SPOILER ALERT! - To the guest reader, the following will reveal all sorts of plot details. If you wish to remain blissfully ignorant, leave now.
Pat - 8
I picked this because my daughter Corrie recommended and it's a piece of Americana. If we hadn't just read about a siege I was going to pick Ruby Ridge, but wanted something lighter. With a name like 'Golightly' how could I go wrong? I could have easily read 100 more pages. I'm sure Capote would have delivered the goods had we followed Doc Golightly's trip to NYC from Tulip. Is Holly really the sophisticated blithe spirit I think of when I see Audrey Hepburn, or just some naive alcoholic waif with a taste for sex? I enjoyed a look at New York and a quirky kid as seen from a nostalgic point of view complete with its politically incorrect cultural mores. Sorry Sandy. Stories exist in time and part of that is the pop culture of the day. Capote framed everything just so. He must have had a cool apartment. I enjoyed all the stories, but Christmas Memory stood out. It was so damn sweet, yet without a touch of treacle. How did he do that? I'd rate a 9 if I'd chosen the collection as a whole. I highly recommend Capote if your interest was piqued.
K'Lynn - 8
Had with her for a month or so and was immediately captured by it once she began. Found it provocative and ahead of its time. It gave her a bit of the same feel as Sex in the City. She loved the characters, the story and even the sentence structure stood out to her. All of this packed into just 87 pages. Loved the scene where the narrator was in the tub after the horse incident and Holly was sitting naked next to him. It was a perfect short story, she cared about all the characters. The movie was vanilla, but these ideas were salacious. This was a gem she wished she had read sooner.
Artie - 7.5
Liked Capote's style which he found gripping, he always wanted to find out what happened next. Capote could describe a scene and characters in just a few sentences and writes like we think. He thought Holly a little too intelligent to have come from Tulip, Texas. Her name was perfect, but she didn't really have a very attractive personality, she used people and cared only for herself with the exception of buying the narrator the bird cage. Artie described her as a wisp of smoke entering and exiting the scene. A captivating read.
Letitia - 7.25
Writing just isn't like this anymore. He had amazing, snappy powers of description and didn't waste a word. (Here, Letitia confessed to listening to the audiobook version and is now on probation.) Mentioned The Swans of 5th Ave a novel by Melanie Benjamin about the friendship of Capote with Babe Paley and other swanky socialites. They all loved him until years later he wrote an unflattering portrayal of them and their friends and they dumped him. She wondered if any of these women inspired the creating of Holly. Found Holly to be simultaneously business-like, a hick, a survivalist, a tease, a flatterer, naive, and yet calculating. Thought the abrupt ending was perfect. Sees Holly as someone ultimately unhappy and unable to trust anyone.
Becky - 7.25 - 6.75
Had tears at the end of Christmas Memory and wasn't aware that the pick was just Breakfast, hence the lower post-rating. Found it very short but got to know the characters quickly. She felt an underlying tension in all the stories. Liked Joe Bell's description of how he still could want female companionship in his older years. Found Holly to be somewhere between unkind and naive. Liked the relationship of Holly to her cat and how that framed her approach to people; she couldn't really commit to anyone. Found the African carving story fascinating.
Sabine - 7.5 - 6.5
Read in one sitting and preferred the other short stories to Breakfast. The writing flowed like thinking. She didn't care for Holly Golightly finding her all over the place. Holly liked too many men, but Sabine loved Holly's relationship with Fred and peanut butter. Sweet book. Liked having no chapters to break it up.
Miles - 7.5
The snappy writing immediately dispelled any images of Audrey Hepburn and he was pleasantly surprised at the raciness. Capote did such a good job with the characters they must have been based on people he knew. Everyone was believable. Miles liked the sexual ambiguity between the narrator and Holly. Heard New York once described as the loneliest city in the world and found a thread of this in all the stories which were based on unlikely connections. He savored the language and thought of some people that he has known similar to Holly. Tried to think in terms of the 1940's and '50s. Was she a good time girl, a whore, a prostitute? He liked her. She was the happiest person in the book. She set a recipe for herself and had no qualms about who she was.
Carolyn - 6.5
Doesn't know who to agree with. Was Holly the happiest person or the saddest? Carolyn thinks Holly tried to make herself a happy, bubbly person who everyone wants to hang out with. She hung around rich people in the hopes that it would become more. She was incapable of knowing what was hers until it was gone, even the love of her cat. She had a difficult past and was trying to find a life the opposite of it. She was a kind person. Capote was friends with Marilyn Monroe and Carolyn suspects Holly might have been based upon her.
Maggie - 7
Loved this quick easy read. The writing was brilliant. Holly was racy for her day. Hard to believe she was only 19. She tried all sorts of things to convince herself she was happy but the only time she really was, was while stealing Halloween masks with the narrator. Liked the line, "I know she's a phony, but she's a real phony. She actually believes the stuff." Doesn't believe Holly was as naive as we think. There's no way she didn't know that she was meeting Sally Tomato in prison for some nefarious purpose. She wasn't very focused, was shrewd and manipulative but Maggie still liked her. Holly wanted someone to provide for her. She was frightened if not everyone was charmed by her.
Sandy - 6
Holly's use of 'Bull-dykes and lesbians' dug her a deep hole in Sandy's mind. She found Holly OMG shut up! annoying, shrewd and manipulative. When Doc showed up she thought, "Okay, I have a reason to have some sympathy for her." Sandy can't stand women who use their beauty to get what they want. Holly ran away and saved herself. Sandy understood that it was good. She was never bored. It was a bit slapsticky and snappy. Sandy has a hard time with people calling Holly a slut. If she is, well so are the men sleeping with her.
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