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We are reading The Grass Harp by Truman Capote,
who said:Please post your thoughts and questions on the book in this thread.Quote:
A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.
Book Club Procedures
I guess I'll try to pick it up this weekend.
Yay! I'll start now.
One good thing I can say about this book already is that because it is a newer edition it doesn't have Capote stretched out looking all sexy on the the front or back cover.
ohh I cant get hold of it and I really wanted to read it :(
I stopped reading a little into the second chapter last night. Something about the language seems lacking to me. Many stories are beautiful because of their simple language, but something about this story's wording is just lackluster.
The story itself is imaginative and is keeping my interest. I live in the southern US, though, so I can often relate to stories set in the South.
This book club thing sounds interesting. I'll pick this one up as soon as I'm done with The Picture of Dorian Gray
I'm still in the first chapter, but I'm not sure what you mean by lackluster language. I loved the opening. Let me see if I could type this up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Psycheinaboat
Actually, this is a magnificent opening. It sounds even better as I typed it. Please excuse any typos; I'm not great at this keyboard.Quote:
When was it that first I heard of the grass harp? Long before the autumn we lived in the China tree; an earlier autumn, then; and of course it was Dolly who told me, no one else would have known to call it that, a grass harp.
If on leaving town you take the church road you soon will pass a glaring hill of bonewhite slabs and brown burnt flowers: this is the Babtist cemetery. Our people, Talbos, Fenwicks, are buried there; my mother lies next to my father, and the graves of kinfold, twenty or more, are around them like the prone roots of a stony tree. Below the hill grows a field of high Indian grass that changes color with the seasons: go to see it in the fall, late September, when it has gone red as sunset, when scarlet shadows like firelight breeze over it and the autumn winds strum on its dry leaves sighing human music, a harp of voices.
Beyond the field begins the darkness of River Woods. It must have been one of those September days when we were there in the woods gathering roots that Dolly said: Do you hear? that is the grass harp, always telling a story--it knows the stories of all the people on the hill, of all the people who ever lived, and when we are dead it will tell ours, too.
Thanks Virgil, I haven't begun to read the book yet, but the opening you have typed sounds really great to me.
Virgil, I will agree with you that the opening was very good. After that, the narrator seemed to lag, in my opinion. Also, the ending of Ch.2 was excellent. As the party sat around the fire cooking and eating, I could smell the moist, night time soil and hear the creek gurgling by. Ch. 2 definitely pulled me into the story.
Ch. 3 is the best so far - quite excellent! :nod:
see I told you all this would be a great book! only I cant get a copy :bawling:
I've just finished the first chapter and I can say I like the book so far. Even if it is mostly an introductory chapter it seems the story is going to be interesting (and also weird). I liked the writing of the first few paragraphs (the ones posted by virgil) and the last ones, which take up the the opening motif; it is very poetic.
I understand Psycheinaboat comment as regards the writing of the rest of the chapter, but I don't think it is luckluster, it is just simple and easy, which is ok for an introductory chapter, in my opinion.
Ok, now I'm going to see what happens next.
I like it too. I finished the first chapter. Just that characterization of the jewish fellow borders on anti-semitic. I hope it doesn't develop that way.
guess who found a copy?!
:D:D about half way through the frst chapter.... :D:D