Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's
- tatedecaro
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
4/5 stars
I feel like I need to say from the get-go that I have not seen the 1961 Audrey Hepburn Breakfast at Tiffany's movie... and I probably won't. I recently listened to an episode of the podcast What Went Wrong about the movie and book, which convinced me that I wanted to read it, but not that I needed to see it.
The only other piece I've read by Capote is In Cold Blood, which I loved, but that is a non-fiction true-crime tale, while these stories are fiction. What Capote does so expertly across genres, though, is character development. I found it particularly impressive that he could create such vibrant and authentic characters in a short novella.
Starting with the title, and most famous, piece, Holly Golightly is a young woman of 18 or 19 living in an apartment in NYC, in the same building as the unnamed narrator. I say unnamed, but Holly calls him Fred because he reminds her of her brother Fred, so we'll go with that. She is a charismatic socialite, partying with elite crowds, and, though it's never explicitly said, serving as an escort/sex worker. She seems to have no past, and her present is made up of smoking, drinking, flirting, and being alternately loving and then awful to the people she spends her time with. All in all, a rather innovative and risqué portrayal of a woman in the 1950's.
The glaringly obvious downfall of the book is it's casual racism - though perhaps less so than the movie, with it's over-the-top, offensive portrayal of the Japanese character of Mr. Yunioshi by Mickey Rooney. In the book, the racism centers less on a stereotype of one specific character, and more on outdated language. Not that I'm giving it a pass. Just reading it with context in mind.
What stands out is the powerful friendships formed, whether they be with Holly, or between other characters as they bond over their fascination with her.
The other three stories:
House of Flowers begins in a brothel in Haiti, where Ottilie lives, works, and enjoys her free time with her coworker friends. That is, until she meets and falls for a young visitor, and they move to his home, where he lives with his crotchety old grandmother.
A Diamond Guitar tells the story of a friendship (or more?) that blossoms between two men in prison, the younger of whom plays music for the other inmates on his diamond-studded guitar.
A Christmas Memory is about two close friends - a young boy and an older woman, who live together with other family members, but form a close bond with each other.
I really liked all three of these stories, and loved that the throughline, along with Breakfast at Tiffany's, is friendships forming in unexpected ways and places.
UP NEXT: The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich
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