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Monday January 06, 2025

A Few of the Fancier Fish: The Prescient Quote 'Capote vs. the Swans' Completely Missed

Hollander as Capote (amazing), Chalk as Baldwin (miscast)

Last month my wife and I watched Hulu's “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” part of Ryan Murphy's series of shows about women and gay men behaving badly, and Tom Hollander amazed in the lead; but I was disappointed that Norman Mailer never made an appearance. I don't mean physically. I mean his words.

Back in the late 1950s, in his seminal “Advertisements for Myself,” Mailer wrote a chapter called “Quick and Expensive Comments on the Talent in the Room,” a straightforward look at his literary contemporaries. He probably did this on a dare to himself because it wasn't smart. Easy way to make enemies. On the plus side, he couldn't stand bullshit—particularly his own—and he had a large enough spirit to tip his cap when he felt it was deserved. That's what he did with Truman. He also nailed what was missing in Capote's work. And then, amazingly, he predicts exactly what will happen to Truman in 17 years—the stuff detailed in the Ryan Murphy series:

Truman Capote I do not know well, but I like him. He is tart as a grand aunt, but in his way he is a ballsy little guy, and he is the most perfect writer of my generation, he writes the best sentences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm. I would not have changed two words in Breakfast at Tiffany's, which will become a small classic. Capote has still given no evidence that he is serious about the deep resources of the novel, and his short stories are too often saccharine. At his worst he has less to say than any good writer I know. I would suspect he hesitates between the attractions of Society, which enjoys and so repays him for his unique gifts, and the novel he would write of the gossip column's real life, a major work, but it would banish him forever from his favorite world. Since I have nothing to lose, I hope Truman fries a few of the fancier fish. 

I don't know how I would've included it in the series. As an epigraph? An early moment of foreshadowing that Truman dismisses in 1958 only to live in 1975? I don't know. But c'mon. How is it not in there?

Mailer is referenced in the fifth episode, the one where James Baldwin (Chris Chalk) shows up to remind Truman of his legacy. In the show, Baldwin says Mailer called on him to call on Truman, and the two make a day of it in the cafes and bars of New York in 1975-76. It's a fictional episode and I didn't buy any of it. I didn't buy Chalk as Baldwin, I didn't buy their conversation, I particularly didn't buy a mid-1970s James Baldwin listening to Truman whine about how others perceived him without bringing the hammer down. Baldwin forged himself in the smithy of other people's contempt of him—if he'd let other people's perceptions get to him, he wouldn't have lived past 20—so if you're doing this, if you're creating this meet-up, get into that. The series didn't. They didn't go there. Meanwhile, Mailer is in the wings, with a prescient quote explanining everything. They didn't go there, either.

Anyway, Hollander, and most of the swans, did amazing work.

Posted at 09:31 AM on Monday January 06, 2025 in category Books