breakfast at tiffany's

• izledikten sonra insanin sutu kadehte icmeye baslamisina yol acan film.
• tiffany'de kahvaltı ismiyle gösterildiğine şahit olduğum klasik film, audrey hepburn döneminin tikisidir hep de tiffanys'den bir mücevher sahibi olmak istemektedir, olaylar gelişir
• zamaninda hakkinda hayatimin en eglenceli ödevlerinden birini yaptigim, pek güzel, cok güzel truman capote kitabi.
  
  belki birilerinin isine yarar, ilgilenirler diye copy-pasteleyeyim dedim; su son final döneminde sözlügün ödev yaparken faydalarini gördüm, madem ben yararlaniyorum, baskalari da benden yararlanabilsinler dedim; buyrunuz:
  
  "1.) summary
  
  “holly was such a symbol of all these girls who
  come to new york and spin in the sun for a
  moment like may flies and then disappear.”
  truman capote
  
  breakfast at tiffany’s tells the story of holly golightly. it is set in the 1940ies and told by a never named narrator, a writer, that once knew holly when he lived above her in an old apartment building in new york city. in the time that they know each other they go from strange neighbours to the closest friends. the exposition of the story reveals, that it has been 15 years since the last time the narrator has seen holly.
  in those 15 years he says, “it has never occurred to me to write about holly golightly, and probably it would not now except for a conversation i had with joe bell that set the whole memory of her in motion again”. (joe bell is the owner of a bar, that the narrator and holly used to visit.)
  the beginning of the story is really the end: it is 15 years after the events that the narrator describes, have taken place. the narrator, now an accomplished writer, returns to joe bell’s bar and his thoughts are flooded with the bittersweet memories of holly golightly:
  their relationship begins in a quite unorthodox way; because holly has forgotten her keys when coming home at night, she decides to take shelter at “fred’s” flat (fred is a name she incidentally calls the narrator due to the physical resemblence of him to her older brother fred).
  they talk a lot that night, holly tells him among other things about her “relationship” to a mafia-boss called sally tomato, who is in prison. she is visiting him once a week (every thursday by the way), talks to him and after this chat she gives mr. o’ shaughnessy – sally’s “lawyer” a “weather report”. in reality it is a clever scheme that allows sally to operate his narcotics operations from behind bars, using holly as his courier. even though holly has no idea was she’s actually doing, she takes the hundred dollars that mr. o’ shuaghnessy gives her every week.
  another man in holly’s life is o.j. berman; he’s her “agent” and so he wants to make a movie star out of holly, but she doesn’t want to be a movie star: “i don’t mean i’d mind being rich and famous. that’s very much on my schedule, and someday i’ll try to get around to it; but if it happens, i’d like to have my ego tagging along. i want to be still me when i wake up one fine morning an have breakfast at tiffany’s.”
  o.j. berman desperately trys to fix some arrangements for holly, but e.g. on the day of a big screen test, o.j. gets a phone call from holly, she tells, that she’s in new york although she’s supposed to be in california. her explanation? “i’ve never been to new york.” o.j. berman “sincerely likes the kid”. kid – that’s how he calls holly. mr. berman is also the one who is going to be the helping hand for “the kid”, when she’s in difficulties at a later point of the story.
  the same day the narrator gets to know o.j. berman, he comes to contact with rusty trawler ( a “middle aged child that never shed it’s baby fat”). rusty (who’s a rich and ”pet-like” person without a character) and holly plan to get married – but later this plan will be foiled, because rusty marries a “friend” of holly, mag wilderwood, whom the narrator also meets that day. mag is a model and at that point has a relationship to a handsome brazilian named josé ybarra – jaegar.
  the friendship between the narrator and holly grows with every day, they talk about everything, but holly never tells about her life before new york. nevertheless the narrator learns about holly’s past – from her abandoned husband “doc golightly”, who travels the long way from tulip, texas to the “big apple” to find his “runaway wife”. years ago holly and her brother fred ran away from home after their parents had died and they were caught stealing eggs by one of doc’s children. holly’s name was lulamae barnes and she was only fourteen years old whe she and fred came to doc’s farm in a bad phyiscal condition. doc, whose first wife had died two years earlier, liked holly very much and asked her to marry him. holly’s answer? “of course we’ll be married. i’ve never been married before.” now doc golightly wants her to come with him, but holly of course doesn’t and persuades him to get back to texas; but although she once again “leaves” doc, they part in a friendly way.
  some time after doc golightly has left new york holly, her fiancée rusty, her “friend” mag wilderwood and mag’s boyfriend josé take a trip to key west.
  rusty and mag end up in the hospital and so holly and josé have time to become closer. that’s not as bad for mag and rusty as it may seem, because the both of them get married a short time after this incident and mag gets what she always wanted: a rich husband.
  the day that the papers write about the marriage between rusty and mag, the narrator visits holly in her flat. besides josé, there’s also a doctor trying to soothe holly, who is in a poor condition. josé doesn’t really care for holly, his only worry is, that she could cause a scandal. while the doctor is doing his job, josé and the narrator have a little talk: “i must have no public scandal. it’s too delicate: my name, my work. (…) when the sadness came, first she throws the drink she is drinking. the bottle. those books. a lamp. then i am scared. i hurry to bring a doctor.”
  what the narrator doesn’t understand is, why holly is so upset: ” “but why?” i wanted to know. “why should she have a fit over rusty? if i were her, i’d celebrate.” – “rusty?” i was still carrying my newspaper, and showed him the headline. – “oh, that.” he grinned rather scornfully. “they do us a grand favor, rusty and mag. we laugh over it: how they think they break our hearts when all the time we want them to run away. i assure you, we were laughing when the sadness came.” his eyes searched the litter on the floor; he picked up a ball of yellow paper. “this”, he said.
  it was a telegram from tulip, texas: received notice young fred killed in an action overseas stop your husband and children join in the sorrow of our mutual loss stop letter follows stop love doc. ”
  holly never mentions her brother again and stops calling the narrator “fred”. but instead of sinking in sorrow or getting depressed, holly seems more content and altogether happier after she once recovers. she gets pregnant and becomes a fine, little “hausfrau”. the following summer is a nice one and everything goes on in a quiet, tranquil way until the 30th of september, the narrators birthday. holly and “fred” spend the day together. holly tells fred that she’s going to marry josé and that they bought some tickets to rio. the day is nice, but that evening there are fotographs of holly frontpaged by some papers. the headlines say: playgirl arrested in narcotics scandal (journal – american), arrested of dope – smuggling actress (daily news), drug ringexposed, glamour girl held (daily mirror).
  holly is arrested and looses her baby in a scuffle with the police. unfortunately, that is not the only thing holly looses that day. while she is recovering in the hospital, the narrator goes to holly’s apartement and discovers a cousin of josé packing his things. josé himself, whose entire life was more dedicated to his public career than to a wife and a family, has fled to brazil saying in a letter to holly: “but conceive of my despair upon discovering in such brutal and public style how very different you are from the manner of woman a man of my faith and career could hope to make his wife.”
  to the narrator’s surprise holly decides to go to brazil after all this happens. “it’s the only way,” she says, “why should i waste a perfectly fine ticket? already paid for? besides, i’ve never been to brazil.”
  o.j. berman is the one, who provides the bond money for holly’s bail and she asks the narrator to bring her her things, along with a list of the fifty richest man in brazil, to joe bell’s bar so she can leave immedeately for the airport. the narrator accompanies holly on her road to the airport and halfway there, holly tells the driver to stop along a street in spanish harlem. she gets out of the car, cradling her unnamed cat in her arms. she drops the cat onto the street saying “this ought to be the right place for a tough guy like you. garbage cans. rats galore. plenty of cat-bums to gang around with. so scram. i said beat it!”
  she then jumps back in the car and tells the driver to go. the narrator is shoked at holly’s treatment of her cat, an obvious reaction of josé’s treatment of her. but at the next stop, holly opens the door and runs back for the cat, but naturally she can’t find it. “oh, jesus god”, she says, “we did belong to each other.”
  the narrator makes holly a promise that he will come back and find her cat and take care of him. holly accepts and then gets back into the car on her way to the airport. we get a sense that holly has come to some kind of “greater realization” of what she wants when she says: “i’m very scared, buster. yes, at last. because it could go on forever. not knowing what’s yours until you’ve thrown it away.” if holly ever did find a home, the narrator never learns. but when he finds her cat one day, in a cozy apartement window, he is sure that it has a name and if it can find a home, perhaps holly can as well.
  when the narrator decides - 15 years after this whole story has taken place - to write it down, holly golightly is seen in the jungle in central africa – still traveling and searching her “tiffany’s”.
  
  2.) interpretation
  
  “holly is done in wonderful brush strokes…”
  stanley hyman
  
  “breakfast at tiffany’s” is not a monumental “tome” or one of the most important books in history; there’s no “real” message behind it and it’s not a classic, but still it’s quite inspiring and lovely in its romantic way.
  
  the people love the book because of the charming character of holly golightly and although there’s the argument that nothing is happening in “breakfast at tiffany’s”, there’s a flood of beautiful details, which one can analyse and talk about for hours.
  
  holly
  
  the name “holiday” is just a pseudonym that holly gave herself after coming to n.y., “golightly” is the surname of her “husband” doc golightly. holly’s original name is – by the way – lulamae barnes.
  
  now, that she is in new york the card on her mailbox is telling: “miss holiday golightly, traveling” – this completely typifies her character and it’s the first and a lasting impression that the narrator gets from holly, even before they have met.
  capote first wanted to give his character the name “connie gustafson”, but he then decided to change it to a more symbolic one: the name of holly is really her personality; she makes a holiday out of her life, just doing things she wants to do and she steps through this life “lightly” and “carefree”:
  she disturbs her neighbours in the middle of the night – as if it was the most natural thing in the world, just because she has forgotten or lost her keys once again, she pinchs mag’s boyfriend without having any pangs of conscience, she poses as the niece of a gangsterboss and so plays an important role in his drugbusiness, but still she’s so naïve to believe that she’s not guilty at all.
  
  the fact that holly chooses the name “holiday” only just when she arrives in new york is another nice detail, because that’s the first time in her life that she’s really free to do what she wants.
  
  the “traveling” in the card also characterises her, for holly is a traveler, searching for a place to call home. “…home is where you feel at home. i’m still looking.”
  this statement is representing one of the big topics in the book; almost everything holly says and does illustrates her inability to accept to settle down somewhere:
  she first runs away from home, then from her “husband”, and she even leaves her beloved new york (“i love new york, even though it isn’t mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something anyway that belongs to me because i belong to it.”) to go to brazil. at the end she is sighted in africa, still traveling.
  
  when the narrator first has the opportunity to see the woman he only knows by the name on her mailbox, he is somehow astounded; “i went out into the hall and leaned over the banister, just enough to see without being seen. (…), and the ragbag colors of her boy’s hair, tawny streaks, strands of albino – blond and yellow, caught in the hall light. it was a warm evening, nearly summer, and she wore a slim cool black dress, black sandals, a pearl choker. 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. her mouth was large, her nose upturned. a pair of dark glasses blotted out her eyes. it was a face beyond childhood, yet this side of belonging to a woman. i thought her anywhere between sixteen and thirty; as it turned out, she was shy two months of her nineteenth birthday.”
  
  holly is not only a physical paradox of a girl and a woman, but so is her personality. on the one hand she flies through life like a butterfly, she’s very spontaneous, she flees the country to go to rio with the explanation: “…besides, i’ve never been to brazil.”; on the other hand holly makes her living with the donation of some “gentlemen”, who all hope for a night with her, but in most cases holly dissapoints them; but still you can’t say that holly is just one of the “tart girls” of that period; that would be a too easy and short “definition” of her. the thruth is, that you can’t describe holly. you can tell about the things she’s doing and she’s saying, but it’s hard to say “holly is like this” or “holly is like that”. on the one hand she needs absolute liberty and independence, on the other hand she’s longing for protection and security. she’s holiday golightly and the 14 – year old lulamae barnes at the same time: “even though i kept telling him: but, doc, i’m not fourteen any more, and i’m not lulamae. but the terrrible part is (and i realized it while we were standing there) i am. i’m still stealing turkey eggs and running through a brier patch.”
  
  although holly has her own “rules”, she’s a fair person. she not only demands liberty for herself, it’s natural for her to give the others their freedom. for example her cat, which is nameless: “(…) we don’t belong to each other: he’s an independent, and so am i. i don’t want to own anything until i know i’ve the place where me and things belong together.” but the last part of the statement shows holly’s longing for a place, at which she could feel secure without giving away her liberty. “if i could find a real – life place that made me feel like tiffany’s, then i’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name.” twelfe years after leaving new york holly is seen in the jungle of central africa and obviously she’s still searching for her “tiffany’s”.
  
  as i just mentioned, holly is a fair person, but she’s not following conventionel ways of behaviour, she wants to be “good and honest” – not “lawtype honest” but “unto – thyself honest”. it’s important for her how a person behaves and not if he/she is following the laws. with this “moral” she naturally can’t survive in the ordinary society; she’s fighting against the superficial demands and standarts of o.j. berman, rusty trawler, josé and others. the materialistic society can’t “support” holly in her searching, so holly stays restless, without an objective and “on the road”. she just can’t find her place in life, because she’s not a usual person.
  
  3.) the mean reds and tiffany & co
  
  tiffany’s, the jewelry store which the novel is named after, plays an important role in the life of holly golightly. it is the only thing that can cure her of the “mean reds”, a state of anxiety that is worse than just fear. the narrator first “likens holly’s nicknamed depression with the blues”, but holly assures him that they are not the same thing. “no, the blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long. you’re sad, that’s all. but the mean reds are horrible. you’re afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don’t know what you’re afraid of. except something bad is going to happen, only you don’t know what it is.” the narrator, who is always insightful, calls it “angst” and says that everyone feels that way sometimes. holly asks the narrator what he uses as a cure. he says that a drink usually helps him, but holly refuses the use of drugs to cure her of her mean reds. “what i’ve found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to tiffany’s.”, holly says. her sweet innocence and search for a home are revealed in this scene which shows holly’s naiveté about the world. “it calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets.”
  
  holly’s goal in life is to find a real place that gives her the same feeling as tiffany’s, a place where she can belong. holly mentions that she dreams of settling down, perhaps in mexico, with her older brother fred. (her brother fred is very important to her, one of the few persons she truly cares for.)
  on the first night that holly comes to visit the narrator in his apartment she ends up sleeping beside him, showing that she needs someone who is comforting instead of “lusting” after her. holly falls asleep, but the narrator lies awake, watching her. when the sun begins to rise holly grips the narrator’s arm: “poor fred,” she says in her sleep, “where are you, fred? because it’s cold. there’s snow in the wind.”
  holly needs someone who cares and who loves her – that’s what she’s truly searching for, and that’s an important point i think, because although holly is a very special and different person, that’s something that joins her together with almost every young girl at her age.
  
  4.) never love a wild thing
  
  when doc golightly comes to new york to take holly back “home”, he shows in a way, that he doesn’t know her at all; holly would never ever go back, she just can’t because it would be a total contradiction to everything she believes in. holly doesn’t have a home, she is always “traveling”. talking to joe bell in his bar, her comment on the situation (after she forced doc to go back to texas alone) is: “never love a wild, mr. bell.” (…) “that was doc’s mistake. he was always lugging home wild things. a hawk with a hurt wing. one time it was a full grown bobcat with a broken leg. but you can’t give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. until they’re strong enough to run into the woods. or fly into a tree. then the sky. that’s how you’ll end up, mr. bell. if you end let yourself love a wild thing. you’ll just end up looking at the sky.” joe bell responds with the cynical remark: “she’s drunk”, but we all know that what holly says is true. everyone knows, but the narrator still loves holly, although it’s just “platonic”. “…was my outrage a little the result of being in love with holly myself? a little. for i was in love with her. just as i’d once been in love with my mother’s elderly colored cook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family named mckendrick. that category of love generates jealousy, too.”
  but to come back to the main topic of this chapter: there were many men, who loved holly, but there’s always been a point, at which they all couldn’t handle her further. her character that they adore holly for is always the reason which “splits” their relationship, because nobody can tame a “wild thing”.
  but although holly definitely is a “wild thing”, she’s quite emotional and able to love. she also explains – fitting perfectly to her personality – that it would be ok for her to be a lesbian; she says that she is “partly” one: “of course people (…) think i must be a bit of a dyke myself. and of course i am. everyone is: a bit. so what? that never discouraged a man yet, in fact it seems to goad them on.” but it’s not a woman with whom she finally really falls in love. it’s josé ybarra – jaegar, a man who’s able to change holly from a glorious girl to a fine woman and “hausfrau”. she calls him her first “non – rat romance” and hopes for an ideal tiffany – like life with him. but again the relationship is destroyed because of holly’s “wildness”.
  
  5.) the relevance
  
  “breakfast at tiffany’s” was an important step on capote’s way to the non – fiction novel, which achieved its peak / height in “in cold blood”. everything described in “breakfast at tiffany’s” is real; every little detail is taken from new york after the war years, the streets, the hotels, the clubs and the restaurants. in this world holly (whose character is also based on a real – life person: a young german immigrant, who had fleed the country during the war and had a similar life as holly and then last was seen in an african jungle village) portrays the restlessness and the unsecurity of a person living in new york. “holly was such a symbol of all these girls who come to new york and spin in the sun for a moment like may flies and then disappear.”
  
  the narrator is also based on a real person – capote himself: the narrator has birthday on the same day as capote, he’s at the same age; like capote he gets his first real job in new york and he’s searching for acceptance as a writer and for nice relationships. he doesn’t get respect for his work from holly, because: “… you’re on the wrong track. negroes and children: who cares? (…) description. it doesn’t mean anything.”, but holly and the narrator are united in a deep friendship, which one can name as “love”.
  in the time of their two – years relationship the narrator is the only secure for holly; he doesn’t have any “personal interests” in her (like a lover would have), he doesn’t take away her independence or freedom. in fact, he can offer her protection and security, he can almost take the place of her beloved brother fred.
  
  “breakfast at tiffany’s” is not the story of the failure of an eccentric person, it’s a depiction of the search for self – realization and social contact in a superficial and hostile world, which is maybe the main topic of capote’s work and life."
• izlerken her duyduğumda tüylerimi diken diken yapan moon river şarkısıyla oscarı götürmüş filmdir ayrıca.
• filmini izledim ama kitabını arıyorum arıyorum bulamıyorum diyenler için;
  mart 2006'da sel yayıncılık tarafından basılıp satışa sunulmuş ve doğal afetten hallice çevirisi ile; kitabı yıllar boyu ingilizce, türkçe farketmez diyerek aramış, beklemiş hevesli okurları, sevinsem mi üzülsem mi ikileminin içinde helak etmiş bir kitaptır.
  bakınız çeviriden küçük bir kuple, takdiri okuyucuya aittir;
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  holly golightly: you know those days when you get the mean reds?
  paul varjak: the mean reds, you mean like the blues?
  holly golightly: no. the blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. the mean reds are horrible. suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. do you ever get that feeling?
  
  gibi bir yer şu biçimde çevirilmiş:
  
  holly golightly: kötü kırmızılığa yakalandığın günleri hatırlıyorsun değil mi?
  paul varjak: keder mavileri gibi mi?
  holly golightly: hayır keder mavilerine şişmanlamaya başladığın zaman ya da çok uzun bir süre yağmur yağdığı zaman yakalanırsın. yalnızca kederlenirsin o kadar. fakat kötü kırmızılığa yakalanmak korkunçtur. (...)
  
  kötü kırmızılık(!) nedir? keder mavileri(!) ne demek!!? ben içinden çıkamadım, umarım bir gün sayın çevirmen bu konuda bizleri aydınlatır.
• audrey hepburn'un en guzel gozuktugu filmlerinden biridir, ancak bana gore en iyi filmlerinden biri degildir. soundtracki de artik klasik olmustur.
• belki de iflah olmaz bir kedisever olmamdan dolayıdır bilmiyorum, ama holly'nin zavallı kediciği taksiden attığı sahne hep içimi acıtır. kitabından bağımsız olarak muhteşem bir filmdir.
• "bir edebi eserde diyalog nasıl kullanılır, normal anlatımla sayfalarca sürecek bir konu tek bir diyalogla nasıl da kotarılır?" sorularının cevabını veren, ama bu arada bir kitaptan alabileceğiniz tüm okuma zevklerini de cömertçe dağıtan etkileyici capote eseri. bir edebi eseri bir senaryoyla yaklaştıran ve uzaklaştıran, o çok güzel yalın dengede yürüten şeylerin de farkına varırsınız. çok önceden yazılmış, ama tam da bugün yazılması gerektiği gibi.
• bittiğinde insanın içinde "işte edebiyat bu" olarak adlandırılabilecek bir tortu, bir düğüm bırakan kitap. her nedense holly golightly'nin kedisiyle olan ilişkisi en çok dikkatimi çekti; kaderlerinin kesiştiği yer mesela ya da kahramanımızın kediyle ilgili verdiği söz. dillere pelesenk olmuş hüzün sözcüğünü hiç kullanmadan ve hatta hiç doğrudan doğruya bulaşmadan hüzünlü bir hikaye anlatmış truman capote.
• evden binlerce kilometre uzakta, boktan bir fast food restoraninda yemek yerken duyuldugunda bile insani evindeymis gibi hissettiren, gulumsettiren sarki. ^*
  
  (bkz: ben bugun bunu gordum)
  
  kisisel edit: cok daha ozel anlamlar da tasir bazen. ` :and well thats something we got`