Summer Book Reviews: Fab Fems
Sam Wasson’s Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.
“Holly was a high-class call girl, an American geisha. To her, a life without love was an occupational necessity. Try to cage her and she’d fly away…”
Oh Miss Holly Golightly! That opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s mesmerizes you: the way she gets out of the taxi so elegent even in a long tight gown, and how she gracefully balances her coffee as she takes out her danish and begins to eat. But did you know Audrey Hepburn hates danishes and beg to change it to ice cream? And that her dress was so tight she needed one for standing and one with a huge slit cut in it so she could walk? These are the sort of fascinating tidbits you’ll learn if you read this addictively entertaining book. It goes into depth about the long process of getting this movie off the ground, and discusses Capote’s inspiration for the book and the writing process (along with that fact that he despised the film). Personally I found the most interesting part in the book was about Mrs. Audrey Hepburn. I had no idea she had such a difficult time having children, or that she refused a role from Hitchcock because of a rape scene. Most importantly I didn’t know she originally turned down the role of Holly Golightly because she said she could not play a prostitute. But she did take the role, and transformed the once reviled Holly Golightly into a kooky girl who could take on the city and be SINGLE and fabulous but still learn to let love in. This book I would consider a must read for all those who love the film, it is so well written, insightful and funny you’ll breeze right through it and fall more and more in love with Mrs. Audrey Hepburn.
Summer Book Reviews: Fab Fems
Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s
“For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap and lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening in the cheeks.”
I know you’ve almost all seen the fabulous movie adaptation of this novella, but I’m betting not a terribly large number of people have read the book. I am here to encourage you to enter the seedy of world of the real Holly Golightly. Published in 1958, it was quite shocking to the public at the time. The story, as you may know, is about a Holly who is a prostitute and socialite living in Manhattan. This gal, unlike the other women I have been writing about weekly, is not really what I would call an inspiration. She is cuts herself emotionally off from everyone, makes rash decisions, treats people who loved her like dirt, does not take responsibility for anything, gets involved on the wrong side of the law and never realizes the good things she has in her life until she’s thrown them away. Not really what I would call a winner. But Holly is definitely a charmer, and she does posses some endearing qualities. She preaches wildly romantic notions that make you just want to throw away all the things you own and roam the world looking for adventure at every turn. However, whether you like Holly or not this novella is definitely worth the read, Mr. Capote’s writing does not disappoint.
