The edition I read has Breakfast at Tiffany's and three short stories. I loved one of the short stories far more than I enjoyed the other three.Breakfast at Tiffany's has, at it's heart, Holly Golightly. She's a captivating character, bedazzling & bewitching all the men she comes across - but I'd strongly suspect I'd not like her at all and would wonder if many women did. I couldn't decide if she was hopelessly naieve, or actually coldblooded & heartless. She seems to live off the gifts and presents of the many men who buzz round her, but I wouldn't say she was a prostitute as such. Escort maybe nearer the truth. She has dealings with the Mafia, acting (potentially unknowingly) as a messenger service between a jailed underworld boss and his cohorts. For delivering a "weather report" each week she earns herself some easy money, but it also lands her in Police custody. Capote writes her in a very ambiguous way, such that you can't make up your mind how much of this seeming innocence is real and how much is just front. All of the men she comes into contact with are captivated by her, but not necessarily in a possessive manner, more the admiration of a beautiful object they can never posses. Of the other stories, the one that really caught me was the last one - A Christmas Memory. In the way that all the Christmasses of childhood are more sparkly, more magic, more snowy, somehow just more "Christmassy" this tells of a particular Christmas shared by a small boy and an old woman. They collect pecans from the tree, buy whiskey from the illegal cafe and ingredients for 31 Christmas cakes, before collecting a tree and decorating it with bits & bobs found, rescued and collected. In one sense, nothing much happenes, but it holds the reader in a magic spell conjured up be memories of Christmas past. This I'd give 5 stars, and a box of tissues, to.
