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Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

Truman Capote

Start date: July 1, 2013

Finish date: July 31, 2013

Discussion: Current Group Read

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What Members Thought

Nov 25, 2010 Madge rated it it was ok

Shelves: books-i-wish-i-never-read, classics, novellas-etc, the-movie-was-better

This is not really a proper review, just some thoughts.

The edition I read had the additional short stories at the end, but by the time I finished Breakfast I was absolutely sick of Capote. That's saying something, considering it was only a little over 100 pages. I couldn't even force myself to finish the stories at the end, but I did try.

I love the movie and it's one of my all-time favorites (or at least it was...I haven't seen it in a few years), but I knew going into this that the book was pro ...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Sheila rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, owned, boxalls-1001

Holiday Golightly, Traveling

Certainly, having that in a calling card attracts attention. But the lovable thing about Truman Capote's best creation is that Holly never consciously tries to get attention; she's a natural. A dreamer. A poet. The perfect cafe society girl.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a story about the 19-year-old Texan runaway and orphan, Holly Golightly, whom Capote clarified as an American geisha, not a prostitute. Her primary occupation is dating rich, older men, whom she al Holiday Golightly, Traveling

Certainly, having that in a calling card attracts attention. But the lovable thing about Truman Capote's best creation is that Holly never consciously tries to get attention; she's a natural. A dreamer. A poet. The perfect cafe society girl.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a story about the 19-year-old Texan runaway and orphan, Holly Golightly, whom Capote clarified as an American geisha, not a prostitute. Her primary occupation is dating rich, older men, whom she allows to take her home at night and even kiss her in the neck. In return for her companionship, they give her gifts of money or jewelry.

Her lifestyle is the first thing that her neighbors notice---going home past midnight, sometimes alone, sometimes with a man, ringing the bell to rouse her neighbor at any hour when she can't find her keys. Even when she doesn't introduce herself formally, Holly manages to involve her neighbors in her life just by being her annoying, but charming self. When she met the writer she calls Fred, she was in the middle of a situation with a man she invited to her apartment and whom she wanted to escape from at that particular moment.

In just 111 pages, Capote created a story about a girl who has a dream. Of love, of wealth, of being reunited with her brother somewhere in Mexico. As this is the first work of Capote that I've read, I'm not yet quite used to his writing style and language, but he gave Holly a magnetic personality which is primarily evident in her speech that is breezy but thoughtful and sometimes poetic.

My favorite part in the novella is not when she released her nameless cat in Spanish Harlem. It happened much earlier, when she was relating to Fred how she came to be the incarcerated Sally Tomato's niece, how it was romantic of Sally to remember her face even if they had not met and how the visitors of Sing Sing looked their best. Holly may be smoking cigarettes, drinking brandy, and losing sleep socializing with men like a real sophisticated lady, but she's still very much a girl who believes in romance and in the innocent side of things. It makes her naive and causes her trouble in the end, but still, it's what the writer and the bar owner and countless other men in the story love about her. That vulnerability she can't shake just yet.

I would read this again after a year or maybe I'll watch the movie so I can compare. ...more

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Jun 18, 2015 Keri rated it really liked it

Much more complicated and deeper than the movie. If you like pretty stories wrapped up in neat packages, you will probably like the movie better, but if you prefer more ambiguity and complex characters, I highly recommend the book. (The plot is different in several significant ways, too, so they are almost like two different stories that have the same characters).

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