Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Capote, Truman (Vol. 19) - Henry Hewes

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HENRY HEWES

When "The House of Flowers" is trying to be colorful there is a surplus. When it is trying to be funny or touching there is a deficiency. The characteristic originality that makes Truman Capote one of our most distinguished short-story writers seems to have been dispensed with for the purpose of writing a Jamaica travelogue that for all its visual lushness and lovely Harold Arlen music lacks a point of view.

Mr. Capote, who found West Indian bordellos a pleasant place for drink and conversation, has used them for his principal setting. Yet he appears to have about as much feeling for their inhabitants as a eunuch in a harem. Except for Violet, the only unplucked flower in Madame Fleur's hothouse, the characters are all palely drawn—with a few obvious jokes. What's worse, the earthy ribaldry is coyly insinuated….

Mr. Capote seems more at home in [the] imaginative world of fairytale than he does in the realistic world of punks and...

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1. Introduction
2. Carlos Baker
3. Leslie A. Fiedler
4. Virginia Bennett
5. Granville Hicks
6. Richard Hayes
7. Eric Bentley
8. Henry Hewes
9. Paul Darcy Boles
10. William Goyen
11. Gordon Merrick
12. John Hollowell
13. BENJAMIN DeMOTT
14. Stefan Kanfer
15. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
16. Helen S. Garson
17. Copyright

1. Truman Capote