Personal Review

In Cold Blood, a nonfiction novel by Truman Capote about the murder of the Clutter family by the murderers Perry Smith, and Dick Hickock was definitely an interesting read. Starting off, Capote used a lot of detail to describe the Clutter family yet left out the details of the actual killing committed. This created a sense of curiosity in the reader; it left me itching to learn more--even though I was not particularly interested in the writing itself. I am one to enjoy various applications of rhetorical strategies, but unfortunately, the first section had very little to annotate. As the story progresses, Capote begins to get into detail about the lives of both Dick and Perry. Dick was described to be more of an independent man, while Perry had a tougher time due to the fact that he pretty much had no one left. Although these men take lives, learning more about their personal lives and past made me sympathize for them--well at least Perry. Interestingly, I was quite intrigued when one of the investigators accused Perry of being a paranoid schizophrenic. That is because we have learned a lot about this mental disorder in Psychology class, and seeing it come up in a reading excited me. I felt as though I could say "I got this." Another point of interest was the mentioning of the parrot. I was trying to form some type of connection with that particular animal to the story itself, and so far, I have not come up with much. All in all, this was an interesting read. The lack of description in some instances worked to Capote's favor, while excess details about certain events left me bored.