Book Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I first saw the perfect Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's many many years ago and remember being confused how someone could ever appear so flawless. A reviewer on goodreads voiced my thoughts for me and I quote "How could you be so much in love with a person who died long before you were born?". My Audrey Hepburn admiration peaked after I watched her in The Roman Holiday and Funny face. Yesterday I finished Truman Capote's novella based on which her most iconic movie was made and my respect for the actor in her and for the movie continues to grow.
There is no doubt at all that the movie remains my favourite. While the book was set in the 1940s, the movie was carefully adapted for the 1960s - a very sensitive era in the history of US, with the civil rights movement in full momentum. The ending has also been altered to offer the closure that was absent in the book. I am going to wrap up the comparison now with a monologue from the movie, a beautiful, needed addition to the book. "You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself." - Paul Varjak (George Peppard, Breakfast at Tiffany's)


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