Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories by Truman
Capote (June 19-22, 2004)
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a slice of remembrances of Holly Golightly by an unnamed narrator thinking back fifteen years. Holly is a young, vibrant character that is stunning and memorable. The motivations of the narrator, once her neighbor in New York City, for describing her and his time with her are easy to understand. Holly is multifaceted, much like her kaleidoscope eyes and hair color: generous, fanciful, manipulative, naive, joyful and full of sorrow. She's a prostitute, but does not believe herself to be. Most of all, Holly is lost and searching for the place she belongs. As she says, "...home is where you feel at home. I'm still looking."
The one place that cures Holly's "mean reds," or anxiety attacks, is a visit to Tiffany's and Co. The narrator goes from being an observer of Holly to her trusted friend. While Holly warns the men around her not to love wild things, nearly all of the male characters fall in love with her, including the narrator. She falls in love with a Brazilian man, named Jose, and is pregnant with his child. Holly plans to leave with him for Brazil and marry him. During her last days in New York all her plans fall through as Holly is arrested for her unwitting involvement in a mafia narcotics operation after saving the narrator's life in a horse-riding. Jose leaves her to avoid the scandal, but Holly decides to escape the charges by fleeing to Brazil anyway. The narrator is left with the hope that she has now found a place where she belongs.
"House of Flowers" is a short and sweet love story of Ottile and Royal set in Port-au-Prince. "A Diamond Guitar" is the story of Tico Feo's escape from a prison farm and his friend Mr. Schaeffer. The final tale, "A Christmas Story," is the memory of friends with a sixty year age difference and their Christmas plans. The pair ends up separated by life and this is their last Christmas together.
Much like Capote's The Grass Harp, the structure of the sentences are simple and clear in all of the stories contained in this book, and the prose has a rhythmic fluidity.
