I read Breakfast at Tiffany's in high school (senior year I think) and I remember really liking it. But I remember being angry with Holly Golightly and how she behaved. I saw her as selfish and self-centered and felt like she treated everyone as if they were throw away, valueless. It was when she dropped the cat in Spanish Harlem that solidified those feelings toward her for me back then.

Rereading this now, I can't help but think about not only how smart a writer Capote is but also how much I have grown as a reader. This time, Holly didn't make me angry at all. She made me exceedingly sad. Here's a woman who behaves so thoughtlessly because she doesn't feel she has any value. She doesn't want to set down roots because she doesn't want to become anyone else's burden nor her own burden to herself. By being free and making no attachments, she's really distancing herself from life all together. She wasn't treating everyone else as throw away; she was treating her own life that way.

When she talks about Tiffany's being that perfect home, that perfect place, it's only sadder. To think that something iconic is the only way to be hammers it home. When she left the cat this time, I got it. It wasn't because she was heartless but because she didn't think she deserved to have a heart.

I've seen the movie, but it's also been a few years. I remember almost romanticizing the story when I saw it before and now, rereading Capote's words, I can see how much it was made into a romance rather than the darker story as he intended.

At the core, this isn't a light hearted read at all. It's a complicated and intense character study. Capote has a way of building a whole person and a whole world in a short amount of space that keeps the reader engaged and even a bit uncomfortable.