David Gilmour on Truman Capote's slow descent into Hell
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- Опубликовано: 25 авг 2024
- Last year at about this time David Gilmour and I sat down together to talk about "Mohave" one of Truman Capote's greatest short stories. We enjoyed ourselves so much we decided to do it again, this time with "Shut a Final Door."
Capote wrote this story when he was only 23 years old. David contends that it strongly foreshadows how Truman's actual life would subsequently unfold - as a slow, messy descent into hell.
Perfect fare for the holiday season.
Merry Christmas everyone. And thanks for listening!
Photo by Jack Mitchell
Truman has made some of the most astute observations of people when he was on his game. Such a bright and talented man.
Capote became a disaster
He was all of those things. A pity he succumbed to the temptation of being catty. Even so, he's still one of my favourite authors.
And bitter too. He died with the root of bitterness ruling him. May we all learn from the struggles of those who came before us. May we seek to understand what is underneath our pain. May we seek to heal instead of numb our pain..
@@TEM14411 Unfortunately, he was bitter. The devil on his shoulder won. Yes, may we all do that. Very well said.
❤❤❤❤@@Catbooks
I have long been a fan of Capote, probably first exposed to him in my (late 1980s) LIT 101. Over the years, I've found myself prone to a recurring preoccupation with learning more about him. I go on an annual TC binge, listening to old interviews, rereading his short stories I am listening to this and enjoying it SO MUCH. Thank you.
You have perfectly described Narcissistic Personality Disorder,. He proves the theory.."They are both born and created by their life."
Absolutely. They don’t achieve objective separation from their mother so everyone must be idealized, seen as the savior who will finally fill and repair the voice within; a flat airbrushed version of each new person is snapshotted within their brain for them to fawn over for a short while; then when the boredom and self-loathing creep in, they feel utter disgust and betrayal at these new people who have “failed them”… so they feel entirely justified in tearing them down and smearing them, and they truly feel they are the one hard done by, and use it as fuel to sell their sob story to the next victim… they create this pattern so routinely and predictably as to be absurd. Sadly the old science says they can choose to get better with support, but the new science says their brain chemistry is just fucked and they will inevitably get more bitter and worse. We know what happened with Capote.
It just goes to show that deep down we really all know the score about ourselves.
When you’re hurting all alone,you actually are alone. If you ask why,you can’t comprehend the answer.
Capote was a brilliant yet very mentally disturbed man.
Mr. Capote is among the most interesting of persons in my time. His voice, mannerisms, thoughts, intelligence and life are very unique and fascinating! Great piece, thank you for posting!
I have always loved Truman Capote & always will. As strong as he was there dwelled within him a profound sensitivity ❣️
Capote behaved as an alcoholic, a drug abuser, HE also behaved as his "Con", Father, " Manipulator " like his Father and Mother. All learned behavior, add toxicity, you have Truman.
He also behaved as a brilliant writer. You are behaving in the same behavior as you are criticizing in him.
Capote's supreme, and delusional, belief in his social power ultimately brought him down. Have always felt such sadness for his last years in spite of his malice and blindness.
I think he was like Icarus with these New York women and it made him very sad to lose access to that world and never be able to go back.
As the saying goes, he believed his own publicity.
I don’t believe that. He knew he was always on rocky grounds with those women. It scared him and he was always afraid they would dump him in a heartbeat. He used them and they used him. Transactional relationships is all they were. He was never delusional about his fake friendships with them.
@@crystalship9900 Thank you for saying this. I don't know why (ok it's because of Feud on TV) SO many people are rushing to feel sorry for these incredibly haughty rich women long ago who kept Truman as an amusing mascot and made cruel gay jokes behind his back. He never wrote badly about Babe Paley, he wrote something fictionalized about her cheating husband who made babe's life miserable with his infidelities. I suppose because Feud has such a great cast viewers' sympathies go to the Swans but it was way more ambiguous than that.
@@arundelmercure553 Very well said. He used them. They used him. He knew that and he was always on guard that they would screw him over. He was not delusional about his place in high society. Look at what the high society dames did to his mother, he never got over that. He knew they would do it to him, but he got them before they got him. He knew what the odds were. They got what they deserved. He ended up hating them and the high society gossiping and back stabbing games they played with the "power" they had and using it like a cudgel over their enemies' heads. He was sick of it all.
Mister Gilmour, this is fascinating! Thank you for this insight.
It was the nastiness of Gore Vidal's comments about Truman Capote that led me to Capote & I read 'In Cold Blood'. It is not new of me to say it was a revelation - such a brilliant book. It made me wonder if GV was capable of writing like this. I read somewhere that Americans completely, unexpectedly, revitalised the English language. So many are unique & wonderful. Carson McCullers I come back to again & again.
Gore Vidal was a sour, unhappy, cantankerous man. Pay him no mind. His books aren't very good either.
@@DonHendrickson-xd7jw Gore's essays are quite fine and he was an extraordinary 20th century person himself. But you're quite right, ha. Tragic he considered his fiction his best stuff. Susan Sontag did too; both of their fiction work was wooden and meh. That's why Gore was tremendously jealous of Truman. Despite being "well-bred" and notably handsome when young, Gore couldn't stand how this nobody from nowhere could become the toast of the town through sheer extraordinary talent that enchanted people. There's also the aspect where gay men can be very competitive and unkind with each other. And Gore could be very unkind indeed. He was a terrible snob, and Truman really wasn't. Truman is known for being a viper to the rich who kept him as an amusing pet, but he never looked down on working-class ordinary people, he treasured them.
Casson McCullers is a gem!
Sounds like a narcissistic behaviour, no empathy, victimhood, others have faults but things just happen to oneself...maybe that was his way of being. This analysis you both did, is very good. It unveils the "mask" and bears the naked, unforgiving truth: the emptyness in the character and maybe the author.
Six months before his death, he went into a small men's clothing boutique in NYC. Truman grabbed a bunch of sweaters and three them out on the snowy sidewalk. The young clerk yelled out to the manager " Shall I call the police ? Manager responded, " Don't call the police. I put the coast of the sweaters on his bill. "
Thanks for reviewing Capote's early work. I am not sure I can think of a more natural writer, ever. But he seemed to hate himself and used that keen insight coupled with that razor tongue to insult everyone else about it. Wish he had finished Answered Prayers, some of the best prose I have ever read, funny and fun and insightful, but if he could have brought some sweetness and tenderness and touch to it. It was so scathing and bitter, but so unmistakenly Capote.
Wow. Your analysis a little past halfway is spot on
Up next Roger Waters discusses the plight of Hemingway 😅
Haha????
I clicked on this video hoping to find David Gilmour was actually a Capote fan. Who knew that after he left Floyd his voice changed into a raspy whisper with an American accent?
This is a dark assessment of Capote which might reveal something of the assessor; who speaks of Capote’s penchant for revealing faults in other people, yet spends over an hour doing that very thing to his subject. To watch Capote on video or to read much of his writing, I find a warm hearted sensitive person. And a funny one. As for his absence of loyalty, he had a decades long relationship with Jack Dunphy and friendship with people he met in Kansas while writing In Cold Blood that also stood the test of time.He died at the home of someone who loved him. Perhaps some of those people he savaged we’re never true friends to begin with.
You wrote the comment I would have written, Mat.
@@ptrck99 thats the nicest comment reply I’ve ever gotten. Thank you.
The "Alcoholic" brain is NOT the same brain before all the damage, a wet brain is very sick.
@@mrswiss
Literary criticism of an author's works, is an actual, longstanding, established 'thing'...as is speculation and an analysis of their possible motivations, personality and character.
That's what the hour was spent on.
Your choice to perceive the analysis as a 'dark assessment'...is simply your own personal subjective judgement, along with cherry-picking examples of 'loyalty' to support your narrative of the sanitised, non-problematic version of Capote that you prefer.
@@reliableandrew
Clearly Capote was a complex mix. He had both light and dark sides as do most people. His stories almost divide into dark and light. He was a generous and loyal friend to many people throughout his life. His addictions certainly may have eroded his lighter side as he grew older and more entrenched in drugs and alcohol; in his descent he became more malicious. See Gerald Clarke(sp?) biography of Capote which comprehensively covers Capote's complexity.
This is a good, mini-portrait of Capote : at times, compelling and discerning : for example, the remark concerning a chapter in Capote’s first book ( wherein his ignorance about heterosexual interactions is possibly revealed through his characters’ dialogue ). The reviewer was, I believe, on point: few women would regard initial sex with an acquaintance in such a perfunctory, cavalier manner….Additionally, the portrayal of Capote as a sort of “social vampire” ( establishing new relationships for the purpose of invigorating his own image-only to jettison the victim, once all social credit/publicity had been extracted ) also rings true….
Part, genius, part, pure narcissist, I cannot help but pity the lack of deep emotional connections Capote failed to make during his brilliant, but seemingly cosmetic, life….Thanks for filling in a few more pieces of the puzzle on this unique individual, in whose wake trailed genius….and cruelty
You must be a writer
i fell upon this discussion by accident. I'm glad, for it is interesting.
What a very interesting and fascinating discussion and duo analysis. Really enjoyed it, fellas. Some very good insights. Thank you.
Listening to this makes me want to reread all the early stories, and also his first novel, which has to be the strangest thing he ever wrote -- he later said that it was a book about "demons" and you really feel this, it's so otherworldly. It's a pity that Roman Polanski, who at one point in the 1970s wanted to film it, never did. The hot, isolated, deep-south setting is so exotic as to be hallucinatory, and the story itself is so spooky and odd, that Polanski could really have done something with it.
Roman should be in prison
His early short stories are masterful, so much sweetness and humor and clever insight and razor-edge narrative. But every word he ever wrote was pretty sharp. Just became more and more bitter, for whatever reason. A deep self-hatred or resentments he could not surmount. Booze/pills played a big part.
Somehow I have a feeling that Mr Capote would both agree and disagree with absolutely everything proposed.
This comment made me laugh. I bet you're absolutely right. That would be a very Capote thing to do.
@@Catbooks....It strikes me funny,
no one talks about William
Faulkner any more. He seems
to have fallen out of favor, I
wonder why. ?
@@michaelcelani8325 I don't know. Do you have any theories? He was a very talented writer.
Capote was one of the mid 20th century greatest writers..Music for Chameleons/0ther Voices Other Rooms/The Grass Harp .. wonderful !!
I found this very interesting. I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you both!
45:40 People Are Strange - The Doors
Thank-you I very much enjoyed this.
Glad to hear it.
@@NigelBeale...Jim Morrison had
insights into the human condition not unlike those of Truman Capote. Maybe not surprising they were both southern
born, Morrison growing up in
Florida with a very conservative
father who was an Admiral in the
US Navy.
I would like to hear a conversation between the two, if
indeed that ever took place.
Morrison had a very keen and
observant mind, and read a lot of
varied and important books.
Thanks for posting!
Kind of reminds you of Eddie and Warhols relationship!
Excellent analysis
How many other Pink Floyd fans stumbled on this by accident..?! 🤭
Me. How weird is this? LOL
@@LannieLord 🤭
Amen, bro.
Im still waiting for the solo
I read "Miriam" as decomposition and dementia catching up with the archetypal woman..Like "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" (1950) by Tennessee Williams..The loss of identity is certainly a disconcerting process, but I can imagine Capote being rather amused over his depiction (like Kafka was over his own)
I did a reading on Capote and he seemed through out his life a loner and maybe it's what life threw at him but he is still a very interesting person
My grandfather adored Truman Capote. He was a Genius who was continually harassed and smeared behind his back. From what I hear. In the 1950s and 60s being Gay wasn’t Vogue and many Men hid it. Capote capitalized on his gayness and what people would say weirdness. God Bless Truman Capote 🙏🏻💔🙏🏻
I recently saw Capote on Dick Cavett and David Letterman, both times he was as he is described here.
There are only one set of people the world must excuse all sins: the extraordinarily talented who leave humanity the gift of their creativity. Thank you Mr. Capote
1:00:13
‘In Cold Blood’ was an assigned reading in HS. I remember what it was about, but my most vivid memory was the fear I felt while reading it! How did he do that?? When I read the news about the crime there was nothing extraordinary or horrific about it as compared to other violent crimes. But his book made me very afraid. Any body have a literary answer for this? I would be very grateful. Thx
It can't be ignored that the women that Capote ultimately betrayed had given him plenty of "narcissistic supply" for 20 years... they enjoyed and encouraged his bitchiness and were greatly amused by his wicked gossip and "turns of phrase." If they had rejected gossip all along on principle, the story in Esquire would have been impossible. I think they considered him something of a freak... his queerness, lack of height, and that weird voice. (I remember him from that time; he was considered very strange by most of the public.) He must have suspected to some extent that he was in their midst only as a pet, and ike a cat that is over-petted, he lashed out. They had not realized how dangerous he could be. They all deserved each other... the women were just as nasty as he.
Couldn't agree more.
They did, but they kept it among themselves. They did not betray each other. Truman had no problem exploiting them. I find that if a person talks smack about someone else in their orbit, that it's only a matter of time they do the same to you.
You're describing a narcissism ...
Do more about capote
Intelligent discussion very insightful hope it helps me with my writing and self awareness
Capote was a genuis but yes a vicious self promoter--I love his work-especially In Cold Blood---a great southern writer--not as good as Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, Faulkner or Kate Chopin , Eudora Welty but he is great! im a professor of southern lit. and i have many others i love too-Bierce, Wright, Poe etc.
He was not a Southern writer,quite the contrary. He developed his caustic wit decades later.
@@Austrian_blood well i disagree....for example, "childern on their birthdays" but having taught southern lit. at Auburn U for 20 years i get tired of you NO people--get a life --typical ! For me even "In Cold Blood" is a form of southern non-fiction novel....whatever---please no more pedantic bs--believe what you will. don't lecture me.
@@Austrian_blood
...Cheyanne...You are why English professors and academics in general cannot write creatively , nor should be critics.
What a twister.
Truman Capote was a genius and a master manipulator. The way he manipulated the police and Kansas murderers into confessing details he desperately needed to write his book is well known. He also deceived the publishers about writing his "magnus opus." However, Truman did not lose all his friends. Gilmour exaggerates about how bad Truman was. After he alienated his high society friends, he still had some friends in high places and all over the country. He was not completely isolated as Gilmour tries to convince us. Was Truman evil? No. He was just a master psychologist who wanted to reveal the ugly side of the super rich. He should have waited until Babe Paley died and then published the book. She was the only one Truman really cared about.
Agreed with all of that. One thing about the "opus"... Answered Prayers is epic prose. So good! If he had finished and taken some of the entangled personal edge off it (to where he was not just outing and scolding his estranged friends) and changed all the names, it would have been huge. Ofc we know now he was tormented during that time and was less deceiving his publishers and more trying to do something great while his personal life and wellness were faltering. I guess we could even fault his work relationships for not seeing and intervening. But... they wanted their golden egg....
This bright man provides the best analysis of Capote I've ever heard. I find him to be extremely insightful and very on-point in his assessment of Capote. Capote was a brilliant but angry, bitter, and very destructive narcissist. As a gay man, I've met many other gay men who carry the same ugly characteristics. These guys carry a basic resentment for the world and address it through a bitchy form of verbal drama because they are bitter from being targeted during their youth. This behavior seems to emerge from the need to "personally retaliate" against the world. I realize there is more to this topic, and my comments are not meant to be extensive as to characteristics or causes.
Will a song about Capote be on the new Pink Floyd album?
Must we look a single image of Capote thoughout the entire interview? Couldn't take it.
Put the image down on your screen if u can
Vicious Scary and Creepy
Capote was right though on the title "Answered Prayers", showing the pain behind the shiny facade of his rich socialite friends.
He should have been less lazy and blur the real persons behind his book characters.
Interesting how similar some of Truman’s personality traits appear to be as that of the radio personality Jeff Lewis.
At the beginning, the spealer blatantly lies that Capote "never had a good word to say about anyone." Easily disproved.
Let's go with exaggerates slightly to make a useful point, as opposed to your inflammatory rhetoric.
Not the David Gilmour from Pink Floyd
I've not been able to find this story of Capote's, nor its inclusion in any short story collections or anthologies? Help!
It is in Capote's book of short stories, "A Tree of Night and Others Stories" published in 1949.
Poor man. The demons from his past haunted him. And they were to strong for him towards the end.
Towards the end was his end. His liver was diseased, brain fried, heart broken.
He wrote a great short essay about
Marilyn Monroe.
@@barbarajones9385 yes, he wrote wonderful essays and short stories.
What magazine published his obit story? Receipts are grest!
Thank you for posting this. But, I'm a little lost, who is David Gilmour?
Canadian broadcaster/novelist. Winner of Governor General Award for Fiction.
I was thinking about David Gilmour from Pink Floyd, but doesn't sound like him.
he's also lead vocalist for Pink Floyd
Canadian critic. Used to do book and movie reviews on a late night CBC show called The Journal. I remember him using “clichéd” a lot.
Oh so now Truman's inherently evil? Really? listen - it takes two to tango & relationships are complex. It's so wrongheaded to put a spotlight on his bad behavior when the truth is that most people are truly deceptive and equally manipulative. Let's stop this nonsense
Truman Capote would eat David Gilmour alive. He had more intelligence and talent than Gilmour could even understand. Easy to try and pontificate about dead people, I only wish Capote was around to check this guy.
Thank you.
It was a defense mechanism
I really enjoyed this discussion. Thank you. At the beginning you mentioned that literature of the 50s had a quality of "dustiness." I'm curious what you meant by "dustiness."
He doesn't know.
@@sylviavasquez9523 lol Maybe he meant old fashioned. Who knows
Looks like he hasn't replied to any comments in a while
@@ingridperlongo2291Dustiness may be used as a symbolic meaning. It may refer to the particles into which something disintegrates or to be unclean. To be unclean wld be in stark contrast to cleanliness is next to godliness. Then again, where does dust come from? It comes from either our living bodies or the decomp of our bodies interred after death. Religion was quite powerful in the 50s. I cld imagine it was difficult for a homosexual adult, much less one who become famous and lived his life the way he chose too.. & publicly. As humans, we all disintegrate via time as dust collects. I hope this makes sense.
In the end, we are who we are. Some say neither we can fight the inevitable nor escape our past. Albeit, I disagree with this psychologically /spiritually via regards to our individual choices & our free will.
I didnt think too much of Tru.He was too acid tongued.
Very introspective.
I find capote creepy. Even his voice gives me chills. I was going to buy his biography but I didn’t 😮
he gave my friend his # once in a bar, he had high hopes of being a boy toy of mr capote. but it just did not work out, Tru was too drunk/out of it for human company... when semi sober he was said to have been hella fun.
"Poisins the soul"----not so. He was a performer at heart. He loved society and behaved exactly as they did. The only difference was that he caught sh** for it and others (the acceptable rich ) did not. He could be a little creep, but he delighted in it and his audience loved the theatrical malevolence. Many of his contemporaries were just as nasty. Gore Vidal cut everyone to smithereens. Mailer was also nasty. It was practically obligatory in those times.
It's called KARMA
"this story was gayer than I thought it was,"...no offense to anyone, but that was a funny line in this conversation.
I had no idea David Gilmore was into Truman Capote. Hmm
So Wendy Williams 🥀🥀🥀
I had to laugh it's so shameful.
😮😮😮 Wow!
Apparent negative bias towards Truman. In Susskind's interview with Capote, he listed people he loved (when asked).
Narrator is wrong regarding the Catholic Confession. In fact no clue whatsoever. It is a Sacrament not some kind of cheap psychological therapy.
He could be a caustic and witty queen; it's what we do.🏳️🌈 47 he was still kind.
An American treasure .
And now a, 'buried treasure', no doubt!
I found this dialogue interesting for a bit and then, frankly, a bit dull.
All great art, it seems to me, is an alchenical process of making the ordinary extraordinary. For some artists it happened just once and for others it never stopped pouring out of them. Some artists are remembered, most are forgotten. It's a cruel irony that for some, having the sensibiltity that allows them to see things differently can be more of a hindrance than a help in navigating real life. Result: deep flaws. In the end it's the art they produced that matters.
How the hell can you even pretend to know what life was like as a gay man in the 1940's? You would be constantly harassed, put upon, insulted, you'd live in fear every single day, just because of who you loved, or wanted to be sexual with. Back then, and dare I say it, even now, after all the progress we've made, our lives are still in danger because of who we are. Sure, Truman became a bitter queen, but he wore that bitterness as armour and never understood that one can live a little less defensive a life nowadays. He never allowed himself to believe that, he was of a different time. The very real and total persecution that gay men had to live with when he came of age was so ugly that it could do nasty things to even a talented person like him.
I don't care what kind of upbringing he had...he was a creep!
y'all are describing a narcissist
one thing i learned in life is you can not read minds
who cares about these guys criticism?
Capote has enough videos on youtube to hear his reasoning for his writing out of his own mouth
It is spelled Mojave.
tell Truman
He was neither compelling nor original.
Gilmour sounds malicious
The story contains a description of a lesser hell where "Walter" is headed. But there is a literal hell, devil and demons. Also, it is God who provides the conscience.
All this guy does is break down every possible thing that Truman ever said or did, such negativity spewing forth.
Truman was an unapologetically homosexual writer back when it was extremely unpopular. After being taunted by his mother, classmates, and a forced enrollment into military school, Truman let it be known up front he was not a pushover. It's important to know his journey as an effeminate, short gay man in the 1940's where you were looked at as scum if you didn't volunteer for the war. Gilmour can dismiss his personality as bitchy and alienating, but to me he just saw through people and simply had enough of inferior people judging him. His issues later in life with partying and drinking and Studio 54 were about mutual acceptance. It was a culture of people pushing back against the white heterosexual hierarchy.
😮 Inferior people from him? That says a lot right there.... So he thought he was superior? 🐝
David Gilmour, what is WRONG with YOU! Going on and on and on about TC's character flaws and dark sides. Imagine how great and impressive this guy was that he provides enough material for you to yak about him no-end 40 years after he passed away! I'd rather listen to TC's childish tiny voice for hours than your manly, self-righteous one here. Unbearable! As for other writers and you mentioning Thomas Mann here, the WIZARD as his kids called him was a monster in disguise, if I'm not mistaken at least 3 of his kids committed suicide. Stefan Zweig had periods when he felt the urge and exposed himself in parks back in old Vienna... just saying.
Isn't the truth just that Capote had friends that were, in fact assholes? And so they gave him material to write about. And he was lazy. And he fell in love with a self important image of high society and then the artist in him was speaking deep down saying "you know these people are frauds right?".
Karma.