21. Truman Capote:

 

Breakfast at Tiffany's

written: 1958

(176 pages)

 

read in March 2014

verdict: **** LIKE

 

This book was probably the most surprisingly positive choice so far in our collection. A few years back we watched the biographical movie Capote, and we did not like the character of the author Truman Capote (1924-1984) at all. He seemed like an egocentric, idiosyncratic, weirdo socialite. Adding to this that he came from the south of the United States and was friends with fellow author Harper Lee, we inferred that his books must have an equally dreary southern Mockingbird vibe. All in all, nothing that would entice us to ever read any of his novels.

 

We could not have been wronger! Good thing that we overcame our prejudices and chose his collection of four short-stories for this round. What a revelation they were. Truman may have been a creep social-wise, but the man can write. It was the best prose we've read in a long time.

 

We decided to read Breakfast at Tiffany's mainly because it was short and would give us a quick insight into Truman's writing style and since the setting was New York, we hoped it would not be a "southern topic". The fact that, after finishing the story, we were more than eager to read the other three short stories in the book amply shows how much we liked it.

 

From the start though, we disliked Holly Golightly, who came across as an "insensitive mindless show-off", as the narrator himself so aptly put it in the novel. She is presented as a socialite, seductive, wild, constantly throwing parties for mainly male guests, which she hopes to exploit with her charms, while being mean to Meg Wildwood, the only woman who shows up at one of them. As her story evolves though, one learns that she is not only the mean white trash desperately trying to be interesting, but that she has a caring, sensitive side as well. In the end, even though she might never be our favourite character, we had a sort of sympathy for her, and along with the narrator, we were able to wish her well in her future life.

 

All along the text we were reminded of songs or books that we knew: for example the guitar playing, the cat and the mentioning of Mexico reminded us of Joshua Kadison's Jessie and Georgia Rain; the whole socialite topic and Holly's dropping of choice French words to sound more chic reminded us of Peter Sarstedt's classic oldie Where do you go to my lovely. All in all the jet set vibe is reminiscent of Fitzgerald's The great Gatsby, and also Holly has to learn that your socialite friends forget you quickly once you fall on hard times.

 

Holly explains the essence of the book very aptly with the sentence "If you let yourself love a wild thing, you'll end up looking at the sky". Actually, it would have been a fitting ending for the story, Holly flying off in a plane to Rio and the narrator looking up at the disappearing plane in the sky, but Capote chose to end it differently. But at the end of the compilation's final story, A Christmas Memory, the narrator does look up longingly at some flying kites in the sky, and since the four stories were meant by the author to be published together in this order, one can surmise that he wanted to come full circle with Holly's explanation in the end. After all, the old woman in the final story was, in her own way, a sort of wild thing as well.

 

Which brings us to the other three stories. None of them is really cheerful but all are so well-written and the characters so well presented that it was a real pleasure to read them. While the theme and characters of House of Flowers were a bit reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's writing in Anansi Boys, the Southern Counties' prison setting and guitar topic of A Diamond Guitar raised expectations of Johnny Cash showing up at any moment. And the afore-mentioned final story A Christmas Memory was an excellent ending to the compilation: the beautiful tender reminiscences of a young boy of his final Christmas with his elder relative and best friend. In the end we could not hold back the tears, which is a testimony to how gripping the story was.

 

We are not ashamed to admit that after the movie we had entirely and unrightfully misjudged Truman Capote and we are happy that we were able to get to know his beautiful writing nevertheless. It's a complete LIKE!