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Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

I had always been told that the movie failed the book miserably, which is why I probably put off reading Truman Capote’s famous novella. I didn’t want to know how badly my beloved Audrey had been miscast, how little “Moon River” actually has to do with anything remotely related to the story, much less ponder the fact that dear Jed Clampitt actually had sex.

But all of those things and more are true. Because “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is beautiful, a perfectly paced longer short story that paints the portrait of more than just a lost waif of a girl. Through a character driven plot, Capote writes with a tone of restless discontent and bittersweet nostalgia. Fred, whose real name you never learn in the book, begins the story with the end. You don’t know where Holly has gone, only that she has. And Fred’s is not the only name that goes unknown. This is a New York where no one uses names, and if they do, they’re never real. Only peripheral players are given real names, and more often than not, they are caricatures rather than characters. Capote’s theme is clear. Continuous loss only leads to a continuous searching that never renders a finding. Just a growing dependence on the act of searching, until that alone is the only real thing.

The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas

D.M. Thomas’ The White Hotel attempts in a blend of genres and philosophies to create not so much a holocaust narrative, but to the render the experience of it palpable to every sense.

Thomas begins with Freud, in Vienna at the height of his practice in the early 1920’s. Freud, who is developed only slightly, serves more as an iconic foil than a real character in the novel, and it is in the reflected light of the great psychologists theories that we glimpse the true protagonist, a patient, a case, known as ‘Anna’.
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Psychobible by Andrei Favorrazi

This is a non-fiction treat. Dr. Favorrazi thorougly explores the religious texts–both apocrypha and canon–that inform our modern Bible, be it Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Protestant. He then examines several modern social issues that share roots in religious dogma and heresy. The tone is balanced, and the style while scholarly, is infinitely readable. Whether you regard the Bible as the divine Word of God, as interesting history/philosophy, or simply are aware that there is this book called the Bible, the sheer range of research will shed at times frightening light on this powerful book’s effects on all our lives.
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Generation of Vipers Philip Wylie

Read any good invectives lately? They never seem to have the punch they used to. I mean , today’s Jeremiads take themselves a bit too literally. The heavy handed doomsday speech of the religious right seems to be our main source for a good moral ass-whooping, and frankly, they’re so tied up in maintaining the prejudicial status quo against anyone who’s having a good time that you can’t read their shit without wanting to punch their lights out or wallow in a puddle of self abasement. The liberals are at least more accepting of sins of the flesh, but crimes against humanity or the environment? I suddenly regret every single unecessary square of toilet paper I used to wipe my bum, imagining the growing cess pool that could be my grandchild’s drinking water. No fun.

Perhaps the secret in enjoying a tongue lashing is distance. If you see too much of yourself in the subject, then you risk becoming a hypocrite, or worse, a convert. But time seems to temper this genre. Take Philip Wylie’s Generation of Vipers. (Yep, he’s quoting Christ there. But don’t worry–according to Wylie, Christ is one of the vipers.) This book was published in 1942, the first year the U.S. fought in WWII, so there’s your historical context. Wylie purportedly wrote Vipers in about seven weeks, and considered it a convulsive action, involuntary but not uninformed. Unlike some of our recent war time non-fiction entries in the New York Times Bestseller list, this book does not ooze with American self love. Wylie was not above kicking our nation in the spiritual nads when we were down.
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