. But the information provided by Wells is untrue. Not only did I have no safe at home, but I only received cash from around 50 yuan. Dick tried to rape Hiram, but Bailly stopped him because he hated it. Finally, they tied up a family of four and killed them with shotguns to destroy the evidence of the crime. Unexpectedly, they still can't escape the legal sanctions. 1965 On June 22nd, they were hanged in the state prison, when Dick was 33 and Bailly was 36.
Appreciation of works This is a new novel. The author calls it "non-fiction". In fact, it is only a true story novel in literature, but it is closer to the truth. It can also be said that it is a long news report written in the form of a novel. Today, we can also call it documentary novel. Its main artistic feature is the coexistence of reality and reality. In the United States, as early as 196 1 year, Philip Roth, a famous Jewish writer, put forward the theory of "confusion between fact and fiction" in his paper "Writing American Fiction". He believes that by the middle of the 20th century, the reality of the United States has become more bizarre than the plot invented by any novelist, so "what a writer should do is to understand most of the reality of the United States first, then describe it, and then make it become. Because American writers think that fact and fiction are confused, on the one hand, they feel the mystery of reality, on the other hand, they lose confidence in reality, so some writers are divorced from reality and pursue a new art form to express their experiences and feelings, thus producing new legendary novels with black humor as the main feature in the 1960 s and 1970 s in the United States This school of novelists believes that once facts are confused with fiction, reality becomes surreal. Therefore, on the one hand, the writer realizes the reality of unconsciousness, on the other hand, he feels that his experience may be another dream. Therefore, many contemporary western novels are often dreamy and focus on describing the conflict between individuals and the absurd world. Since ordinary novels are devoted to describing the surreal mysterious world, another school of American writers, such as Capote, goes to the other extreme, thinking that since most writers today deviate from realism and abandon excellent social themes, "new news reports" only make full use of these social themes in real life to make writers "Fielding and Balzac today". The "new news report" allows writers to mix personal observation and imagination when describing facts, and adopt various symbolic techniques to break the boundary between fiction and non-fiction in artistic form, so there is not much difference between the so-called "new news report" and "non-fiction" in essence. Norman mailer, another new news writer who integrated history with fiction, called his nonfiction novels "life record novels". He said that some real events in society are as dramatic and ironic as he could imagine and make up as a novelist, so as long as these real events are described in detail as possible, it can show how similar the life represented by the novel itself is to the novel. Mailer's theory can also be called Capote's "non-fiction" theory. Although Slaughter is a book that depicts real events naked, it is a novel in both content and form. The story of Murder is a true story that happened in Kansas City, USA. After being released from prison, two prisoners attempted to rob a family of four rich peasants who had never met before by extremely cruel means for no reason. Due to the lack of obvious motive for murder in this criminal case, the victim's family was a law-abiding citizen, which caused a sensation after the incident and became the center of public opinion for a time. Capote spent six years doing a lot of investigations and numerous interviews, interviewing relatives and friends of the victims, neighbors, police authorities, two criminals and relatives and friends of the criminals, and finally gained the trust of the criminals. He asked Capote to be present at the sentencing. The author took great pains to give a vivid description and profound analysis of the occurrence, development, investigation and trial of this case with a novel and unique genre. The characters are also vividly portrayed. After the novel was published, it had a great influence and many writers followed suit. Since then, a new documentary literature with American historical, social and aesthetic characteristics has appeared in American contemporary literature: non-fiction novel or new news report. Although the events depicted in the Massacre are all based on real people, its theme is just similar to that of contemporary serious novels. You see, to what extent human nature has degenerated! Traditional moral standards and values are worth a few cents! How can society produce cold-blooded animals like Dick and Bailly? How did their cruel "cold-blooded" character come into being? Do such criminal cases and murderers have typical significance in society? For readers in China, since this is a novel that expresses life in the form of news reports, after reading it, we can not only compare socialist and capitalist social systems and civilizations, but also think deeply about some issues, and at the same time, we can increase our understanding of criminal activities and social problems in capitalist society.