Book Review: As with most people, having first seen the movie, the novella of Breakfast at Tiffany's (and Three Stories) comes as a bucket of cold water to the face. Much grittier, more real world, rougher around the edges -- that's both the novella (111 pp.) and Holly Golightly herself. The book captures the theme of the story that the movie did not. Here Holly is a wild animal who must be free, she cannot be tied or caged or limited -- it terrifies her. She is a strong woman who makes her own way by her own means at her own costs. If I can use the cliche, she's a survivor. All of that comes, for her, with a certain measure of loneliness and depression ("the mean reds" in the book). Holly is mercurial, quirky, but always interesting, and along with the unrequited narrator, we fall in love with her. Holly's standards are not his (and perhaps not ours), but they are hers and she lives by them, clutching what bits of love and memory she can. Breakfast at Tiffany's is really just a description of a period when Holly and the narrator's lives overlapped, but that simple portrait is enough to create the iconic, archetypal character. Although the Hollywood version is sanitized, after reading the book I'm impressed at how much Audrey Hepburn managed to capture of Holly, and would love to have been able to see her actually portray the Holly in the book. Breakfast at Tiffany's is an excellent story. The book also contains three other stories: a tale of love in Haiti, the revelation of a prisoner who has a brief glimpse of the life he had given up on, and the touching Christmas story of a young child and his much older friend who likes to bake fruitcakes. All three stories are well written and worthwhile, but none had the effect of Breakfast at Tiffany's, they were just a generous additional helping of Truman Capote's excellent writing. [4 Stars]
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