Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

I finished Breakfast at Tiffany's in about two hours (it's only a little over one hundred pages long). Since it is a classic I was expecting a much more difficult read a la Sinclair Lewis (still not sure how I managed to read Arrowsmith in its entirety). Maybe I shouldn't be so intimidated by classics after all.

Anyway, what did I think about the story? First of all, see this page for a synopsis.

Holly Golightly is the object of the narrator's story. On the surface she is a carefree party girl who makes the scene and the society section of the news paper. She has plenty of suitors, loves good fashion, and is in my opinion quite a flake. That's right: I'm not a fan of this character. I know Audrey Hepburn is cute as a button playing her in the film version, but the character, as created by Capote, has got some major issues and I feel for the poor soul.

There's a lot of symbolism floating around in the story with cages and her pet, a stray: mainly that she just can't imagine that anything should have to live inside a cage or be withheld from their wild nature. She and the cat don't belong to each other - they just found each other and they are in some sort of non-committed cat-owner arrangement. But PLEASE, darling: commitment is so passe...we couldn't possibly imagine such a trite concept! (sarcasm).

As the novel progresses and the reader learns more about Golightly, we discover that she's not a very happy person but it's her own doing. She left a marriage where she was loved and doted on. She flees for New York. Eventually, she chooses to flee New York and the friendship of the narrator whom she calls "Fred".

I can't be bothered with the whole "wild hearts can't be tamed" and "she's just a wild spirit" bullshit. The cage IS happiness! She refuses to get in the cage and thus she will never find contentment. It follows her around but she willfully turns it away. In the end, she puts her cat on the street telling it to "scram" or something similar (since they were never in a committed pet-owner relationship anyway) but she realizes that she is wrong. She and the cat DID belong to each other. But she leaves anyway in spite of this insight.

I'm happy that this book does not glamorize the Cut and Run Syndrome: it's emotional cowardice and I think this novel highlights that. Golightly is not a hero in the end but a victim of her own inner demons.

Given that I reacted to the Golightly character as strongly as I did, I do say that it is an effective story. I guess I could delve deeper into the meaning of everything in this book but I really don't want to (which I guess is an opinion in itself).

It's a classic - you should read it.

Tootles,
Laurie