I’m glad that I finally managed to participate in one of Simon and Karen’s reading years series. It wasn’t easy to find a book for 1951, not because there aren’t many but because I already have read so many books published that year. Nonetheless, there were a few left on my piles. Dürrenmatt, Koeppen, and Heimito von Doderer’s Die Strudlhofstiege. The latter is a book I’m really keen on reading but it has almost 1,000 pages. I wasn’t in the mood to read in German, and so I picked Truman Capote’s novella – The Grass Harp. I’m so glad I did. It will probably be on the best of list at the end of the year.
Truman Capote’s novella The Grass Harp is set in 1930 or 40, in a small town in Alabama. It’s loosely inspired by Capote’s own childhood.
After the death of his mother, Collin’s father sends him to live with his two estranged cousins Verena and Dolly. The two elderly women live alone, together with Catherine, an African-American woman who pretends to be of Indian origin. It’s a very colorful household because the three women are, each in their own way, eccentrics. Verena is a formidable, bossy woman, the head of the household and main bread-winner. She’s a shop owner and seems to make a lot of money. Dolly, her older sister, is stuck in her childhood. Her room is painted pink all over, she loves to eat only sweets and her imagination’s always running a little wild. But she’s also entrepreneurial. As a kid, a gypsy woman told her a secret recipe. With the help of Catherine, who is also her best friend, and Collin, she collects herbs, tree barks, roots, and berries, and concocts a potion against dropsy. Catherine, who has no teeth, speaks with the help of cotton balls she’s pushed into the cavities in her mouth. Dolly’s pretty much the only one who can understand her mumbling.
Collin’s childhood is lovely. He spends most of his time with Dolly and Catherine who tell tales and behave just like children. They are often outside, go on long walks, collect things from the forests and the meadows.
Beyond the field begins the darkness of River Wood. It must have been on one of those September days when we were there in the woods gathering roots when Dolly said: Do you hear? that is the grass harp, always telling a story—it knows the stories of all the people on the hill, of all the people who ever lived, and when we are dead, it will tell ours too.
Until Collin is sixteen, nothing really troubles him or the household he lives in. But then Dolly makes much more money with her dropsy cure and Verena thinks she has to take things in her hands. Without asking Dolly, she buys machinery and a building and brings along a man who should help them commercialize the “gypsy cure”. Dolly, who never refuses anything, is shocked. She doesn’t want to sell her recipe. She doesn’t want to give up the only thing she has. In despair she, Catherine, and Collin, flee in the middle of the night and take refuge in a tree house.
The tree house is soon visited and surrounded by friends and enemies. An elderly judge and a young man whom everyone admires and despises alike, move in with them. The sheriff and other notables of the small town want to force them down but they fight valiantly.
This is such a lovely, heartwarming story, and told in such lyrical prose. It’s as beautiful as it is melancholy and sad. It’s a much older Collin who tells this childhood tale and the tone he uses indicates that a lot of the things and people he describes in this story, are long gone.
If some wizard would like to give me a present, let him give me a bottle filled with the voices of that kitchen, the ha ha ha and the fire whispering, a bottle brimming with its buttery sugary smells . . .”
While it is lovely, it has serious undertones. One could say this is a tale of misfits who stand up for their rights. While Verena is an unusual character for the time, a successful business woman, each of the others stand for a minority or group of people that’s not taken seriously. Catherine is an African-American woman who doesn’t let anyone treat her like a servant. Dolly might have what we would call “Special needs” today. Collin is a kid and back then, they mostly had to do as they were told. The judge is retired and with retirement, he’s lost a lot of the respect he used to have. He was a very just judge. A bit too just for the liking of some and now that he’s older, they want to pay him back.
I remember how I surprised I was, years ago, when I read that Harper Lee and Truman Capote had been friends since childhood and that she helped him with his book In Cold Blood. While I haven’t read Breakfast at Tiffany’s, thinking of that novella and other elements of Capote’s life, made me assume he was from New York. I realized then, that I had been mistaken. Reading The Grass Harp, makes it obvious where Capote comes from and, given the close friendship with Harper Lee, it’s not surprising that this slim book has a lot in common with To Kill a Mockingbird. Maybe it inspired Harper Lee. The stories and the writing are different, but there are many similar themes; childhood, friendship, authority, love, justice, money, society, death, outsiders, life in a small town, the South, the role of women and African-Americans . . .
I’m grateful to Karen and Simon because they finally made me discover an author I’ve only known through his short stories and essays so far. What a wonderful, nuanced, and stylish writer. And so quotable.
I’ll leave you with some more of the quotes I liked:
But, ah, the energy we spend hiding from one another, afraid as we are of being identified.
What one says hardly matters, only the trust with which it is said, the sympathy with which it is received.
If you are not admired no one will take the trouble to disapprove.
Dreams are the mind of the soul and the secret truth about us.
Beauty is a Sleeping Cat 
Lovely review Caroline – this really does sound wonderful! I’ve only read Tiffanys and In Cold Blood and I obviously should explore Capote’s work a bit more!
Thanks, Karen. It’s a wonderful story. I’m interested to read more of him. Other Voices, Other Rooms for example.
Yes! “One could say this is a tale of misfits who stand up for their rights.” I love your critique of this book. Thanks again, Caroline!
Thanks so much, Jolene. It’s such a lovely book. I loved the way the narrator looked back. So melancholy.
Haven’t read much Capote either. But I do like the sound of the Strudlhofstiege – of course I would, given the setting and it’s such a pretty staircase!
I think it’s one of the must-reads of Austrian literature. I wonder why it hasn’t been translated. Yes, the setting alone is tempting.
I think the heft of it has put me off – plus it has a reputation of being ‘difficult’.
Of all the hefty unread books it’s the one that tempts me the most. That and Albert Cohen’s Belle du seigneur. But . . .
I’ve always been put off of reading Capote because of the whole Mockingbird debacle. Debacle is overstating it.
I think you would like him.
Thank you for this review … I am going to look for this book. I love Truman Capote. If you haven’t read Breakfast At Tiffany’s you must.
My pleasure, Sudha. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. I haven’t read Breakfast at Tiffany’s yet but really want to do so now.
This does sound rather lovely, a heartwarming story indeed. I haven’t read much Capote – only Breakfast at Tiffany’s and his short stories which I liked a great deal. Maybe he’s due a bit of a revival as his work still seems relevant today?
I love his short stories too. I think you’d like this. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t but you’d appreciate the prose. I think most people either know In Cold Blood or Breakfast . . . Which is a shame.
I agree. There’s so much more to him than the big headline works. I will definitely keep an eye out for The Glass Harp in the future.
I think his novel Other Voices, Other Rooms sounds interesting too. Real Southern Gothic.
Unfinished, alas…
I have to confess I hadn’t heard of this either–Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood are so famous over here–but I think I’d like this one a lot. Thanks for the heads-up, Caroline.
I think you’ll like it. The writing is beautiful and the story is lovely.
I was never tempted to read In Cold Blood but his travel pieces and short stories are wonderful. He’s great at describing things in an original and precise way.
P.S. It was made into a movie in 1996 with Sissy Spacek and Walter Matthau.
I might watch it but not right now. I don’t think that a movie can convey the best parts but it can capture the story and the characters which are great as well.
Lovely review. I really loved this novella too. So evocative of a time and place.
Thanks, Ali. Glad to hear you loved it too. It is evocative.
Great review as always Caroline.
I have not read this. You make it sounds so appealing. I would like to read it.
The only Capote that I have read is In Cold Blood. That was a great work but obviously very different from this book.
Thank you, Brian. I’m pretty sure you would love it. It’s short but so rich and complex.
I will read more of him soon.
Oh I love this one too. He is such a surprisingly tender writer. His personality seemed to be just the opposite – much more abrasive. But this book has such sweetness in it.
You’re so right. I hadn’t even thought of that but there is a disrepancy between the way he seemed to be and the way he wrote.
It’s a very tender story. I’m glad you love it too.
So glad you could join in, Caroline, and that you picked up a book you loved so much! This sounds so different from my only Capote experience – In Cold Blood – and I’m definitely intrigued.
Thanks, Simon. I’m glad I could finally join. I always thought it was such a great idea for a reading week.
I think you’d love this. I hope you’ll try it some day.
Your review here has made me want to put this on my TBR list. I’ve read some Capote, years ago, but I should for sure read more, like this one.
I don’t think you’d be disappointed. It’s wonderful on many levels.
I’m only familiar with this from a television presentation, but it sounds lovely. Sounds like the TV version left a lot of it out.
It’s absolutely lovely. I haven’t seen the film but I don’t think I’ll watch it any day soon. I don’t want to spoil the book. I hope you’ll give it a try.
Yes, I probably will.
Went through a period when I was obsessed with Capote, read everything I could find by him. He’s such a wonderful writer yet you can’t escape the sense he kind of frittered his talent away. Maybe that’s unfair given he produced two landmark books.
I re-read In Cold Blood a couple of years ago. It was written what, maybe 50 years ago? I probably read it first time at the mid-point of that span. It made a huge impression on me then, but seems quite dated now. I guess I’ve learned so much about the process of writing the book, and Capote’s decisions, that inevitably it colours the experience. Plus it seems the world has changed more in the last 25 years than it did in the first: the world he described didn’t seem quite so remote in the early 90s as it does now.
I have a collection of essays, stories, interviews etc of his that I dip into occasionally. Must get it out again (I’m sure this is in it).
I can see why one would be captivated by him. And I think I agree about his talent. Yes, he’s written landmark books but I think there could have been more.
It’s interesting what you say about In Cold Blood. I don’t think, I’ll read it. It was so important for the time but.
My collection contains essays, stories, travel sketches and novellas. I’ll get back to it soon.
You remind me how much I want to read Truman Capote! This sounds like a beautiful novella. Lovely review, Caroline.
Thank you, Litlove. I hope you’ll read it. I’d love to find out what you think of it. He is more brilliant than I thought he would be.
Oh dear …here’s another author I mean to read one day. The TBR list is growing bigger and bigger!
I know. It’s not even a pile anymore. It’s a mountain.
I listened to Capote’s Summer Crossing last week, and while I can’t exactly say that I liked the story itself, the writing was so wonderful that I am eager to read more of his work. I was intrigued by Die Strudlhofstiege as well when I researched 1951 books, but like you, I was put off by the length, at least for now. (Well, the length and the fact that it would have been difficult for me to get a copy.)
I’m not familiar with Summer Crossing. The writing here was stellar. I can imagine that he’s able to make a reader appreciate a story just for its style.
Die Strudlhofstiege is said to be as good as it’s difficult because it has hardly any plot.
One of these days, I’ll read it anyway. Or dip into it at least. You would have had to order it via amazon Germany.
Did you read this article? I am so tempted to order Die Strudlhofstiege now!
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/lektuere-heimito-von-doderers-strudlhofstiege-15001767.html
No, I didn’t. Thanks so much for linking it. I’ll be reading it shortly. When I went to Vienna, I especially looked for the Strudlhofstiege and took pictures.
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