WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I can no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I've read a lot about Truman this past year and have found him to be an appalling little shit. Angry, petulant, self-indulgent and disloyal. So I decided to revisit this book and remind myself why he's still relevant. 

He wrote like an angel. There isn't a single passage in this book that you can't visualize. His literary choices (what to include, what to leave out, what to contrast) are impeccable. It's a heartbreaking privilege to read this book.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Elizabeth and Monty: The Untold Story of Their Intimate Friendship by Charles Casillo. Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift made three films together and were close friends for 16 years. Richard Burton once said to Clift, "Elizabeth likes me but she loves you." 

I had hoped this book would be an exploration of their platonic friendship and what it meant to each of them. It isn't, really. It's more a recitation of what happened to them between 1951 and 1967.

During those years, Elizabeth married five different men, was widowed once, gave birth to three children and adopted a fourth, and was nominated for five Oscars (winning two). Monty's life was chaotic, too. Three Oscar nods, countless lovers, a house fire, a lawsuit, and an automobile accident that disfigured his beautiful face and left him in constant agony.

So events overtook the story of their friendship, leaving me both engaged by the book and disappointed.

 

3. What will read next? Something light.