Alternating Stories

As I read In Cold Blood I could relate Truman Capote's way of telling the story to Vargas Llosa's way of writing La Fiesta del Chivo (The Feast of the Goat). Capote begins his book with a description of the town and characterizing a couple of characters whose lives, I assume, will become related to each other. After introducing Mr Clutter, the author shifts to an in medias res, a I learned in Spanish class, scene in a restaurant, where Perry is waiting for Dick, two characters that as the chapter continues you learn that they are some type of adventurers, even though Dick is cautious. In Mr Clutter's chapter, he finds a group of pheasant hunters, so once I read that Dick and Perry had a hunting shotgun in their car, I predicted that the stories will interweave into the story of the murder in Holocomb. As Perry sits in the café waiting for Dick, the narrator begins describing the situation as he or she deepens into Perry's life in a subtle way to characterize him. Then the author switches back to the Clutter family but describes Nancy instead of her father. Then back to Perry, now with Dick, and then back to Nancy. It seems like Capote will alternate stories between several characters as he builds up the scene of the empty and isolated town that will be hit with the death of six people, perhaps Mr and Mrs Clutter and their four children).

The Feast of the Goat begins with Urania's return to Dominican Republic after having left for several decades. The narrator hints that some sort of traumatic experience shocked her and made her hate her family and her country, and just like Capote, introduces a mystery that the reader will discover throughout the book. Vargas Llosa has three alternating narrations, one from Urania's point of view, one that shifts between the killers of Trujillo and another one for the dictator himself. As he characterizes each of the supposedly real characters, the reader begins to discover what had happened to Urania and the specific events that led to the assassination and her rape. Although The Feast of the Goat and In Cold Blood have very different tones and environments, the structure the authors use is similar. The first has an intrigued tone while the second has a detached one. Both authors are trying to explain a series of events and what they meant in a larger scale. Vargas Llosa explains the nature of dictatorship, machismo and corruption as he shows why Latin America works that way politically. Capote, as we've talked about in class, will show how small places like Holocomb are being affected by  the growth of towns and the difficulty of being isolated nowadays. From what I've read so far, using alternating narrations helps give a better insight into what is happening and deal with different themes. Authors use it to get to what they're trying to say in an implicit way.

Vocabulary:

• Honed: made sharper, more efficient.
• Ludicrous: very foolish, ridiculous.
• Reticent: not revealing one's feelings, reserved. 
• Brooding: very unhappy.
• Gewgaw: a showing things that is useless.
• Uppity: arrogant.
• Ominous: threatening, giving the impression that something bad is happening. 
• Impish: inclined to do something bad, mischievous. 
• Pragmatic: dealing with things practically.
• Ineffable: too great or too extreme to be expressed in words.
• Cinch: easy task or part of a saddle. 
• Elocution: pronunciation, articulation. 
• Lattice: grid of fibers. 
• Despondency: low spirits, hopelessness. 
• Sprucing: neat in appearance.