The book on the nightstand: Breakfast at Tiffany

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of those classics I never meant to read.

The movie myth of Audrey Hepburn has always blurred my mind.
In fact, I believe that her iconic interpretation has precluded to many the knowing of the true Holly Golightly, because Truman Capote‘s Holly is another story.

Capote wouldn’t even wanted Hepburn for his main character. In fact he preferred Marylin, but even for the Monroe agent Holly’s character was “too much”.

Described by Capote as a young escort, Holly was too young but experienced.

I do not want to say that I do not care about becoming rich and famous. These are things I have planned, and someday I will try to reach them; but, if it happens, I want to take my ego with me. I still want to be me when I’ll wake up one fine morning and I’ll go to have breakfast at Tiffany’s.

She was too lonely to face her worries.

I realized that to feel better, I just need to take a taxi and go to Tiffany’s. It is something that calms me immediately, that silence and that superb air: nothing bad can happen there, not with those gentlemen dressed so well, with that nice smell of silver and crocodile wallets.

She was too libertine but was censored. Capote attributes to Holly a sexual ambiguity that in the film was ill-matched with the icon of style and elegance that Hepburn represented.

She was also too unstable, unable to establish lasting bonds because she was always in transit in the world.

I do not want to own anything until I have found a place where I and things will make a single whole. I still do not know exactly where it will be. But I know how it is.

Thought everyone wanted Holly and somehow even the narrator, Paul, who is about to tell her story.

This little book gives a great Capote.
I celebrate the writer, less the protagonist. I liked Holly at times (few) but what made the reading of the novel noteworthy is the author’s writing. Elegant, refined, flowing, Capote has succeeded where many fail.

He built a story not around a woman, Holly, but around a type of woman.
He told of a male figure, Paul, probably homosexual, desiring another kind of love between the two, not necessarily a happy ending, which does not make it any less strong or true.

I believe in the rose. I believe that laughing is the best way to burn calories. I believe in kisses, many kisses. I believe in becoming strong as everything seems to go wrong.

Audrey Hepburn used to say, and I think Truman Capote’s Holly would have thought so.

Reading time
A breakfast at Tiffany’s

Ph. Sara Cartelli
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