Can anyone offer any insights into part 3, the final 30 pages or so of “Other Voices, Other Rooms?” It’s my favorite Capote, and a vastly underrated book in general, but that third part has always confused the hell out of me.
What’s the implication of the sudden switch to stream-of-consciousness and surrealism?
Is the implication that Joel was actually bitten by the snake and died? That he was bitten by the snake and was bedridden and hallucinatory for weeks? What’s that bit about Idabell going away to be with a preacher? What’s the significance of that whole bit with Little Sunshine in the Cloud Hotel, and the donkey jumping off of the balcony and hanging itself?
In short - what the hell is going on at the end of that book? There really seems to be a dearth of critical response to Capote’s work; my local bookstore owner friend posits that it’s because Capote was always considered a bit of a dilettante, a lapdog to the rich and famous, a society figure, and wasn’t taken seriously (critically) until near the end of his life.