Breakfast at Tiffany's
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4.0 • 50 Ratings
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
Holly Golightly is an unbelievable young woman. Her way of life and manners are not always objective. She just follows her heart and not mind. She wants some things and tomorrow she will be interested in some other feelings or ideas. Holly wants to live in wealth and luxury. She manages to reach this goal. Despite of a quite young age she can charm almost everyone who spoke to her. Her behavior can be interpreted in different ways. Someone thinks Holly is a dishonest woman. One can say there is nothing wrong in her attitude towards men. Holly's nature doesn't let her stop and settle in a certain place. Her life is one big endless journey, which corresponds to the inscription on her mailbox: "Miss Holiday Golightly. Travels".
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Golden Globe winning actor Hall (Dexter, Six Feet Under) gives a warm reading of Capote's classic novella. The story is related by an unnamed narrator looking back at the autumn of 1943, when he lived in a brownstone on Manhattan's Upper East Side and befriended his neighbor Holly Golightly. The enigmatic and beguiling young woman is a free spirit with no discernible means of support other than the kindness of the wealthy men who take her to fancy restaurants, swanky parties, and offer the occasional gift. For the next year, the narrator finds himself entranced, intoxicated, and exhausted by Holly's lifestyle, only to have their companionship end when circumstances extract her from the city and his life. Hall brings just the right tone to his narration. His characterizations are simply but effectively portrayed. He narrates the story with an earnest wistfulness that fully embodies the innocent infatuation of youth, but at the same time manages to infuse it with a sweet touch of the nostalgic melancholy. It is a solid, heartfelt performance that never lapses into corny sentimentality and will stay with the listener well after the last chapter. A Vintage paperback.
Customer Reviews
Love this book
Read it so fast. Very interesting story
Not the original text: inferior simplified version
It should be made clear that this is a simplified and abridged version of the text with barely any sentences as Capote wrote them. It reads like a translation of a translation in that they convey the same ideas but without the style or panache of Capote’s word choice and imagery. An example is a description of Mag’s Wildwood when she enters the party at Holly’s apartment. In the original, Capote describes it like this:
“An occurrence at the door intervened. It was a young woman, and she entered like a wind-rush, a squall of scarves and jangling gold.”
In this version (page) this is rendered as the much balder:
“Suddenly the door opened and a young woman hurried in.”
If you don’t care about style, this version will convey the story to you, but you won’t get the pleasure of the language of how Capote told it. It’s a bit like eating food with no flavour. It took me a while to realise I was reading an inferior version (5 pages from the end) and I’m a bit annoyed it was sold as the original text. I am now rereading my old paper copy and it’s the difference between a Tiffany’s diamond necklace and a cheap plastic Primark imitation.