Holly Golightly on Equal Rights

Although I plan to pick The Shining back up in time for bedtime reading tonight, I took the day off from the world of Stephen King after I fetched a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's from the library. I've never read it, and the plans are for Missy and I to take Mom to Abby Singer's Bistro at the Robinson Film Center for Mother's Day brunch on Sunday. The meal is to be followed by an afternoon showing of the legendary film, which I have seen - never while sober. I wanted to read the well known book before I venture back to seeing the story on the big screen (as it was meant to be seen).

As so often happens with so many great American works, I now have mixed feelings toward the story. The film is one that I've loved since the first time I saw it, but after having read the novella, I have to say that the written work is far better. It's not that the movie changed very much (other than the fact that Audrey Hepburn's version of the heroine is a far cry from the vision I had in my head while reading today) - it did, however, leave out a HUGE amount of plot. The story's protagonist has a few hints of homosexuality, and Holly is basically a high priced hooker living off the kindness of men in swinging WWII New York. I don't recall Audrey Hepburn being arrested and leaving in the face of a major mafia scandal, nor do I remember the many colorful suitors that Golightly has in the novella. I'm eager to see what my thoughts are on these things on Sunday afternoon.

Something struck me from Truman Capote's prose, something for which I made a mental note to consider here in my blog. Even in the frigid, far-more-morally-driven landscape of 1958 (although the world that Truman Capote and his characters enjoyed was pretty much the antithesis of that of the Cleavers or the Nelsons), auguries toward ideas that are making international headlines today were present in Holly's tirade on marriage:  "If I were free to choose from everybody alive, just snap my fingers and say come here you, I wouldn't pick Jose. Nehru, he's nearer the mark. Wendell Wilkie. I'd settle fro Garbo any day. Why not? A person ought to be able to marry men or women or -listen, if you came to me and said you wanted to hitch up with Man o' War, I'd respect your feeling. No, I'm serious. Love should be allowed. I'm all for it." 

Thanks, Holly. I agree.

Now, back to the world of Stephen King in 2013.