Breakfast at Tiffany's & Other Voices, Other Rooms: Two Novels

by Truman Capote

Together in one volume, here are a pair of literary touchstones from Truman Capote’s extraordinary early career: the transcendently popular novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Other Voices, Other Rooms, the debut novel he published as a twenty-three-year-old prodigy.
 
Of all his characters, Capote once said, Holly Golightly was his favorite. The hillbilly-turned-Manhattanite at the center of Breakfast at Tiffany’s shares not only the author’s philosophy of freedom but also his fears and anxieties. For Holly, the cure is to jump into a taxi and head for Tiffany’s; nothing bad could happen, she believes, amid “that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets.”
 
Other Voices, Other Rooms begins as thirteen-year-old Joel Knox, after losing his mother, is sent from New Orleans to rural Alabama to live with his estranged father—who is nowhere to be found. Instead, Joel meets his eccentric family and finds a kindred spirit in a defiant little girl. Despite its themes of waylaid hopes and lost innocence, this semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel revels in small pleasures and the colorful language of its time and place.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Romance, Book Club, Literature, American

304 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 1958

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Truman Capote was an American writer whose non-fiction, stories, novels and plays are recognised literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1965), which he labeled a "non-fiction novel." At least 20 films and TV dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.

He was born as Truman Streckfus Persons to a salesman Archulus Persons and young Lillie Mae. His parents divorced when he was four and he went to live with his mother's relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. He was a lonely child who learned to read and write by himself before entering school. In 1933, he moved to New York City to live with his mother and her new husband, Joseph Capote, a Cuban-born businessman. Mr. Capote adopted Truman, legally changing his last name to Capote and enrolling him in private school. After graduating from high school in 1942, Truman Capote began his regular job as a copy boy at The New Yorker. During this time, he also began his career as a writer, publishing many short stories which introduced him into a circle of literary critics. His first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, published in 1948, stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks and became controversial because of the photograph of Capote used to promote the novel, posing seductively and gazing into the camera.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Capote remained prolific producing both fiction and non-fiction. His masterpiece, In Cold Blood, a story about the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, was published in 1966 in book form by Random House, became a worldwide success and brought Capote much praise from the literary community. After this success he published rarely and suffered from alcohol addiction. He died in 1984 at age 59.

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holiday Golightly. She’s quirky, comical, and glamorous. She’s fashionable, in-the-know, and in-the-now. She’s lonely, lost, and waiting to be rescued. You couldn’t resist her charm if you tried, and you can’t help but fall in love with her.

Well, at least in the Hollywood film version. Capote’s original novella paints a darker portrait of Miss Golightly. Unlike Audrey Hepburn’s adorable Holly, who needs a knight in slightly-rusted armor to save her, Capote’s girl is a “wild thing” who cannot be caged, trained, or rescued.

I can’t deny that the film is a classic and is one of my favorites. Audrey Hepburn may be the epitome of glamour and beauty, and Hollywood’s Holly can’t help but absorb Audrey’s charm. By the end of the film you find yourself rooting for “Fred” to save her from the nonsense of high society, reunite her with the cat, and wipe away her case of “the mean reds” forever. That is Hollywood, after all, and we would expect nothing less.

But the real Holly, Capote’s Holly, can never be caged by convention. It would be hard to imagine her ever settling down and being content with Fred (regardless of the fact that he is an implied homosexual in the book. Hollywood seemed to have “overlooked” that).

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that the book’s Holly is a Bad Person; she’s just more layered and real. Think about it – how many people have you come across who create a new persona for themselves, based on what they perceive others to desire? People who feign interest in the popular styles/entertainment/notable people of the day, just to seem like a Very Important Person and garner adoration, fame, and possibly fortune. I could name a few.

But we get to go deeper than Holly’s exterior and see the scared and lonely girl at the core. She is terrified of being a caged animal, but also tired of being alone. She wants to seem as though she’s making a holiday out of life, but struggles with the need for stability and the desire for freedom.

The book I read also included three of Capote’s most famous stories, and I’d be remiss not to mention them as well: House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory. The three short stories are amazingly intimate and touching, illuminating different sides of human emotion. I have not read Capote’s magnum opus, In Cold Blood, but after witnessing his detailed descriptions and haunting perceptions of human nature in these shorter forms, I have added his novel to my “to-read” list.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who grew up in the 90s, this was in my head the whole time I read this:



I have never seen the movie (update: I finally did see the movie shortly after reading the book), so the only idea I had in my mind is this iconic image of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly:



But, what I actually got was this:



Holly is crass and obnoxious with really no redeeming qualities. She is rude to her enemies, and even worse to her friends. She smokes to excess, drinks to excess, is promiscuous to excess - she is just wild, crazy, and destructive.

Reading this was like watching a train wreck - but I kind of liked it. I couldn't look away!

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some persons live their life as if they’re just playing a game. And such is Holly Golightly – she doesn’t live, she’s travelling light… Exactly like her name may suggest.

Her bedroom was consistent with her parlor: it perpetuated the same camping-out atmosphere; crates and suitcases, everything packed and ready to go, like the belongings of a criminal who feels the law not far behind.

She doesn’t want to exist in reality, she doesn’t want to grow up, and her life goes on as though she lives in a dollhouse.

“You’re wrong. She is a phony. But on the other hand you’re right. She isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony. She believes all this crap she believes. You can’t talk her out of it. I’ve tried with tears running down my cheeks.”

She dreams her great American dream and in this way Breakfast at Tiffany's echoes The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Holly Golightly believes that there is a crock of gold hidden at the end of the rainbow…

I don’t mean I’d mind being rich and famous. That’s very much on my schedule, and someday I’ll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I’d like to have my ego tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Dreams of a beautiful life have been the ruins of many a poor girl… And the story keeps repeating.

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is getting shelved under "The Movie is Better" but honestly, I can't decide which version I prefer. Because I am indecisive, let's make lists.

Reasons The Movie Is Better:
-Audrey Hepburn plays a considerably less racist and foul-mouthed Holly, which is nice. But let's be honest: Holly could spend the entire movie snorting crack off a sidewalk and Audrey Hepburn would make it the most elegant and classy crack-snorting anyone had ever seen.
-Holly actually sets foot inside Tiffany's, instead of just talking about it. Also she is actually seen eating breakfast outside the store, instead of just mentioning it offhandedly.
-The lines, "It's useful being top banana in the shock department" and "I don't want you to take me home until I'm very drunk. Very drunk indeed."
-A happy, schmoopy, formulaic romantic ending in the rain that never fails to win me over. And they come back for Cat.
-George Peppard.

Reasons The Book Is Better:
-Mag Wildwood, a mere caricature in the movie, gets more lines, personality, and scenes in the book.
-Holly is eighteen at the beginning of the story, which makes her instantly more of a badass teen slut, which I admired her for.
-Mr. Yunioshi actually has a sizable shred of dignity and is vital to the plot. This did wonders to undo the damage caused by the sight of a sweaty, overtanned, bucktoothed Mickey Rooney leaning over a banister and screeching, "Missa Gorightry! I musta plotest!"

*shudder* Is Mickey Rooney dead? If not, could someone please find him and kill him for thinking he could successfully imitate a Japanese man without turning into a walking stereotype? Thank you.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Bottom line: the book made me sad, and the movie does not.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m struggling to figure out what makes this quite so great, it could be Truman’s beautiful limpid style which winds its sentences through your inner ear so that you might think that language itself had been melted and turned into vanilla frosting or it could be that this is the sweet sad little tale of a guy who met this creature and got stuck permanently in the friend zone, and kind of almost didn’t really mind because at least the friend zone was something and not nothing, that’s how entranced he was, or it could be that one of the major characters is a cat. It could be that it’s funny, and kind, and that Holly says some really surprising things (just to mention one, that she thinks people of the same sex should be allowed to get married – in 1958!). But this novelette is a small 100 page thing, a drifting fragrance, a single chord, a glint, a hello then goodbye too soon, too soon – ah yes, itself therefore being the perfect embodiment of the Holly Golightly experience. So, of course – that’s why.

[Lawyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breakfast at Tiffany's: Truman Capote's Novella of Love or Something Like It

"If she was in this city I'd have seen her. You take a man that likes to walk, a man like me, a man's been walking in the streets going on ten or twelve years, and all those years he's got his eye out for one person, and nobody's ever her, don't it stand to reason she's not there? I see pieces of her all the time, a flat litle bottom, any skinny girl that walks fast and straight--...

It's just that I didn't know you'd been in love with her. Not like that."

So it is we know that Holly Golightly is gone, that she's been gone for years. And she had her effect on Joe Bell, the bartender at that little place down on Lexington Avenue in the Big Apple.



Yeah, there's Joe's place. Look hard enough, it's one of those little places tucked away. You probably can't see it. One of those Yellow Cabs is hiding it. Yeah, Joe had it bad. Most men who knew her did, unless they just wanted to use her. There's always that niggling little thought on the nature of what love really is. That it is pure and natural or that it can be purchased. Anything is possible, after all, because everything is negotiable.

Truman Capote first published Breakfast at Tiffany'sin the November, 1958 issue of Esquire Magazine.



It was considered too obscene for Capote's usual sources for periodical publication, Harper's Baazar and Mademoiselle. After all, it's open to question as to whether Holly is a prostitute. And being a woman who speaks her mind, she wishes she could have a bull dyke for a roommate because they make such excellent housekeepers. Such language would never do, so it was off to Esquire. Random house followed suit, publishing "Tiffany's" as a novella.



What man hasn't known and loved a Holly Golightly. I have. I lost her. She was hit and killed by a drunk driver--hit her on the wrong side of the road. It was head on. She never had a chance. She was driving home on a Sunday evening, after dinner with her parents, her adopted parents.

She shared several characteristics with Holly Golightly. She didn't know her real parents. She enjoyed men. Her hair was that shining perfect blond with bands of white that made her always look as though the sun shone directly on her head and hers alone. She liked her men older, too, like Holly. Maybe it was being adopted, not knowing where she came from, not knowing where she truly belonged.

But Holly Golightly had taken a new identity, running away from Tulip, Texas, married at the age of fourteen to Doc Barnes, a veterinarian. Her real name is Lula Mae Barnes, just as Capote's mother's name had been Lillie Mae Faulk before she took a more sophisticated name, Nina, after she married Cuban business man Joe Capote.

I attended her funeral, one of so many, her male coterie. But it was when the minister pulled out a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit and began to read from it that I was stunned. For I gave her that book, in the hope, the dream that she would realize if you love anything enough it will become alive. She kept that book all the many years we were apart. Perhaps on some days she thought of me. I know that I still think of her and on some days, like Joe Bell, the bartender, I see bits and pieces of her as I walk the city streets, especially when the sun illuminates the gold, the white, the platinum of a feminine head of hair as if it showed on no other person on boulevard, no matter how bright the sun.

Oh, you say Holly Golightly was a brunette--like Audrey Hepburn. Well, that was Blake Edwards' idea of what Holly Golightly looked like. But it wasn't Capote's idea who should play her. It was Marilyn Monroe. No question. It was that blonde hair, almost platinum. But Capote only sold the film rights. He maintained no control over the direction or production of the film.

Capote was such a wonderful dancer. I can still remember photographs of him swirling Marilyn across the dance floor.



But Lee Strausberg told Marilyn playing Holly Golightly, a prostitute, wouldn't be good for her career. Monroe turned down the role for "The Misfits." It would be her last film. But that's another story.

History took its course. Henry Mancini composed "Moon River" for the score. George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn had chemistry. Following its release in 1961, Edwards' work became one of the iconic American films. However, it bears little resemblance to Capote's work, although Audrey Hepburn is stunning in that little black dress.

It was not uncommon that movies made from Faulkner's books premiered in Oxford, Mississippi. One, to Faulkner's chagrin, bore so little comparison to his original work, when called to the stage to make opening remarks, Faulkner said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the film you're about to see bears absolutely no resemblance to the book I wrote from which the title of this film was taken." He walked off stage and out of the theatre. I can't imagine Capote taking that approach, he was still connected to a famous film that led to further sales of his work. Perhaps it was that desire for fame that ultimately destroyed Capote.

Of course, in the novella, the young writer is unpublished. Holly takes it upon herself to make him famous by introducing him to her Hollywood agent. In the movie, Peppard is a kept man, whose, shall we say, sponsor, is played by Patricia Neal, who is known to Holly as 2E, the lady's apartment number. And, of course, the movie ends happily ever after with George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn embracing in the rain and having found "Cat" whom Holly had kicked out of the taxi cab.

But Capote tells Holly's view regarding love, or whatever feeling she is capable of describing as love.

"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell," Holly advised him. "That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it 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 a taller 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."

Truman Capote considered Holly Golightly his favorite character. I think he was right in his feelings. Of course, Capote, has said that the narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany's was gay. In fact, it has been repeatedly surmised that Holly Golightly is the literary embodiment of Christopher Isherwood's Sally Bowles. What divine decadence. The movie would never have ended the way it did, had Capote maintained creative control.

Let's just say this one will always touch a nerve in me. This one is for all the Holly Golightlys in the world and the Joe Bells who have the sense to listen to them, and I offer it with all the heartfelt sympathy I can muster for those who can't understand what it means to love a wild thing.

[Regina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holly Golightly… making women feel inadequate since 1958.

At least the iconic Audrey Hepburn film version of her anyway, which technically debuted in 1961. It's probably best to set aside any notion you have of Hepburn’s portrayal in order to immerse yourself in the original Breakfast at Tiffany's text by Truman Capote though.

The film is set in the ‘60s, the book in the ‘40s. Hepburn’s Holly is a polished brunette, Capote’s is a Marilyn Monroe-like blonde. On the screen Ms. Golightly is a café society girl, on the page she is, essentially, a call girl. (To be accurate, she’s referred to as an "American geisha.”)

She’s also fairly crass, and unfortunately quite racist (as is the language in the book). Still, she’s presented as the quintessential object of the male gaze. Even the seemingly brother-like unnamed narrator can’t help but idolize her as the manic pixie dream girl men perceive (want? need?) her to be.

What makes the book so successful is that it’s a master class in character development. By its conclusion readers have a very vivid portrait of Holly Golightly, which is a remarkable feat given she doesn’t really want anyone to know who she truly is. Capote shrouds her in an opaque cloak of mystery but also gives us magical glasses to see right through it.

Blog: https://www.confettibookshelf.com/

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Capote has a mesmerizing way with words. His description of the aptly named Holly Golightly is splendid and the character herself is a sort of blend of Daisy Buchanon and Madame Bovary. The friendship of the narrator Paul/"Fred" with Holly is beautifully and painfully described as are the parties and lovers that she entertains. I must see the film now...(see below)
The atmosphere of the book is a sort of bohemian yet preppy post-Beat decadence but with a tragic sexism that poisons Holly's relationships with everyone except the narrator. She is both an actor and a victim of her status as a sex object - this is what transports this story from something banal to something more complex and enduring.

The Diamond Guitar is a tender story of unrequited love as well, albeit homosexual love and longing and disappearance.

House of Flowers is a vivid depiction of a Haitian whorehouse, the Champs-Elysées and the sadomasochistic love of Ollite for Royal that leads her to an indifferent fate at the House of Flowers.

A Christmas Memory is a heartbreaking tale of camaraderie between a young boy and an older woman and their dreams of surpassing their humble existence.

Each of these stories of love, loss, and hope against hope that avoid sentimentalism in their cold rendering of events. It is more the external elements (the weather in New York, the changing seasons at the farm, the bee prophecy and the wind respectively) that color the psychology of the characters and their ambiguous fates.
I loved these stories and will read more of Truman Capote's work.

I started watching the movie with the amazing Audrey Hepburn as Golightly and George Peppard as "Fred" and find it captures the essence of the relationship between these two characters. However, why did they have Mickey Rooney do that ridiculous (and perhaps racist) imitation of Yunioshi, why not just have a Japanese actor. The other annoying thing about the movie is the comic spin that it puts to the book which while at times somewhat humorous was for the most part darker and more layered than depicted by Blake Edwards.

[Candi · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany’s, then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name.”

Only Truman Capote could make me feel so nostalgic for a place and time I’ve never inhabited. He’s done this remarkably well with all of the pieces I’ve read thus far. This particular collection includes the iconic Breakfast at Tiffany’s as well as three shorter pieces, one of which I’ve reviewed elsewhere – A Christmas Memory (loved it!). I’ve never seen the film. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that Holly Golightly was not at all like the angel I imagined Audrey Hepburn to have portrayed! That’s not a complaint by any means. I was entirely beguiled by the original version of Holly that Capote dreamed up before Hollywood stepped in. Capote’s Holly is charming, for sure, but also much more enigmatic than I would have envisioned. She’s deliciously darker. There’s something about Holly that I could relate to – a restlessness of spirit, perhaps. Unlike yours truly, however, Holly is a bit of a fleeting vision. One gets the sense that she’ll be here one second and the next… poof!. Even the name slot affixed to her mailbox gives us a clue straightaway.

“Printed, rather Cartier-formal, it read: Miss Holiday Golightly; and, underneath, in the corner, Traveling. It nagged me like a tune: Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling.”

Just who is this woman? That’s what our narrator, an aspiring writer, intends to find out. I was fascinated by the dynamics and the dialogue between Holly and those with whom she interacted. I’m always perplexed by the fact that some people seem so closed off from one another these days. Yet these charming creatures in literature suddenly materialize on the fire escapes of neighbors they know nary a lick! I fell a little in love with Holly Golightly along with the rest of the crowd from that moment on. What more can I say? Bravo, Mr. Capote!

“… 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 a taller tree. Then the sky.”

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming little anecdote about some ruby-rare bright young thing & ensuing crew--delightly-ful! To be read in a complete sitting in some secret well-lit garden with a basket of tea and crumpets. Necessary as stress relief and sweet as a caramel. Another plus for the already egotistical NYC, Holly Golightly is heavily embossed onto the overall structure, asphalt jungle, itself.

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delicious.

Upon finishing Truman Capote’s 1958 brilliant short novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s my first thought was that Capote had been influenced heavily by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 Jazz Age masterpiece The Great Gatsby. I was intrigued further to find that several other reviewers had noticed the same similarities. Both involve and are centrally concerned with a charismatic and alluring socialite with humble beginnings and sketchy personal details and with a subtle naiveté hidden under a mask of societal cunning bordering on the streetwise.

I would also draw a comparison between Holly and Vladimir Nabokov’s Dolores from his 1955 work Lolita. Both heroines exhibit a frank and earthy, almost playful sexuality that is intoxicating to the male characters, who pine and lust with barely contained libido.

Finally, I see similarities between Capote’s themes and settings and Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, especially between the tense platonic relationship concerning Holly and the narrator and Hemingway’s Lady Brett and Jake. Both male narrators are sad caricatures of voyeuristic and doomed love, both pale also-rans to the Latin rivals.

In Holly Golightly, Capote has created an archetypal American woman of the twentieth century, at once sexual and material, yet in a playful, teasing and fun way. He could have written another hundred pages of scenes with her and I would have been as captivated as the unnamed (except casually by Holly) narrator. Of course, Audrey Hepburn’s 1961 portrayal was so intoxicating as to become one with Capote’s vision.

Capote has penned a dandy and, like the best chocolate, it is a guilty delight.

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

The theme that unites Breakfast at Tiffany's with the three much shorter stories in this volume is the powerful bond of friendship between unexpected people or in unusual circumstances.

The title story is a male fantasy - so I wrote in 2010. Except that Capote was gay, so it's probably his idea of a typical straight man's fantasy. As Carmen says in a comment, she's what we'd now call a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.



Holly
The story is of course about Holly Golightly, a charming but utterly self-absorbed, mysterious fantasist, full of intriguing contradictions. She has big ambitions and none at all, but she does want the security of having breakfast at Tiffany's. She is often flirtatious, but at other times she plays the total innocent (e.g. getting her neighbour to put sun oil on her). At times she is oblivious to what people around her know and think, but at others, she is remarkably perspicacious about the personality and motives of those around her.

Knowing more about Holly only makes one realise how unknowable she is. When talking about her childhood, "it was elusive, nameless, placeless, an impressionistic recital".

Fred
At times, the narrator acts like a stalker of his attractive and enigmatic neighbour (examining her rubbish and investigating what she read at the library), yet he didn't alienate me. Perhaps one reason is the way that Holly uses men. As the men are happy to be used by her, where's the harm?

Film
It's written in such a visual way, that I'm not surprised it was turned into a film. (I hadn't seen the film when I read and wrote this, though I had seen pictures of Audrey Hepburn as Holly.)

Quirky quote
"A group of nuns who were trying on masks" (in a department store).

Quirky "fact"
Holly has a problem with Thursdays, much like Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!


The other, shorter stories in this volume

House of Flowers
This starts in a brothel in Port au Prince and the dialogue did not ring at all true to me (but I'm hardly an expert on Haitian prostitution). It explores the friendship between the working girls, and how love is hard to discern in such an environment.
What is love like? "You feel as though pepper had been sprinkled on your heart, as though tiny fish are swimming in your veins".

A Diamond Guitar
About friendship in prison and the effect of long-term incarceration on the psyche.

A Christmas Memory
A beautiful story of the self-made traditions that form a loving bond between a young boy and an elderly relative.


Note: I updated this review in April 2018, picking up on comments below - without rereading the book!

[Brina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fred, our story's narrator, has been called by Joe Bell the proprietor of Hamburg Heaven because he has heard about Holly. So begins Truman Capote's classic Breakfast at Tiffany's, the tale of New York society girl Holly Golightly. As soon as Fred hears about Holly, the story flashes back to 1943 and we begin our story of Holly.

Growing up I knew Aubrey Hepburn as Eliza Dolittle and Tiffany's as a diamond store, so I envisioned Breakfast at Tiffany's to be a tale of the upper crust of New York society dining at the Plaza Hotel. How wrong was in these thoughts. Our protagonists live in a brownstone apartment, not the Plaza. "Fred" named in honor of Holly's brother is a festering writer who seems to be Capote himself and his upstairs neighbor is a mysterious girl named Holly Golightly who adds traveling to her business cards. Until the two have any interactions, Holly remains an enigma, adding to her mystique.

Throughout the book, Holly still remains an enigma even after she and "Fred" build on their friendly, platonic relationship. Who is Holly? Is she a Hollywood starlet or Arkansas hillbilly? A New York society girl or prostitute or a member of the mafia? Because the novella is only 100 pages in length, Capote tackles all of these ideas while really building up Holly's character. Even though I prefer epic novels, I also enjoy a shorter story that flushes out a character's personality and has me captivated from the first pages. Capote's novella does this and then some, allowing me to quickly read to the conclusion.

Tiffany's does make an appearance in the novella although not the way I had thought it would. Holly in spite of all the glitz in her life, wants to be remembered the same when she has the money to eat breakfast at Tiffany's. Does this mean she will be down to earth or a multi-layered character? Will she keep the same company or dine with movie stars? Capote hints that Holly would prefer the former but never tells us, allowing for the reader to draw their own conclusions. Again, this device enabled me to read the novella in one sitting so I could find out whether or not Holly ever ate breakfast at Tiffany's.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the three other stories included in this novella. All of them bring out Capote's prose and show us why he is highly regarded as a classic American writer. The collection ends on a high note with A Christmas Memory, allowing is some insight into Capote's family life growing up. I look forward to seeing Breakfast at Tiffany's on screen to compare the movie to the book and also reading his masterpiece In Cold Blood. A 5-star classic.

[Always Pouting · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent today in bed because I wasn't feeling well and spent part of that time just reading this from front to end and I have to say it was a nice set of short stories to read while feeling sick and sorry for myself. I feel like writing was comforting and all the stories had that undertone of loneliness or grief that tends to resonate with me. Of course I loved Holly Golightly, I tend to really like flawed/ridiculous/over the top characters. I really liked the last story as well, A Christmas Memory, or maybe it just made me cry so I'm feeling very tender about it. I didn't really like House of Flowers but I did like A Diamond Guitar as well. Overall a good read, hoping to read In Cold Blood sometime soon too since I really enjoyed Capote's writing style.

[Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

"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"


[I'd forgotten how absolutely gorgeous Audrey Hepburn was]

Until a decade ago, I'd only seen the trailer for the film version. The phrase "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is iconic for that era. I'd not read the novel despite Truman Capote coming from the 2 states in which I've lived nearly all my life: Alabama and Mississippi, both of which have indisputably earned their places as regular punching bags of all outside the South, especially the cognoscenti and other snobbish bastards who would rather point fingers in a direction than look at all the bigotry around them.

I might be a little differently affected by this short novel than many others, especially those who grew up in a large metropolis. Before I explain what I mean, I'll say that I found Capote's short novel to masterfully display this young lady's complexities of character underlying the shallow facade of wealth. Capote shows how some of us are willing to do nearly anything to achieve a dream, no matter how grandiose or superficial others may find it. Holly Golightly was a dreamer extraordinaire or as Capote put it, a "lopsided romantic" whose trait of personality would never change.



A poignant line which I think best captures a major theme of the novel is Holly's observation late in the novel that:

"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."

Though I've lived all my life in the American South, I'm not a redneck. I recall the first time I went to New York City. I was in awe, which is more of a small town thing than Southern. I've been many times since and the sheer size of it never fails to amaze me.

City people, particularly those in NYC, are disgusted by such provincialism--a contempt they cannot hide. Even though I'm straight, I think I can imagine how it must have been for an outcast sissy-boy from Monroeville, AL and Meridian, MS, trying to make his dreams come true in the Big Apple. Certainly, he would have been very sensitive and keenly observant of his environment in New York City, having grown up ostracized by his classmates. The fact that he was a gay man from down South up in the big city (suffering prejudices in NYC against not only his sexuality but much moreso against his Southern upbringing and drawl) probably served to further enhance his remarkable attention to detail in that society, at that time.

These difficulties formed an integral part of the artist who so vividly painted one of the best ever outsiders looking in with longing.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Attempted to read in my teens, didn't do anything for me. Twenty-five years later, and now more literary adept, gave it another go. With much better results. Boy oh boy, could he write!.

It's New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany's. And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveller, a tease. She is irrepressibly 'top banana in the shock department', and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.

Holly is a petite little bundle of scandal in World War II New York society. She works her way through various characters, and any other men who can pay her tab. The narrator, an aspiring Capote-like writer, is her neighbor in their trendy-ish NYC apartment building. He is witness to her parade of gentlemen callers, and as he befriends her and falls in and out of love with her, bears witness to her dramas and the slowly revealed facets of her character and history.

The dialog in Breakfast at Tiffany's is snappy and moves along nicely, very much of the era, but it still sounds almost contemporary in tone if not in verbiage. Holly loves easily and leaves easily. She is easily angered and quick to forgive. She buys expensive gifts on a whim, expects to be treated to expensive things regularly. Eventually we find out where she's really from and how she became Manhattan's Girl About Town. Then she gets in some legal trouble and goes on the lam, leaving the narrator to pine wistfully over her postcards from Brazil or wherever she's fled to.

It's a cute, almost whimsical novel, and was probably much more scandalous when it was written. Neither the author nor the narrator ever come out and say that Holly is a lady of the night, but it's heavily implied. At best, she lives a sugar daddy lifestyle. Today her behavior would barely raise an eyebrow in Manhattan, but in the 40s, when it was written, such a female protagonist was more shocking.

Capote clearly wrote of his central characters with a big heart, of which there is also an echoing bittersweet sadness. It took little time at all to get into the story, which is sizewise of the short novel/lengthy novella mold. Doable in one or two sittings. A worthy read for sure.

[Ilse · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell", Holly advised him. "That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it 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 a taller 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"

"Good luck 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."

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

i am very sorry, truman capote, that the movie adaptation of your story is both way more famous and way better than the source material. you could not compete with audrey hepburn, and no one expects you to be able to.

even though the love interest in the movie is a snooze. even though holly golightly has touches of manic pixie dream girl in spite of predating that term by half a century. even though i honestly figure there should be a few more croissants eaten in front of jewelry stores considering the title.

there's just no fighting it! nobody's got the charm in the whole of their masterwork that audrey hepburn has in her ballet flats / little black dress / pixie cut / short pants / what have you.

in cold blood was good though. and as far as i know ms hepburn got nowhere near it.

part of a project i'm doing where i read books i read a long time ago, and yes this one was an out of character choice for high school me, what of it.

[Sidharth Vardhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

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.

"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."

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.

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

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':

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

but:

"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."

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.

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes.”


I didn't know what to expect from Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, but I thoroughly enjoyed how Capote told his story. This backwards (at times almost nostalgic) glance at a life which had all but vanished from anything but memory (the whimsically kind and cruel and slightly tragic Holly Golightly) reminded me more of Willa Cather's My Antonia than Capote's other seminal work, In Cold Blood. Of course, Antonia and Holly Golightly have virtually nothing in common except how they occupy the center of the narrator's imagination.

When Jim Burden explores Antonia's character, he discovers depth he didn't fully understand when he was a boy. The narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany's finds a disarmingly charming shallowness in Holly that hides complexity neither he (nor the reader) can fully understand. In the end, the Holly of Capote's novella doesn't match the charming portrayal of Audrey Hepburn in the movie, but Holly, I think, was meant to be a little darker, someone closer to tragedy than the stuff of dreams.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

"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.

[Roxane · Rating 4 out of 5]

The charm, the wit, the insouciance, what a lovely book. And what is with all these books with the unrequited man as narrator? It's such a popular narrative choice. It makes it seem like there is this legion of men who prefer to be on the outside, looking in on people who have the spark they do not.

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marilyn or Audrey? Who do you think?

When Audrey was cast, Truman Capote remarked:

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

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:

Playboy: "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."?

Capote: "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.."?

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!

[Nat K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve just spent the afternoon in the company of one Ms. Holiday Golightly, and I don’t know what to make of it. Holly has taken me on a whirlwind of a journey. Though our acquaintance was short, I feel I got to know her in a short amount of time. I am exhausted, puzzled and more than an eeny bit sad. It came left of centre, but the ending made me cry. I hope she made it to her happy place.

This is an absolute classic which had been sitting on one of my bookshelves for longer than I care to remember. The pages yellow spotted with age. A few months back I read Ian’s review (which I really enjoyed) and it made me wonder why I’d not read it yet.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

As I always say, timing is everything, and today was the right time. A gorgeous Autumn afternoon in Sydney. The sun slowly sinking in the sky and the afternoon getting cooler. The pages got less and less, and before I knew it, done. Tears streaming. I did not expect this.

”Suitcases and unpacked crates were the only furniture. The crates served as tables. One supported the mixings of a martini; another a lamp, a Libertyphone, Holly’s red cat and a bowl of yellow roses. Bookcases covering one wall, boasted a half shelf of literature, I warmed to the room at once. I liked its fly-by-night look.”

Of course I’ve seen the movie - umpteen times, it’s a favourite - and I’m always loathe to compare a written work to a film (though the movie is gorgeous). Yet I couldn’t help but have snippets of the movie playing on a reel in my head. But the writing... Now I understand. In exactly 100 pages, this snack sized novella conveys so much. The atmosphere of 1940s New York. A young girl inventing and re-inventing herself to find the family and love that she’d lost. Always searching for a place to call home. Breaking lots of hearts in the process, including her own.

And now I know the term for it, the mean reds, where you don’t know why, but you’re afraid. Brandy won’t help you. Nor aspirin or marijuana. The only thing that makes the angst settle is:

”What I’ve found does the most good is to just get into a taxi and go to Tiffany’s. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with their kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets.”

And what’s not to get all emotional about with a story having a No-name cat? Enough said.

”Mille tendresses.”

[Jonathan Ashleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started reading this book, because I haven't seen the movie, I thought Audrey Hepburn's name was Tiffany. Through college I saw so many posters with her face and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" somewhere on the image and that is what stuck in my head and I still have a tough time thinking anything different. When I found out the real reason the title is what it is, I was disappointed that this book was an early version of product placement, but even with all of that said - Breakfast at Tiffany's is a great book. I believe it is a take on the great American novel that focuses on feminine personality. I'll probably read it again, and I'm going to watch the movie as soon as possible.

[Jean-Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

My dear Holly,

Now, I don't want you to take it the wrong way when I say this, but I much prefer Sally Bowles. You two were cut practically from the same cloth, as they say. I know it sounds terrible, but she's the original, isn't she, having been published twenty years before you ever made your debut? It's true, she'll always be twenty years older than you, if that's any consolation. Please don't be offended.

Regards,

JL

P.S. Do you think your creator ever read Isherwood? Had he known Isherwood? No, it's not because they're both gay, but let me tell you now that you wouldn't be you and Sally wouldn't be Sally had they both not been gay. Just my humble opinion.

[Brian Yahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does one review something so good? Are there even words to do it? Here's my attempt:

Holly Golightly is an interesting enough character to fill ten libraries. She crept into my thoughts regularly for months after reading the book, and I still think about her quite often to this day, like a long-lost lover, but more fondly.

I've never quite enjoyed prose like this either. I mean, every single sentence I liked. There wasn't one in the whole book where I thought, "you know, this one's the bad one." It's no wonder that I didn't put the book down until I finished it.

Structurally, it's a masterpiece. The pacing is perfect.

It's one of those books that you read, and when you finish it, you're a little sad, because you know you found THAT book, and you know you'll probably never find a book you like this much again.

I want to say something bad about it, but I just can't think of anything.

[Duane Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holly Golightly, the heroine of Capote's 1958 novel, is one of the iconic characters in American literature. And Audrey Hepburn's portrayal in the movie three years later helped to assure Holly's immortality.

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

But it's Sunday, Mr. Bell. Clocks are slow on Sundays.
Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories ~~ Truman Capote



I first read Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories at the age of 12. It was the first adult novel I had read. I found it in a box of books my mom had packed away. I felt so mature reading Capote. I viewed him as an exotic in bland Wisconsin.

Imagine the shock to my 12 year old system. I was expecting Audrey Hepburn. Instead, I got an education.

There is something wistful for me in revisiting Capote's universe. It's a place I’ve been to before ~~ actually this reread brought me back to two different places ~~ Capote's Cafe Society and that universe the 12 year old me inhabited. Breakfast at Tiffany's reminds me of a time when parties happened at all hours, when people came and went, where the normal rules of life were thrown out the window and where intense relationships happen and then quickly disappear leaving that memory of whatever happened to …, knowing that that person irrevocably changed your own life, making it seem much darker, so much less, without them.



The real Holly ~~ or is it Marguerite Littman or Oona O'Neill or Gloria Vanderbilt or Suzy Parker or Marilyn Monroe or ... ~~ Truman Capote’s Holly is in fact much darker, a much more layered person then she's become in pop culture. When Holly and her brother are orphaned at a young age and she marries at 14 she runs away from this life and the person she is. She is a young, beautiful girl who reinvents herself as a highly sought after social escort who lives life as if each moment were a holiday. Holiday Golightly ~~ Traveling is what’s written on her business cards.

The story is told from the point of view of Fred ~~ Capote's alter ego ~~ a struggling young writer, who gets to know Holly when he moves into an apartment in an old brownstone in New York during the Second World War. He first meets her when she appears on his fire escape but long before that, he heard the music, the parties and the voices of an endless stream of middle-aged men who came and went from her flat.

Over the course of the year and half that he knows her, Fred ~~ a name that she gives him because he reminds her of her brother ~~ is pulled into the world of Holly Golightly, who entertains Hollywood directors, wealthy gentleman she dines with nightly and who dreams of marrying rich. Her solace is at Tiffany’s which offers an almost realized form of the life she longs for.



Holly's invented self is so large that the distance between it and reality is far enough that you fear that she’ll never find that center that everyone needs to understand where they belong. It could go on forever. Not knowing what’s yours until you’ve thrown it away. There are only a few moments in the book where the rawness and vulnerability of her true self is momentarily revealed and it breaks your heart in the same way as when you see a wounded animal.

I had wanted to revisit Breakfast at Tiffany's to see how my feelings about this book that means so much to me have stood the test of time. I remember Breakfast at Tiffany's as a light, breezy jaunt thru long gone New York. On this go around I found the story of Holly to be a darker look at the human experience and I quite liked my new take on a this beloved book.

Perhaps, Norman Mailer summed it up best. He called Capote the most perfect writer of my generation; I would not have changed two words in Breakfast at Tiffany's