This novella showcases Capote’s gifts in characterization and dialog. It made a pleasant excursion for me to Manhattan as a field of dreams. Where a young unnamed writer (who becomes "you") gets his imagination engaged over an unforgettable character residing upstairs in a Midtown brownstone in 1943. Holly Golightly is barely a woman, lovely, brash and witty. She a bit of gold-digger and a bit of tramp, but there is some level of innocence and integrity that draws our protagonist to her like a moth to a flame.

When she is not noisily entertaining men at all hours, she may be heard on the balcony some days singing a song with her guitar that makes her seem old before her time:
Don’t wanna sleep, don’t wanna die, just wanna go a-travelin’ through the pastures of the sky.

As you get to know her, you get surprised by her sudden acts of generosity, like buying you a coveted, expensive antique birdcage for your birthday, when you don’t even have a bird. Other times, her self-centeredness drives you away:
She was I decided a “crude exhibitionist”, “a time waster”, “an utter fake”: someone never to be spoken to again.

Your affections for her are hopeless as she has her sights set on a sugar daddy you know is not good for her. Yet some people who hang around her remain loyal to her despite the frustrations. An agent friend from California pegs her this way:

She is a phony. But on the other hand, you are right. She isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony. She believes all this crap she believes. You can’t talk her out of it. I’ve tried with tears running down my cheeks

I like the kid. Everybody does, but there’s lots that don’t. I do. I sincerely like the kid. I’m sensitive, that’s why. You’ve got to be sensitive to appreciate her: a streak of the poet. But I’ll tell you the truth. You can beat your brains out for her, and she’ll hand you horseshit on a platter.

Like so many, Holly has come to New York from a troubled past infected with a version of the American Dream. She may aspire to the elegance of high society, but she has an odd sort of integrity that keeps her from fooling herself too soon:
I don’t want to own anything until I found the place where me and things belong together. I’m not sure where that is yet. But I know what it’s like. … It’s like Tiffany’s.

My motivation to read this came from a disappointing experience with The Rules of Civility, Amor Towles atmospheric slice of life novel about social climbers in New York City in the late 30’s. I thing it does a better job in capturing the timeless essence of people intersecting in this world's city at a point in time without a lot of empty plotting.

Holly Golightly, the heroine of Capote's 1958 novel, is one of the iconic characters in American literature. And Audrey Hepburn's portrayal in the movie three years later helped to assure Holly's immortality.

As many here, I am a person who grew up hearing the name “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” so it’s no surprise that i Iooked it up the moment I learned how to watch movies on my own. And as my obsession went, I loved the adaptation. There was something soothing the way Hepburn’s Holly Golightly spoke, at times I was so addicted to the character, I watched the story to watch Hepburn across the screen rather than for the plot. It’s no surprise once again I’ve watched many times rather than just once. It is something like a guilty pleasure for me, along with 10 things I hate about you. Despite all of this I had never read the book. I got it down many years ago but never got around to read it. But in my recent challenge to myself of reading books that I’ve put off for a while, I planned to tackle this next.

I would not go as far as mentioning that I loved the book but just as Hepburn’s Holly was addictive for me, this had its charm that managed to keep me reading it till the end. It is a novella thus easier to read and finish. There was something to it that felt as if I was sitting alone in a theater and watching a black and white movie in front of me. This from me is a compliment as black and white movies are my favorite. There were times I was confused as to where the story was going but something in it kept me hooked. There were times I was thinking, what really is going on with Ms Holly? Is she truly right in her head? Maybe my analytical skills are not on par with others so I did not comprehend it well. Maybe no one truly is supposed to know the character of Holly.

The ending is not the perfect ending that is wrapped up like you would expect but it stay true to its other counterparts written at that time. An ending that leaves us reader figuring out what truly happened.

Will I ever read it again? Most probably not. It will continue to sit on its previous position collecting dust and maybe just like our narrator once in a while I’ll think back to it and wonder what Ms Holly really is up to and pick it up to go through the same cycle once again.

This book is composed of Truman Capote's second novel, Breakfast at Tiffany's and 3 short stories. My rating of 4 stars (I really liked it!) is for the whole book.


n  Breakfast at Tiffany's:n 5 STARS

I saw the movie adaptation starring Audrey Hepburn maybe a decade ago. Prior to that, the song Moonriver by Matt Monro was one of my father's favorite Monro so I grew up hearing that song being hummed by him whenever he was drunk. I liked the song. I liked the movie and I thought I already knew the plot of this novel so I had to postpone reading this. It's just that In Cold Blood (4 stars) will be the September 2012 group read in my book club here in Goodreads and I thought I would like to read all the Capote books that I have. This being a 1001 was naturally my first pick.

I was wrong. The movie adaptation was maybe just 50% faithful to the novel. I wonder why Truman Capote allowed it. Money, perhaps. In the movie, the narrator is a kept-man or a gigolo and some of the interesting characters in the novel are not there. There was also no mention about that scene where Holly Golightly is peeking through the glass window of the jewelry store, Tiffany's while Moonriver is being played. Also, Audrey sports that tall black hair while in the book Holly is blonde with short tomboyish cut.

Well, anyway. I thought that had the novel been a light comedy just like the book, I would just rated this with 3 stars. The book is actually a lot better than the movie. The contrast between the unnamed narrator who is an implied homosexual and Holly who is an implied call girl is one for the books. If you read between the lines, you will see all the metaphors like when Holly gives a cage to the narrator who she calls as Fred (because of his brother) but she says not to put any animal in it, in return the narrator gives her the pendant of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. The items reflect their priorities in life: stability for the narrator and freedom for Holly. There are others like this, including the carefully chosen names of the characters that already give easy hints on who they are. Intricately woven plot. Brilliantly concocted ensemble. This is my favorite Capote.

This thin novella joins my list of deceiving works. What I mean is that there are works that seem to be thin and light but if you really ponder on the message that the author wants to communicate, you would be bewildered in awe and admiration. Offhand, the following are the thin books that surprised me: Sandor Marai's Embers (5 stars), Alessandro Barrico's Silk (4 stars), Juan Ramon Jimenez's Platero y yo (4 stars), Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo (4 stars) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories (4 stars). Suffice it to say that not all thin books are mediocre. In the same token, not all thick books are worth reading.


n  House of Flowers:n 3 STARS

Ottilie falls in love with Royal Bonaparte who resides on top of a mountain. She joins him in his house that he shares with his grandmother, the wicked Old Bonaparte. No-read no-write Ottilie tries to injure the grandmother until one day that she losses her temper.

I liked the fairy-tale approach. Royal has a bird called Juno on his shoulder when he approaches Ottilie to be his wife. Cute.


n  The Diamond Guitar:n 4 STARS

This prison drama reminds me of the plot (based on what I heard from my brother) of the gay-drama Kiss of the Spider Woman of Manuel Puig. However, there is no explicit sex scene between the young guitar playing Tico Feo and the fortyish doll maker Mr. Schaeffer. In fact, even if Capote mentioned that they were lovers, they did not make love and what they had was a beautiful symbiotic friendship. The twist in the end is really surprising. Very memorable story.


n  A Christmas Story:n 5 STARS

I read in the introduction of my next Capote, Music for Chameleons, which I will add in my currently-reading folder right after this review, that this short story is based on his childhood memory of growing up in the South. That's why. When I was reading the poignancy, I found it so honest I felt that it was based on real events in Capote's life. I think that transparency is what makes some writers really enjoyable to read. Capote has the ability to make his feelings captured in his works that the same feelings can be relayed to his readers right at the time that his works are being devoured.

This story is about a small boy and his grandma and they are preparing for Christmas. I will not tell you the whole story but there is a character called Mr. Haha who is called such because he has been known not to have the ability to laugh. One of the best short stories that I've read.

Whoa Capote!

I’m struggling to figure out what makes this quite so great, it could be Truman’s beautiful limpid style which winds its sentences through your inner ear so that you might think that language itself had been melted and turned into vanilla frosting or it could be that this is the sweet sad little tale of a guy who met this creature and got stuck permanently in the friend zone, and kind of almost didn’t really mind because at least the friend zone was something and not nothing, that’s how entranced he was, or it could be that one of the major characters is a cat. It could be that it’s funny, and kind, and that Holly says some really surprising things (just to mention one, that she thinks people of the same sex should be allowed to get married – in 1958!). But this novelette is a small 100 page thing, a drifting fragrance, a single chord, a glint, a hello then goodbye too soon, too soon – ah yes, itself therefore being the perfect embodiment of the Holly Golightly experience. So, of course – that’s why.

Review of Breakfast at Tiffany's, not the 'three stories'.
Two stars, rather than one, because I think Capote occasionally reached up to strike at something more - interesting - than the pretension of worldliness and world-weariness he explores here. And pretension is the main theme: I don't believe a single character for a moment. If only the 'phonies' weren't so damn dull.

And, oh! the misogyny! the casual racism! Capote created a story that can't exist out of its time frame, forgetting tempus fugit; reading it 50 years after publication, the slang is indecipherable, the mores obsolete (and good riddance). Whereas Fitzgerald creates and transcends his era, Breakfast makes me glad of the new century. Blah.

"Buono? Non un'onestà di tipo legale - io non ci penserei due volte a profanare una tomba e a rubare gli occhi di un morto se pensassi che può contribuire al mio divertimento quotidiano - ma un'onestà nei confronti di se stessi. Sii quello che vuoi ma non un vigliacco, un fanfarone, un ladro di emozioni, una sgualdrina; preferirei avere il cancro piuttosto che un cuore disonesto. Il che non significa essere pii. Semplicemente pratici. Il cancro può stenderti, ma quell'altra cosa ti stende di sicuro. Oh, ma al diavolo...".
Leggere tutto Truman Capote.

i am very sorry, truman capote, that the movie adaptation of your story is both way more famous and way better than the source material. you could not compete with audrey hepburn, and no one expects you to be able to.

even though the love interest in the movie is a snooze. even though holly golightly has touches of manic pixie dream girl in spite of predating that term by half a century. even though i honestly figure there should be a few more croissants eaten in front of jewelry stores considering the title.

there's just no fighting it! nobody's got the charm in the whole of their masterwork that audrey hepburn has in her ballet flats / little black dress / pixie cut / short pants / what have you.

in cold blood was good though. and as far as i know ms hepburn got nowhere near it.

part of a project i'm doing where i read books i read a long time ago, and yes this one was an out of character choice for high school me, what of it.

I cannot and probably should not judge this according to the time it was written. To do so may or may not deepen the impact of it. If I wanted a slightly lighter tone, I could always watch the old movie.

As it is here and now, I feel like I should only judge it by my own sensibilities of this day and time.

The novella is breathless and anxiety-ridden, full of self-aware sexuality and hypocrisy, and it's also a purely whimsical fantasy. That is to say, I fell in love with these flawed characters and my heart broke for them.

Everyone loves Holly. She gives of herself so freely. She's so energetic and playful and outgoing.

And that is her tragedy. She gives away everything. Even her cat. And yet, according to one postcard, she will always be okay. It's really fascinating and heartbreaking because she will never have anything of her own. She lives on the largess of everyone around her and they all love her to death.

I can't give a crap about the fact she sleeps around. She is what she is, and that's what we're meant to see clearly. I love it.

She's very bright. Even her gift of a birdcage to the writer-narrator is astute as hell. She could be talking entirely about him or about his love for her. The point is... there is no bird.

So pretty. So understated. So heartbreaking.

I wish I'd been warned off of this novel any time in my life up until yesterday. Alas. In case other readers, like me, don't know anything about Breakfast at Tiffany's other than, (a) it's short; (b) there is an Audrey Hepburn movie adaptation of it, and (c) it has nothing to do with either a meal or a luxury retail brand: more than once its main character utters the n-word for no purpose that advances the plot, and a dozen + times, uses the term, dyke, derisively. If I recall correctly, retard is thrown in for good measure and there are at least 2 instances in which nameless Black boys and Mexican men are included in the plot solely to have them demonstrate stereotypically negative characteristics. So there's that.

Nonetheless, having determined to stick with it to the bitter end in case there was some countervailing redeeming quality to it, I assure you, there is not. From time to time, Capote's writing moves past serviceable to elegant, but that's an insufficient inducement to spend 2 - 3 hours of your time in the mind of one of those empty, shallow, mid-century young, white, male easily-besotted-by-any-hot-mess-self-absorbed-blonde-slender-woman-he-meets narrators of which the American literary canon offers several dozen interchangeable denizens. See novels by Fitzgerald for more exemplars. If you insist on experiencing Breakfast at Tiffany's, the audible version is narrated by Michael C. Hall ("Dexter") and makes as much of the material as can be made.

p.s. how a character treats her pets is as valid a barometer for their value as it is in real life.

Delicioso!!! Una historia maravillosa!!!! De cinco, seis, siete, ocho estrellas... En cuanto a los tres relatos que acompañan está novela: Una casa de flores... 3 pasable; Una guitarra de diamantes: 3.5 mejor; Un recuerdo navideño: 3 triste.

Livro que surpreende, encanta e se abandona com um sorriso já de saudade da extravagante e original Holly, do seu gato, do seu amor à vida.

«- Querido – pediu-me ela - , eras capaz de abrir aquela gaveta e dares-me a minha mala? Uma miúda não se presta a ler este tipo de coisas sem usar o seu bâton.»

Dizem que Truman Capote tinha um grande amor por gatos, pelo que não seja estranho que o felino sem nome do livro Boneca de Luxo desempenhe um papel importante no coração da história. Holly resume a novela com a citação: «Se eu pudesse encontrar um lugar da vida real que me fizesse sentir como Tiffany, então eu ia comprar alguns móveis e dar um nome ao gato.»

E ainda:

«Pobre desgraçado… – lamentou-se, coçando-lhe a cabeça. – Pobre desgraçado sem nome. Não é muito correcto que ele não tenha um nome. Mas eu não tenho qualquer direito de lhe pôr um nome, vai ter de esperar pertencer a alguém. Nós apenas nos encontramos um belo dia à beira-rio, não pertencemos um ao outro, ele e eu somos independentes».

Uma jovem em viagem à procura da sua casa, aquela onde se sinta em casa.