Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling

She is no phony, Miss Holly! She is for me one of the most fascinating and authentic symbols of the modern era. That last word that was missing from the famous movie version with Audrey Hepburn: 'Traveling'. That's the word that describe her best. She is running away from the 'mean reds', from a childhood of poverty and abuse. She is running towards something beautiful, something true, something better than the phony New York night life with its huge crop of mega rats who wouldn't even give a girl a fifty dollar note for the powder room. Holly dreams of something decent, clean and bright, something polite and respectful, something peaceful and beautiful. She calls it Tiffany and in her songs it sounds just like home:

Don't wanna sleep,
Don't wanna die,
Just wanna go a-travellin'
through the pastures of the sky

To be alive is to be a traveler, to fight back against the mean reds, to dream about that early morning in front of the sparkling window display at Tiffany's, about that horse farm in Mexico or about a log cabin by a stream somewhere high up in the Rocky Mountains. I think it is much better to be a Holly Golightly than to settle down early, marking time until you get a pension and a gold watch, wondering where did your life go so fast. Some people call her a phony, irresponsible, unreliable, silly and self-serving (as with her involvement with Sally Tomato), but I prefer that little line the narrator throws away somewhere in the middle of the novella, calling her :   a lopsided romantic, gluttonous for everything on the menu  . Holly's greatest achievement is that she doesn't become a cynic in the midst of all the rats of New York's high society. She cares sometimes too much, about her brother Fred, about Doc Golightly, about her writer buddy upstairs, about her cat without a name and about her dreams of Tiffany's. Would you settle in her place for a marriage of convenience and a simple role of housewife? Holly even gave up a possible successful career in Hollywood, another dream factory where the gold is made of tinsel paper:

If I do feel guilty, I guess it's because I let him go on dreaming when I wasn't dreaming a bit. I was just vamping for time to make a few self-improvements

Self-improvement is another quality to add to the list of Holly Golighty accomplishments. She got dealt a bad hand in the beginning of her life, but she refused to stay down, even when a kind man offered her shelter (Doc). She had a goal and she decided to work hard to get there, refusing to settle down for less.

I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like. It's like Tiffany's.

Some people might get trampled underfoot when coming across such a determinate young woman. In many ways, the novella is better than the movie (in almost all ways, except for missing the extraordinary presence of Audrey Hepburn), and I'm thinking here of the risks and compromises one has to make in life if he or she wants to succeed. In the movie, Holly settles down for marriage. In the novella she flies off, still chasing her dream. Here is the best passage from both versions:

Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell. That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time is was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky.

What many people fail to notice is the small addendum to the famous quote, the confession and admission that Holly knows what the price of her freedom is, and what a lonely, possibly disappointing destination waits for her at the end of the journey:

Believe me, dearest Doc - it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.

The novella ends without giving a clear answer to the final destination of Holly Golightly, and I prefer it this way. This way I can imagine her still traveling, in the hot jungles of Central Africa or across the ice covered peaks of the Himalayas, partying with the jet set in Gstaad or living quietly on a ranch in Argentina, singing that Mancini tune on guitar as she watches the sunset.

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Sometimes one piece of work is enough to decide on the talent of a writer, and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is such an accomplishment. Norman Mailer said it best when he exclaimed that he wouldn't change two words from it. With the other three short stories included in the present volume, Truman Capote demonstrates that he is not a one-hit-wonder, and he weaves the magic of words again and again, with beautiful, eloquent and concise prose, creating memorable characters with incredible ease .

House of Flowers is the bittersweet story of a young peasant girl from Port-au-Prince. Ottilie is so beautiful and cheerful, she becomes the most sought after whore in town, but her heart yearns for the simple pleasures of life away from the big city and from its dubious pleasures. She runs away with a dirt poor young boy from nowhere, and learns to find beauty and pleasure in her new home. Some fun interludes showcase the ways Ottilie deals with her cranky mother-in-law.

Diamond Guitar reads like the basic template from which years later Stephen King will cast his novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption". Replace the poster of the diva with a cheap guitar decorated with glass beads and you have the same basic story of life inside a prison, about people who prefer to remain inside instead of facing the dangers of the world outside, and about people who would do anything to be free. Mr. Scheffer is the man condemned to life behind bars, Tico Feo is a young Cuban immigrant who plays music and dreams of becoming a sailor.

The stars were his pleasure, but tonight they did not comfort him; they did not make him remember that what happens to us on earth is lost in the endless shine of eternity. Gazing at them - the stars - he thought of the jeweled guitar and its worldly shimmer.

A Christmas Memory should be as famous as "Breakfast at Tiffany's", it's incredibly powerful and true. And it is mostly autobiographical, a way for Capote to pay homage to the best friend of his childhood:

In addition to never having seen a movie, she has never: eaten in a restaurant, traveled more than five miles from home, received or sent a telegram, read anything except funny papers and the Bible, worn cosmetics, cursed, wished someone harm, told a lie on purpose, let a hungry dog go hungry. Here are a few things she has done, does do: killed with a hoe the biggest rattlesnake ever seen in this county (sixteen rattles), dip snuff (secretly), tame hummingbirds (just try it) till they balance on her finger, tell ghost stories (we both believed in ghosts) so tingling they chill you in July, talk to herself, take walks in the rain, grow the prettiest japonicas in town, know the receipt for every sort of old-time Indian cure, including a magical wart-remover.

She doesn't have a name in the story, she doesn't need one, she is simply called 'my friend' and these become under the pen of Truman Capote the most beautiful words in the English language. This last novella is one that should be read to kids and family around the Christmas dinner, just before you cut the whisky fruitcake .

Quite risque and controversial for its time. I can't really imagine that a movie with none other than Audrey Hepburn would stay very close to the novella. And Holly is a special kind of a character - a woman damaged so badly she will never be normal no matter how hard she tries - my favorite. It's an infinitely heartbreaking story, actually.

I really loved this - very immersive, with wonderful characterisation and a writing style that just completely caught me. I always enjoyed a looking back narrative and this was great.

“The hottest kitten ever to hit the typewriter keys of Truman Capote.”

Holly Golightly is all wit and color in her seductive movement throughout the story. She uses charm as her currency for she is a force of nature. And she’s got just as many personas as sips one would take at a wine tasting event. One thing is for sure, she’s intoxicating. Holly reminds me of that Winston Churchill quote, “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.” Yup, that’s her. She does it with style, darling.

"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell”. - Holly

Review of the audio narrated by Michael C. Hall.

Just a few quick thoughts. Michael C. Hall is an incredible narrator. My favorite parts were the bits where he was in Holly's voice. Overall, Breakfast at Tiffany's continues to be worthy of its classic stature, and the audio is the perfect way to experience it!

"Breakfast at Tiffany's", was a delightful film. I consider it a classic! As for the novel, well... I didn't know there was a novel! A novel by Truman Capote, whom I am not familiar with until Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for playing him. I was fortunate enough to discover this book in the library.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" is a little deceptive since it seems like a pretty easy read. It can be a bit funny, but I realized it has a more somber tone than the the film and there are some pretty serious issues throughout the course of the story. It also presents a heroine who you might not like very much (or at all), which presents another challenge.

Capote's attitude toward Holly can be different than your reaction to her, and I think this is part of his talent. He actually presents a lot of reasons to dislike Holly, but he is also careful to temper that with some information that probably elicits a sympathetic reaction to other parts of her life.The story doesn't gloss over her negative qualities, but it does present details that complicate these downfalls. This gives a better idea of why she does whatever she must to survive.

The tone is very different from the film, and there is no fairy-tale love in this story. Instead, you get a more realistic picture of love: complicated, messy, and sometimes extremely painful. The central theme seems to be more about looking forward to the future, and about the dreams, hopes, and plans we make for ourselves. In many ways these dreams sustain the characters, as they are propelled by the promise of something better than what the present can provide. But when these same hopes, and plans are shattered, it has devastating effects on the dreamers. Suddenly, they have to revise what they've been looking forward to, and this throws some characters into a tailspin as they're suddenly forced to reevaluate their lives. It was quite a different experience from the film and it's very thought provoking.

After reading the story, I actually appreciated the title and find it more relevant. Although Holly actually mentions Tiffany's (and having breakfast there) just a few times, I think her reference to it tells you a lot about her character. It's true that Tiffany's is expensive and that the things in it are out of her reach, but it's the idea of Tiffany's and the perfection that she associates with the store that makes her feel better when she's scared, sad, or angry. It's the belief that only good things happen there that makes Tiffany's so appealing to her. The title means so much, and all the while seems pretty insignificant. The novel is a masterpiece in its own right.

I have always loved the film and have put off reading the novella as I realised that it would be very different, and it was! Audrey Hepburn manages to make Holly quirky and likeable. Capote portrays her as damaged and damaging. The restlessness of youth and the fear of being "caged" is clear and will be recalled by many of us. Holly's solutions leave her pursued by many but understood by few. The book and film do not detract from each other because they are so different. The film is for the romantic; the book is more thought provoking and even today Holly is shocking in her nihilism (slightly stretching the meaning of the word).

“Oh darling, this is the most perfect little story, my idea of the absolute finito! Not a comma out of place, not a iota of clumsiness blurring the flawless tone. The most proper words pushing all the right buttons, stirring up emotions one didn’t even know were there.

And quel dialogue; not un peu bit phony. Or perhaps it is so, but it is real phony and that makes it genuine. Same as everyone inhabiting this story. Bless you, darling, for having done such a marvellous job with the whole merde of an affair; you managed to make it shine, positively glow. Not that those other people in Hollywood didn’t, by God, it had the most spectacular sugarcoating, their film did, très charming, they even changed the time from the early 1940s to the 1960s so that they could have Mr Givenchy’s divine gowns, them being infinitely more chic than those war-time frocks. But quel rat that they had to add the romance and the happy end and take out all the hard edges. Oh well, it did turn out beautifully, no complaints, but still…

…this is the real thing, and yes, I got what you did, even though, I’m no ‘serious’ reader, my reading consisting of tabloids and travel folders and astrological charts, not that this ever stopped you from sharing your stories with me. But I must simply insist that those know-it-all book lovers give it a try, if only to get an idea of what the mean reds were really all about, why I’d rather have cancer than a dishonest heart and why it’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague.

I can’t haul myself to Tiffany’s these days, but your heavenly little story serves as that kind of place I want to lose myself in. The place where nothing very bad could happen. Not while those perfectly constructed sentences unfold, anyway.

I’m very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what’s yours until you’ve thrown it away. Happy endings are for the screen. Books afford to show that it’s the everlasting journey that matters…

Lulamae Barnes, aka Holly Golightly, (still) Travelling."

Fourth reading. All in one sitting. Getting even better with time.

Marilyn or Audrey? Who do you think?

When Audrey was cast, Truman Capote remarked:

n  “Paramount double-crossed me in every way and cast Audrey.”n

In one of the most iconic scenes in film history, it would be impossible to think of anybody other than Audrey Hepburn wearing the “Little Black Dress” while looking into the window of Tiffany’s. Well, if it had been up to the author of the book on which the movie is based, Truman Capote, it would have been Marilyn Monroe. In fact, he wrote the book with her as the character in mind. Even the movie’s screenwriter, George Axelrod, wrote the script tailored to her.

Marilyn was actually talked out of taking the role by her acting coach, Lee Strasberg — he felt that playing the lead role would be bad for her image.

The book

Breakfast at Tiffany's, set in 1943, documents the friendship of a New York writer (whose name is never mentioned) with his neighbour Holiday (Holly) Golightly. Both live in a brownstone apartment building in Manhattan's Upper East Side. The story is presented as the writer's recollections of Holly many years after the conclusion of the friendship.

Holly is a woman of mystery to everyone in her life. There is ambiguity surrounding her profession; she has no job and lives by socializing with wealthy men, who wine, dine, and give her gifts and money, together with the ocassional overnight stay.

Was Holly Golightly a prostitute?

In a 1968 interview in Playboy, Truman Capote addressed the question:

n  Playboy:n   "Would you elaborate on your comment that Holly was the prototype of today's liberated female and representative of a "whole breed of girls who live off men but are not prostitutes. They're our version of the geisha girl."?n  
n  
n  Capote: n  "Holly Golightly was not precisely a callgirl. She had no job, but accompanied expense-account men to the best restaurants and night clubs, with the understanding that her escort was obligated to give her some sort of gift, perhaps jewelry or a check ... if she felt like it, she might take her escort home for the night. So these girls are the authentic American geishas, and they're much more prevalent now than in 1943 or 1944, which was Holly's era.."?n

Breakfast at Tiffany's excels in imagery, the prose lyrical. It has many layers to it. Abandonment, loneliness, the need to belong and yet not be chained at the same time, the delight in the unorthodox and not loving a wild thing.



This was a sad book in lots of ways. We have Holly who is an odd mixture of childlike innocence and street smart sexuality, confused yet determined, who knows very well what she wants and will walk over others to get it. Then you have the other characters in her life who are obsessed by her, whose lives evolve around her, and no matter how bad she treats them, they come back for more.

As a reader, it is difficult to like Holly. She is referred to as a phony as she hides herself behind interesting lies and an eccentric lifestyle. She wants no responsibility or ties to people or things. She keeps disconnected and unloving for the freedom of her feelings.

I enjoyed the book more than the movie. Capote describes Holly in such a way that you get the sense he has moulded her on someone that he knew, someone who intrigued him and held an allure or aura of mysticism that left a deep impression.

A gread read!

3 delicious hours of audio read by Mr. Michael C. Hall aka Dexter!!! What a wonderful performance of Truman Capote's novella! I saw the movie years ago but I've never read the book! I'm so happy to have listened to this edition of the audio!

5+++++Stars for the narrator!

5 Stars for the story!

Highly highly recommended!!!

n  
n   "Anyway, home is where you feel at home. I'm still looking."n  
n

Ok, I no longer believe in 'never Judge a book by its cover'. I read this one mainly because of it's cover. Have you ever feared being trapped by love and similar demons? It is basically about that fear.

n  
n  "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."n  
n

There are some people who, in their easy-going and wanting-to-include-everyone-in-their-joy ways become highly likable to sensitive souls, the sensitive folks find themselves emotionally invested in them only getting indifference in return. The indifference is not always because of malice. Sometimes, these people, just as Holly was, are as sensitive as others but have decided that they won't let themselves caged down even by love.

n  
"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,"
n

It is a kind of life that most people are often tempted to lead. We look at the birds flying in the sky and are envious of their so-called 'freedom':

n  
"Don't wanna sleep, don't wanna die, just wanna go a-travelin' through the pastures of the sky."
n

but:

n  
"and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear."
n

And so, Holly learned her lesson - freedom,as we wish to see it, is an illusion. The only real freedom we can have is freedom to choose our own cage - and, what we need is to find a cage where we can feel at home. Unfortunately, it was too late.

Am citit atîtea povestiri nereușite despre fete nebunatice, nesăbuite, zăpăcite, rele, răutăcioase, meschine etc., încît am deschis cartea lui Capote fără să-mi fac nici o iluzie. Am urmărit acțiunea (cîtă este!) cu mult scepticism. Am fost vigilent la fiecare f(r)ază a povestirii, am măsurat gesturile lui Holly Golightly (adevăratul ei nume e, în realitate, Lulamae Barnes) cu asprimea unui judecător de moravuri, am încercat s-o privesc nu prin ochii naratorului fascinat de exuberanta femeie, ci prin ochii mei neîncrezători, exigenți, acri, răi...

Povestirea (că doar n-o fi roman...) m-a constrîns să las la o parte scepticismul. Mi-a plăcut. O fată, un soi de „gheișă americană” (zice Capote), îi zăpăcește pe bărbați și, în urma unui incident bizar (e acuzată de legături cu mafia drogurilor), ia avionul spre Rio și dispare în neant. Așa, pur și simplu. Peste 15 ani, neconsolatul narator anonim și Joe Bell, proprietarul unei crîșme de pe Lexington Avenue, își amintesc de Holly și de fulgerătoarea ei prezență în New York-ul anilor 40. Aș îndrăzni să spun că Holly e o perfectă întrupare a tîrfei neprihănite. Și mai are și umor...

P. S. Am văzut filmul cu Audrey Hepburn cu prea mult timp în urmă și nu mai păstrez nici o amintire legată de el.