Brilliant! Entertaining! Beautifully written! Read it!!

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	• The Grass Harp Truman Capote Vintage, 1993 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Painfully beautiful

If you were one of those people who had someone in your childhood speak to your heart, if someone showed you the stars and told you family stories and made you feel connected to a great huge human family, then you will love this book. If no one did this for you, then Truman Capote will. Take this book to a quiet place and let your heart soar. It is so beautiful it is hard to imagine somone knew how to make all the words fit so well to express such wondrous things.

Brilliant! Entertaining! Beautifully written! Read it!!

For years I've known this work existed, but never read it until now. I've been fishing about in contemporary fiction, looking for something entertaining, enlightening, and superbly well written, but my search ended entirely when I finally read this novel, written in 1951. Set in the South, in the countryside, this story draws you in to its surroundings, which are so important to its impact. Its three main characters, Dolly, Collin, and Catherine, are real presences that emerge from the lush southern environs as complex, blooming beings whose lives take time to develop and understand. There is nothing slick about this writing; it's just elegant and clear. The story is filled with interesting characters, and proceeds as if inspired by Twain. It is entertaining, poetic, and meaningful all at once. I found myself rereading the opening pages, picturing the scene that Capote presents, and feeling how brilliant it is in its elegiac and inspired imagery. The story is simple enough: a young boy, orphaned, lives with his two eccentric aunts in a small town in the South. One aunt is controlling, mean-spirited, and selfish, and the other is sweet, other-worldly, and gentle. When the mean aunt tries to exploit the sweet one by mass producing the sweet one's folk medicine remedy she learned from a traveling gypsy woman, the sweet aunt runs away from home with the orphan boy and her best friend, a strange Indian woman. They don't run too far, however, just to a local tree house in a China tree. From that point on, everyone learns something about themselves, including the mean aunt. The world is a generous place to Truman Capote, and it has mercies to give, and lessons to be learned. In fact, it's something of a magical world that Capote gives us, almost a precursor of the magical realism of Marquez and others. But as the characters learn about themselves, so we the readers learn too, about what love is, about change, and about what we accept in life. For Capote to have written this book at the age of 26 is truly a miracle. This book alone puts him in league with the greats. I highly recommend The Grass Harp to anyone looking for that one great book to read and treasure.

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an odd little treasure

what a sweet, eccentric, charming little tale!

two old ladies take a young boy to live in a tree after a beloved tincture recipie is stolen from one of the women. they don't stay in the tree long, but while they do- a strange cast of character's pass by, drop by, & stay for awhile.

this is the first thing of capote's i've read, although i am well aware of his more famous works. i was truly delighted by this short, sweet, book (the version appearing here says it's 200 odd pages- my copy was under 100), and i recommend it to anyone who searches for profound lovlieness immersed in oddity.

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Brilliant

Every sentence in this book is like a jewel on a necklace. Capote was famously charming in life, and his charm translates to the page, for this is one of the most charming books I've ever read. While I did not like the recent movie version of this book, I would like to relate that the director chose to direct it after he asked a movie-friend, "What is the greatest novel you've ever read that has never been made into a movie?" The movie-friend said, "THE GRASS HARP." That movie-friend had taste in books. There are rumors that Harper Lee never wrote a second book after TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, because Truman Capote more or less wrote TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for her! And without Capote by her side, she couldn't really "write" another book. A GRASS HARP has the same kind of charm that MOCKINGBIRD did, so that story is almost believable. (Capote was a close friend of Harper Lee's since childhood, and was the prototype for the character Dew in MOCKINGBIRD.) THE GRASS HARP is a famous book, but not as famous as it should be.

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A lovingly crafted expose' of the love of his life.

Truman Capote was best known for Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood. However, his real gifts to the world are among the less well known. When Capote writes stories that have their origins and influence from his childhood, his pen is like a magic wand that transports the written word into a thing of exquisite beauty that lifts a gossamer curtain so that the reader gains the miracle of the musical vision that this most gifted writer was able to create. His tale, The Grass Harp is simple and true, achingly revealing of the needs of the human heart. Give yourself the favor of reading this gentle and moving visit into the heart of one of our gifted legends: Truman Capote.

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