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Summary: Stop Sharing Uninformed Opinions
Review: "Handcarved Coffins" is in the terms of a reviewer "finely crafted" but to an extent which robs the story of its importance among Capote's works. Despite the objections of another reviewer that questions of fact or fiction are irrelevant Capote claimed dubiously to have invented the "nonfiction novel." As the supposed father of this form, he then, for example tested different versions of the rattlesnake scene on friends and a TV audience which responded with derision. None of the journalistic integrity he claimed to be the core of the new genre in a NYT interview is evident in this fascinating story, which he significantly subtitled "A Nonfiction Account of an American Crime." The reader who claims to be touched by the truthfulness of the story should read the biographies mentioned as should the person who claims that Capote ripened with the pills and alcohol. Any discussion of Music for Chameleons must consider Handcarved Coffins and the nonfiction novel as the beginning of Capote's delusional demise and should concentrate on his potrait of Monroe, the high point of his those tragic years, in which he became anything but a "Southern Aristocrat."
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Summary: Finally, he became a Southern Aristocrat....
Review: ....I had no great admiration for the man, no did I read his magnum opus, "In Cold Blood". My curiousity of Capote came about when I notice he was a frequent guest on many of the talk shows and he always had something witty and biting to say. He looked as if he was just in from a night of partying, heck, his talking was always slurred and he always had something to say about Babe, Liza, the 54, the Kennedys, Brando, Ross, Pacino and all the beautiful people that wound up in Noo Yawk....
So, one day I stumbled on his last work of short stories "Music for Chameleons" and read the great "Handcarved Coffins". Talk about Music. So much great lyricism in his phrasing, so much of what he probably loved about his contemporaries, friends, and enemies like Harper Lee and Tennessee Williams and in spite of his own debaucheries in Celebrity Land--what is it about overindulgences in Noo Yawk that makes evvy celeb like Oscar Levant, Garland, and now Liza to see their demis!e on the talk show circuit...?--he became an aristocrat because of his writing.
"Handcarved Coffins" is a great mystery with an eye for detail, but other southern snapshots and semiautobiographical pieces are just as extraordinary. Like one of the reviewers below said, these are to be read aloud.
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Summary: Handcarved Coffins is the only one worth reading
Review: Capote had pretty much destroyed himself by the time this volume was first published, still Handcarved Coffins is an extremely powerful piece of writing and worth getting.
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Summary: Revealing
Review: Capote once again proves his insurmountable grasp of the English language as he delicately weaves the characters in each anecdote. After each character study, one gains a deeper insight into the true motives and aspirations of each person including Capote himself. Though some may shun the explicit nature of sections, the reader must realize for his or her self that this language only analyzes each character with deeper knowledge and forces the reader to question their own motives in life.
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Summary: This must be Capote at his best
Review: From each country I visit, I buy a book as a souvenir. While on interrail this summer, I stumbled over the "Music for Chameleons" in Prague. I have not read a lot of Capote, but nevertheless, this must be Capote at his best.His writing is simple and direct, yet beautiful and elegant. In a way, his economic writing style reminds me of Hemingway. Eloquent, with not one word out of place. "Music for Chameleons" had my attention from the preface to the very last page. The author has this amazing ability to grab the reader's attention and hold on to it. When reading this book, I was a part of it. I was there; I could feel the emotions of each of the characters in the different stories. The book contains several short stories and one non-fiction novel. I don't normally like short stories, but after reading this book, I am now a great fan of short stories. At least Capote's short stories. They are extraordinary! My favorite among these stories is the story of his dope-smoking cleaning lady. A truly wicked story. The longer piece in this book, the novel, "Handcarved Coffins", is about his investigation of a murder case in Kansas. Great mystery, many details, and I read the whole story in one sitting. "Music for Chameleons" is one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read and I read it in 50 page gulps. A compelling read. Highly recommended!
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Summary: Buy a different edition
Review: Great writing, but the first 50 pages of this edition (1st Vintage, April 1994) are printed on a slight slant. This is very distracting, and I recommend buying a different edition.
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Summary: Whether true or imagined, he tells a good story
Review: I see much skepticism in the other reviews of this book about Capote's trustworthiness in representing a story as truth or fiction, but I have to say that I was able to put my own judgment about those matters aside, and enjoy the highly entertaining way in which he writes. Was the conversation with Marilyn Monroe real, partly real, or totally an invention of what others have said was a drug-addled mind - who cares? We will never truly know, and that is the beauty of it. Both parties have departed this earth; both are regarded somewhat mythically, and I do not believe that Capote was doing anything other than attempting to entertain, which he does in a sensational, shocking, but addictively readable way. I have to confess that there were only a few of the "fictional" stories at the beginning that I truly enjoyed, but I was thoroughly entertained by the short pieces - episodes with Truman Capote and his unusual band of friends and acquaintances - in the latter third of this book. The central story of the Handcarved Coffins had much that anyone attempting to discredit factually would likely have fun with. I have not researched the story, so do not know if it was indeed a factual series of murders, or merely presented as such by Capote. I was not concerned with that, either here, or when I read In Cold Blood, by the same author. That piece was obviously more of a factual account, a highly publicised crime, but written in enjoyable prose. Handcarved Coffins was so much more compellingly written than much in the "detective" genre (which I try to avoid) today. Capote had a talent for storytelling that I have only recently discovered, but have quickly grown to appreciate.
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Summary: One of his best works
Review: I'm torn between chosing this book or Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms," as his best work. Okay, it's a toss-up. "Music for Chameleons" is like a collection of minature jewels, something akin to the Chopin "Preludes." These are brilliant, dazzling, and well-crafted pieces, each one complete and with its own theme. It's Capote at his best Also recommended: McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD
Rating:
Summary: One of his best works
Review: I'm torn between chosing this book or Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms," as his best work. Okay, it's a toss-up. "Music for Chameleons" is like a collection of minature jewels, something akin to the Chopin "Preludes." These are brilliant, dazzling, and well-crafted pieces, each one complete and with its own theme. It's Capote at his best Also recommended: McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD
Rating: 
Summary: Not Even A Good Liar
Review: In one of these "essays," Capote describes his encounter with a teenage Lee Harvey Oswald, four years before Dallas. Since--as he's quick to note--he also knew JFK (and RFK, Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray...the names go thud thud thud), this is quite a coup. Talk about connected! He remembers the meeting vividly, right down to the musty potted palm under which Oswald sulked, in Moscow's Metropole Hotel. Only problem is, Capote made his short visit in the spring of '59, and Oswald wasn't there until the following October. Want more vivid reminiscences like that one? You can have my copy of "Music for Chameleons." Maybe "chameleons" refers to Capote's memories, since they're always changing. Also maybe because their colors are rather dull. Most of the pieces here originally ran as "journalism," but they're all of the Stephen Glass stripe. As always with Capote, it's not the lying itself that offends so much as the cynicism and desperation. At some point he stopped believing in the power of language to show us anything true or memorable. Capote wrote one excellent book early on ("In Cold Blood"), which effectively ended his career. It was a bestseller, and critics heaped it with panegyrics ("the boy dreamer has discovered death"), feeding speculation that he had finally matured and was ready to mate his sharp prose style w/ a new sagacity. There was much talk of his Proustian work-in-progress, "Answered Prayers," tho most of it was from Capote himself--and as a result he could never bring himself to write it. Instead he squandered all his money--and creative energy--on his infamous Black and White Ball, a lavish suck-up fest for "all the best people" (i.e., wealthy socialites and celebrity leeches), and pretty soon that famous high-domed head was little more than a receptacle for drugs, drink, grudges, cocktail gossip, and slanderous crackpot harangues--delivered nightly at drunken talk-show gigs--which he hoped might gain credence from his "connections" and keep his name in the news. Like the vacuous celebrities he idolized, he tried to build a marketable persona by way of extreme behavior and the talk show circuit. Meanwhile his work coarsened beyond recognition. I know this is the standard line about Capote. But it also seems to be the truth. As false and absurd as his later "journalism" is when taken straight, it reads even worse as fiction. Nothing resonates, not a word rings true. "Hello Stranger" pretends to be an actual dialogue w/ a former classmate, a WASP golden boy aged ungracefully into a (possible) pedophile. But the story is a rehash (Capote loved to recycle). His 1951 novella "The Grass Harp" told it better in a short vignette. The new version is very pat and the details don't convince. If you're going to write phony nonfiction, it's best not to slather on the picturesqueness, but Capote can't resist. "Handcarved Coffins: A Nonfiction Account of an American Crime" is a crime all right--against real murder victims (used as props in a foolish melodrama); against its own pompous subtitle. "Then It All Came Down," a fictionalized dialogue with Manson zombie Robert Beausoleil, is primarily a piece of self-puffery; occasionally the "subject" is allowed to interject some words, which sound remarkably like expository, bad TV. Capote, who couldn't get an audience w/ Manson, wildly exaggerates Beausoleil's culpability (and thus his "glamour"), claiming he was the *true* leader of the Manson cult and the real father of the Tate-Lo Bianco slayings... And so on and so forth. "I like having the truth be the truth so I can't change it," Capote says somewhere, announcing his literary breakthrough: "faction," a new kind of novel, "every word true." In the end, of course, he even defiled his own virgin ("In Cold Blood") with a concocted final chapter. His betrayal of this sacred self-trust set the pattern for all that followed. And lest you think this is all academic: at least one human being died (of suicide) as a result of his snarky gossip. Two, if you count Jack Kerouac... Three, if you count Capote himself. And for what? He wasn't even a decent liar. Oscar Wilde once wrote about "the art of lying," anticipating artists like Capote. "The Kitsch of Lying" would be a truer title for this sad little book.
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