my books of the week are the following:
breakfast at tiffany's - truman capote
capote's novella takes place during one year in the life of holiday 'holly' golightly and an unnamed narrator. The two are both tenants in an manhattan apartment on the upper east side. holly golightly (age 19-20) is a Texas-born country hick turned New York café society girl, who makes her living coaxing dollars off of rich, older gentlemen. The narrator, who lives in the flat above her, is an aspiring writer. Golightly, who likes to stun people with carefully selected tidbits from her personal life or her outspoken viewpoint on various topics, slowly reveals herself to the narrator. In the end, however, Golightly fears that she will never know what is really hers until after she has thrown it away; she subsequently abandons her friend to seek her ever elusive goal of finding both riches and a place to call home.
'breakfast at tiffanys' was made into a film starring audrey hepburn, george peppard, and patricia neal, being most notable for the reference to tiffany's the jewellers, hepburn herself, and her signature style which was in most part down to the dresses exclusively designed for her by hubert de givenchy. in the film, hepburn portrays holly as a brunette, whilst capote seems to refer to holly in his novella as blonde, and throughout the book, holly seems to be portrayed as a lot more darker and with many more demons than in the feature film version, being fashionably thin and existing on a diet solely consisting of nothing more than cottage cheese.
anna friel and joseph cross currently star in the adaptation of breakfast at tiffany's at theatre royal haymarket [which hopefully i can get tickets to go and see before january :-)]
2. where the wild things are - maurice sendak
i have yet to read this book, but this children's book is one of the best loved children's stories of all time, and with good reason, especially if the outstanding trailer is anything to go by.
The book tells the story of Max, who one evening plays around his home, "making mischief" in a wolf costume. As punishment, his mother sends him to bed without supper. In his room, a mysterious, wild forest and sea grows out of his imagination, and Max sails to the land of the Wild Things. The Wild Things are fearsome-looking monsters, but Max conquers them "by staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once", and he is made "the King of all Wild Things", dancing with the monsters in a "wild rumpus". He soon finds himself lonely and homesick, and he returns home to his bedroom, where he finds his supper waiting for him, still hot.
spike jonze, the director of 'where the wild things are' also co-wrote the film with author dave eggers, whose new book 'the wild things' is based on 'where the wild things are'.
Seven-year-old Max likes to make noise, get dirty, ride his bike without a helmet and howl like a wolf. In any other era, he would be considered a boy. In 2007, he is considered willful and deranged. His home life is problematic. His parents are divorced; his father, immature and romantic, lives in the city. His mother has taken up with a younger man who steals quarters from the change bowl in the foyer. Driven by a series of pressures internal and external, Max leaves home, jumps in a boat and sails across the ocean to a strange island where giant beasts reign. The "Wild Things" is from Maurice Sendak's visionary classic. This is an all-ages adventure, full of wit and soul, that explores the chaos of youth while Max explores the chaos of the world around him.
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