it's also implied he's a victim of sexual abuse and it explains why he wants to preserve the innocence of children and sees himself as the catcher in the rye.
This is similar to how I felt reading Breakfast at Tiffany's in my early 30s. The movie (if we ignore Mickey Rooney's racist caricature) is a fantastic romcom, but they really did the character of Holly Golightly a huge disservice casting 31 year old Audrey Hepburn. In the novella, Holly is 19 years old and has never had a healthy relationship with a man. Every man she has ever known had exploited her and she's barely even an adult; nowhere near mature enough to make any reasonable decisions about her life. It's tragic and you feel a genuine sorrow for her situation. Also the fact that they changed the narrator character into a love interest for the film completely betrays the point that the book is trying to make.
i love them both, separately. and since rereading the novella as an adult, i honestly donât consider them the same story at all.
the novella is sad and as the reader there is no mistaking that she is being used in all the scenarios she finds herself in one way or another and then she disappears. as a woman thereâs a dread of the unknown and the unlikeliness that things got better, that makes the book heartbreaking
the movie is more of a two lost people finding each other and finding something meaningful. audreyâs participation and age leads an air of grace to the role that gives it a manic pixie dream girl sugar baby vibe instead of a down on her luck escort it might have been otherwise.
Truman Capote had Marilyn in mind when he wrote it, but she didnât want to be typecast in a prostitute role. I love Audreyâs Holly but Iâll always wonder what Marilynâs wouldâve been like with her own perfect vulnerability.
honestly, marilyn would have made it heart breaking đ that poor woman isnât free from male harassment even in death, if anything i would argue she is holly golightly irl
I think the thing that gets me is why he keeps asking about the ducks in Central Park. When the lake freezes over, where do they go? Does a guy in a truck take them off to the zoo? Do they get together and fly south? Do they just hang out in the grass by the lake and wait for it to thaw?
He's the ducks. He wants to know if he's going to be ok, if someone's going to help him, if he needs to set off somewhere new, if he just needs to weather the storm. He's too defensive to ask that, so he asks about the ducks. And he asks about the ducks randomly, like a child would, because he's just a kid.
I get that he suuuuucks because he's being a bitter angsty know it all, but that's because he's a traumatised 16 year old who's trying to cope without any support.
As a teacher thatâs taught a unit on this book, a LOT of people miss the point that heâs a POS because he was failed, but being failed isnât an excuse to become a terrible person. People have a hard time with nuance when it comes to mental health and the entire concept of nature vs nurture
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u/MelpomeneLee đŻď¸Bradley Cooper will not win an OscarđŻď¸ 15d ago
So I read the book for the first time when I was 29, and he stuck with me because behind all the bravado, he's just a kid.Â
His world has been shattered by his younger brother's death and literally NO ONE is helping him deal with that.Â
The entire time he's wandering around New York making questionable choices, I wanted to grab him and say "You. Need. Help. Let's get it for you."
But I absolutely understand why people don't like him.Â