And I said, what about...two times over

So, having recently watched Breakfast at Tiffany's, I decided I wanted to read the novella it was based on. One thing Andrew commented on while watching the movie is that, without Audrey Hepburn's performance, Holly Golightly would have been an awful person. I think this observervation is pretty right on, especially after reading the novella. She really does some not nice things, but Audrey Hepburn is so wonderful, so likable, that you can't help but like her. In fact, Nooree had a very good, and very correct observation as well, that the final scene is crucial to her character in the movie. Because, in the end, she ultimately goes back for the cat, and to George Pepard (HANNIBAL!!!! from the A-team), we feel a pathos for Holly. The entire time she's had her outside face on; she's been telling a lie to the audience. The lie in the persona of Holly Golighty. But in the end, she breaks down and you see the real, scared, lonely girl on the inside, whatever her real name is. In the novella, you get glimpses of this girl just like in the movie. you see her break down when her brother dies. You see Doc return and get a picture of where she comes from and why she is who she is. And indeed, after she shoos away Cat, she chases after him. But, importantly, she doesnt catch him, and she leaves the narrator. This is an important difference between Holly Golightly in the novella and in the film. In both, you feel some degree of sadness becuase you know that Holly is messed up and that there is a better person underneith her Holly Golightly persona she has created. But in the novella, unlike the book, she decideds, in the end, to keep up the persona, and even embrase it. It is who she is now. She even says at one point that you can train yourself to love older men. Well, she had trained herself to be who she is--a person who is nly interested in other people for her own gain. But in the movie you get the impression she actually does care for the George Peppard, and this is confirmed when she goes to him in teh end. you see her broken and confused. The rain is certainly a symbol of catharsis--it washes away the bullshit, self assured, shallow Holly outside and reveals the scared girl underneith.

Ultimately, I liked both the movie and the novella quite a bit. I probably prefer the movie, just because of Audrey Hepburn, but that's not to say that I didn't liek the book. Quite the opposite, I read it all, 110 pages, in one evening without stopping. quite good. worth checking out.

But, as always these days, it makes me think about my relationship girls. The Narrator (who I'll call Fred, since he's never given a proper name in teh novella) clearly cares more for Holly than she cares for him. And she probably cares more for him than she does for anyone but her brother. But what saddens me about that is that I realize how easy it is for us guys to fall for a girl who is not into us at all. And you love her even though you realize she has terrible flaws and that she'll never love you back. Why is that? In Holly's case, does it have to do with seeing underneath some thing to love. Or does it have to do with her undeniable sexuality? I don't know. For me, do I fall for girls who don't like me back because of a want of the unattainable, or perhaps its self-defeating because I'm scared of being too close to someone and getting hurt and I subconsciously don't want a relationships? Or is it that undeniable sexuality? Is it just, as Brain Wilson sang, the way the sunlight bounces off her hair? Something in the clothes she wears? Or is it just because she's nice to me? Who knows. This is just the babbeling of someone who should have gone to bed already.