Music for Chameleons
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| Music for Chameleons | |
 Penguin Classics cover, published 2001 |
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| Author | Truman Capote |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Short story collection |
| Publisher | Penguin |
| Publication date | 1980 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) & e-book, audio-CD |
| Pages | 288 pp (Paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-679-74566-1 (Penguin Paperback edition) |
Music for Chameleons (1980) is a collection by American author Truman Capote that includes both fiction and nonfiction. Capote's first offering of new material in 14 years, Music for Chamelons spent an unheard of (for a collection of short nonfiction) 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
The book is divided into three sections. Part one, headed "Music for Chameleons," includes the title piece and five other stories ("Mr. Jones," "A Lamp in a Window," "Mojave," "Hospitality," "Dazzle"). The core of the book is Handcarved Coffins, a supposedly "nonfiction account of an American crime" that brings to mind certain parallels with his best-known work, the difference being that Capote did not include himself in the narrative as a character when he wrote In Cold Blood. Some readers might question the article's validity if they take note of the conspicuous error when Capote examines the photo of a woman which has birth/death dates (1939-1975) written on the back. In an earlier paragraph, he gave her age as 44.
In the third section, "Conversational Portraits," Capote recalls his encounters with Pearl Bailey, Bobby Beausoleil, Willa Cather, Marilyn Monroe and others. These seven essays are titled "A Day's Work," "Hello, Stranger," "Hidden Gardens," "Derring-do," "Then It All Came Down," "A Beautiful Child" and "Nocturnal Turnings." Noting yet another discrepancy, some have observed that Capote's Moscow meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald could not have happened since the two were in the city in different time frames.
Debates abound on the degree of fictionalization in Capote's nonfiction, but that viewpoint is usually tempered with comments on the mood, atmosphere and range of human emotions Capote captured when creating such character studies. Writing in the New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt reviewed Music for Chameleons on August 5, 1980:
| “ | :After all, while some of the pieces here are very good indeed, particularly the title story, about an aristocratic Martinique lady who demonstrates to Mr. Capote that chameleons are attracted to music, or "Mojave," about the tenuousness of various loving relationships, or "Hello, Stranger," about a solid citizen's slipping into a desperate middle-aged crisis; others of the pieces suffer from a certain overcontrivance. In "A Lamp in the Window," a sweet little old lady who offers Mr. Capote the shelter of her home on a cold night turns out to have a freezer in her kitchen in which she has preserved the bodies of all the pet cats who have ever died in her possession. In "Mr. Jones," the crippled blind man who once lived next to the author in a Brooklyn rooming house and entertained a steady stream of visitors, suddenly disappears mysteriously. Ten years later, Mr. Capote spots him, hale and hearty, riding in a Moscow subway car... Both "A Day's Work," in which Mr. Capote accompanies his cleaning lady on a day of her rounds, and "A Beautiful Child," in which he attends a funeral with Marilyn Monroe, show us something of the author's unusual talent for friendship with both the famous and the humble. In "Derring-do," about an escapade in which he disguised himself as a member of Pearl Bailey's chorus-boy entourage in order to escape a California subpoena to testify against a killer who had spoken to him in confidence, Mr. Capote juxtaposes the campy side of himself and the tough moral fiber.
In short, the pieces in "Music for Chameleons" have freed him to write about himself--even to confess, without a trace of self-pity or bravado, the agony he felt as a child over his secret desire "to be a girl." Yet these pieces can hardly be called an egotistical celebration of his personality. He does what he does with art. That art is a sort of music. We gather to listen and to blend ourselves into the composer's background. Just like the chameleons.[1] |
” |
In the preface of the collection, Capote claims to have suffered a drug and alcohol-induced nervous breakdown in 1977, at which point he ceased working on his highly anticipated follow-up to In Cold Blood, Answered Prayers, portions of which had elicited a riotous reaction in the jet set when excerpted in Esquire magazine throughout 1975 and 1976. This is most likely the truth, although Capote would often contradict that statement and claim that the publication of the novel was imminent until his death in 1984.
[edit] Conversations
According to Gerald Clarke in his biography Capote, many of the pieces contained in this book were written during what was inarguably the author's last burst of productivity in 1979. Locking himself in his First Avenue apartment for days and spending very little time partying or carousing, this burst of creativity gave brief hope to those who felt that Capote's addictions were beyond help. Most of the pieces had been commissioned for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine and initially published in the then-regular "Conversations with Capote" feature. By this juncture Warhol was one of Capote's few champions, likely necessitating the completition of the material in an atypically speedy fashion for the author. The artist reluctantly submitted to Capote's demands for full creative and editorial control, though editor Brigid Berlin proved capable of charming Capote over when changes were necessitated. After the publication of the collection Capote all but terminated his relationship with Interview and continued to decline.
[edit] Other Works by the Same Name
- "Music for Chameleons" is also the name of a music single for artist Gary Numan, which charted at #19 on the British Pop Music Charts in March, 1982.
- The pop-rock singer Fito Páez from Argentina also has a song named "Música para camaleones" (Music for chameleons, in Spanish) which appeared in his album Naturaleza Sangre.
[edit] References
- ^ "Books of The Times", New York Times, August 5, 1980.
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