The Books: “Music for Chameleons” – ‘Mojave’ (Truman Capote)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Music for Chameleons – by Truman Capote. Today’s excerpt is from a story called ‘Mojave’.

Now it’s no secret that Capote lost much, in terms of his talent, as he grew older. His drinking and drug use I am sure contributed to it. He had horrific writer’s block. And he was one of those “lucky” writers who had success (and huge success) very early on … his first novel was a hit, and he became an immediate celebrity. He loved it at the time, he was young, popular, an artist – but to be a success, especially as a writer, at a young age, can turn around and bite you in the ass. The pressure to repeat yourself, the unreal expectations of what kind of money your books should make, etc.

Anyway, all of this is to say that – I love Capote’s writing, even the late-era stuff – but I can feel, in stories like ‘Mojave’ – his struggle to write. It feels sketched in, to me – as opposed to fully realized. His earlier stuff is truly effortless (not that he didn’t work his ass off – he did – but the finished products FEEL effortless. Like he agonized over In Cold Blood – every sentence was parsed and examined – he was ruthless in his own editing of that book – but when you READ it, it feels effortless. None of his sweat and tears SHOW.) The stories in Music for Chameleons do not have any of the significance of his earlier stories – they are light, they are fragments – it’s almost like each one is an overheard piece of gossip. Now this style has its own charm – and if you’re interested in people, and how weird and beautiful and mysterious they can be – Music for Chameleons is all about that. It’s just that I can feel the effort.

And also (and this is key): This is the best Capote could do in that moment. Capote is, without a doubt, doing his best.

This was part of his torment. He knew what, at his prime, his best was. And now all he could squeeze out were 3 page stories that were little more than character sketches – writing exercises.

But you know what? That’s what he could do at that particular moment. He did not have a novel in him anymore. he did not have the constitution to complete anything BIG. He had ruined his health. A small story like “Mojave” – which really is just a sketch, a draft – was what he could do. And so he did it. And I happen to think there is a beauty in that. Perhaps a sad beauty – because we remember what he was capable of – but a beauty nonetheless.

Here’s the opening of “Mojave”.

Excerpt from Music for Chameleons – by Truman Capote – ‘Mojave’.

At 5 p.m. that winter afternoon she had an appointment with Dr. Bentsen, formerly her psychoanalyst and currently her lover. When their relationship had changed from the analytical to the emotional, he insisted, on ethical grounds, that she cease to be his patient. Not that it mattered. He had not been of much help as an analyst, and as a lover – well, once she had watched him running to catch a bus, two hundred and twenty pounds of short-ish, fiftyish, frizzly-haired, hip-heavy, myopic Manhattan Intellectual, and she had laughed: how was it possible that she could love a man so ill-humored, so ill-favored as Ezra Bentsen? The answer was she didn’t; in fact, she disliked him. But at least she didn’t associate him with resignation and despair. She feared her husband; she was not afraid of Dr. Bentsen. Still, it was her husband she loved.

She was rich; at any rate, had a substantial allowance from her husband, who was rich, and so could afford the studio-apartment hideaway where she met her lover perhaps once a week, sometimes twice, never more. She could also afford gifts he seemed to expect on those occasions. Not that he appreciated their quality: Verdura cuff links, classic Paul Flato cigarette cases, the obligatory Cartier watch, and (more to the point) occasional specific amounts of cash he asked to ‘borrow’.

He had never given her a single present. Well, one: a mother-of-pearl Spanish dress comb that he claimed was an heirloom, a mother-treasure. Of course, it was nothing she could wear, for she wore her own hair, fluffy and tobacco-colored, like a childish aureole around her deceptively naive and youthful face. Thanks to dieting, private exercises with Joseph Pilatos, and the dermatological attentions of Dr. Orentreich, she looked in her early twenties; she was thirty-six.