Breakfast at Tiffany's
(Penguin Twentieth Century Classics S.)
(306)
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14 Reviews
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míol mór is down for maintenance right now. said on Oct 9, 2011 | 7 feedbacks
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1 person find this helpful
Mr Capote, darling, che spettacolo.
Va bene Audrey.
Ma il romanzo è di un'altra dimensione.'Poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each ot ... (continue)
Rosalie said on Oct 13, 2011 | 3 feedbacks
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1 person find this helpful
Holly Golightly in a slightly different way
I bought this book because of the movie, but the differences are significant. This book uses a first-person PoV to paint a portrait of Holly Golightly, and that's it. No particularly happy ending or really a very gripping story line or anything like that, just a portrait of a very complex character. ... (continue)
Hans said on Nov 13, 2007 | Add your feedback
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Novella
I read this novella in one day, being a story of only 100 pages. It is the original story that the movie of the same name was based on, although the novella is based in the 1940s, whereas the movie is set in the contemporary early-1960s. The plot follows the eccentric and wacky Holly Golightly as se ... (continue)
Jemma said on Mar 28, 2012 | Add your feedback
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Un uomo non è un uomo se non ha un gatto
"'But what about me?' she said, whispered, and shivered again. 'I'm very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on for ever. Not knowing what's yours until you've thrown it away. The mean reads, they're nothing. The fat woman, she nothing. This though: my mouth's so dry, if my life depend ... (continue)
Dominic M. said on Mar 17, 2012 | Add your feedback
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Vicky said on Nov 1, 2011 about the Mass Market Paperback edition | Add your feedback
Book Details
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Rating:
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- English Books
- Paperback 160 Pages
- ISBN-10: 0140187022
- ISBN-13: 9780140187021
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
- Pub date: Aug 26, 1993
- Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Hardcover, Audio Cassette and Others
- In other languages: other languages
Groups with this in collection
Prices Change currency & sellers
| ISBN | Edition | List | Sale | Seller |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9780140187021 | Paperback | $11.25 | -- | The Book Depository |
| Other editions → | ||||
| + 1 copy tradable: → | ||||
Jemma 
9 people find this helpful
Glitter and gloom.
Random notes I took shortly after reading the book.
The Impossible Cool.
http://bit.ly/bpeoSH Truman Capote
http://bit.ly/qnAtHQ Audrey Hepburn, beyond adjectives
Structure
Capote has the best ear for dialogue since maybe Oscar Wilde, and a talent for the off-hand aphorism to matc ... (continue)
Random notes I took shortly after reading the book.
The Impossible Cool.
http://bit.ly/bpeoSH Truman Capote
http://bit.ly/qnAtHQ Audrey Hepburn, beyond adjectives
Structure
Capote has the best ear for dialogue since maybe Oscar Wilde, and a talent for the off-hand aphorism to match Andy Warhol’s. And please note the cleverness in picking my points of reference. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a novella (just short of the hundred-page mark) taken up largely by dialogue, in size and structure looking almost as a play―and it’s no wonder that it should be made into a film. Some of the plot’s best ideas would, and as far as I can remember did, sound as effective in screenwriting.
What at first looks like a superficial story about NY upper-class café society is in fact very worldly, including references to Texas farmers, Hollywood starlets and traffickers, Brazilian diplomats, German-speaking psychiatrists, Italo-American mobsters from Sicily and another century…
Autobiography
How much of the plot is autobigraphical, to some extent or other? Not just the character of Rusty Trawler http://bit.ly/uWouny but the whole Southern dimension of the story; plus the biographical elements of Lulamae/Holly, born and raised in the South and then transplanted in NY as a socialite. And then, how much did Capote wish to have the same irresistible effect on men as Holly’s? How much of Capote is there in the narrator? Who has no name throughout the story; except the multiple borrowed names Holly lends him―which collectively amount to nothing.
Gatsby and Golightly
If I hadn’t read Breakfast at Tiffany’s right after The Great Gatsby, perhaps I wouldn’t be writing the following words. But I did and I will.
Both stories are told in the first person by a narrator who looks up to and admires the protagonist, to the point of constructing him/her as better characters than they really are; the narrator in turn presents himself as the anti-protagonist. Jay Gatsby and Holly Golightly are both very successful NY upper-class socialites, are in fact possibly the most talked-upon figures in their orbits, and both hide a childhood and youth lived in extremely poor environments.
The respective historical periods (the Twenties and World War II) are very much present, if only as background to the endless stream of parties. Both stories are portraits of the society of their time, and of America at large, as well as commentaries on the American Dream; but while Gatsby’s social climb is doomed, Golightly always manages to stay afloat (she’s “top banana” not only “in the shock department”) even if by eloping with men that she openly, and repeatedly, defines as “rats”.
The Great Gatsby is tragedy; Breakfast at Tiffany’s is comedy.
There’s in both cases a particular focus on the season(s).
The other short stories
In this edition, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is published with three more short stories. The overall feeling is akin to that of certain music albums whose first side is taken up entirely by a single piece, while the second side offers some compositions as side dishes. These do not add anything to the final value of the product, if anything they fall short of the main piece in terms of scope, beauty, quality; yet they’ll entertain you for several minutes. One cannot help but feel they’re there only to fill up space (either pages or vinyl). Think of Alice’s Restaurant: in that case the main song gives the title to the whole collection, too.
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