I really needed a few thousand words so I could fold in a bunch of stuff on Primitivism, class, noble savages and so forth — but this will have to do for now…
This evidence is convincing, so why Hoffman felt obligated to go full Capote on his readers is a mystery in itself.
A la In Cold Blood, the author presumes to speak, think, and feel for Rockefeller. We’re informed that when fatally speared, “Michael screamed, groaned a deep, inhuman sound.”
Lines such as “He knew that feeling from swimming off the coast of Maine every summer” are pretentious and a little ironic.
Don’t cannibals presume to absorb the spirits of their victims, too?
