Over on the NY Times website, there's the "Big City Book Club" which this week focuses on Truman Capote's novel "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (BaT). The page can be accessed here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/big-city-book-club-breakfast-at-tiffanys/
Now, if one's familiarity with "Bat" is through the Blake Edward's movie (which I didn't particularly care for, especially Mickey Rooney's "Japanese" character), then one is likely to be somewhat surprised at how different Capote's novel is, especially the ending (similar to the difference in endings in Malamud's "The Natural" -- both "The Natural" and "Bat" have the classic Hollywood ending that is the antithesis of the novels). The novel "Bat" turns out to be part of a genre of post-WWII writing where questions about authenticity and phoniness were critical, that is, "phonies" submerged their "real character" or personality in order to fit in which meant that they had to become inauthentic to survive and succeed -- hypocrisy was a winning strategy, so to speak. Interest in this topic has been primarily in the area of literature, and is represented by the work of Abigail Cheever; see: http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/real_phonies/ The main character of "Bat", Holly Golightly, is unique given the time and place in which she appears, that is, she's a "real phoney". She has either buried or eliminated her original character or personality, that of Lulamae Barnes, to become "reinvented" as Holly. But that makes her different from other phonies because those people still hold onto their original character/personality and one can see the original character and the phoney characters co-exist even though it is a thorough hypocrisy (consider how some politicians act, often shamelessly when engaging in overt hypocrisy). Holly has given up on who she was and is now pure persona -- her phoniness is her real character. One wonders how many people today have taken this view to heart, that is, have become pure persona, real phonies, with no real character at all. And the irony, after all, with Capote as the author. I raise these issues because I remember that in psychology, back in the 1960s and 1970s, the human potential movement and humanistic psychology put great emphasis on "being authentic" and being true to oneself. It seems to me that much of this has disappeared or relegated to the fringes of psychology. Being authentic is not what it used to be. Perhaps something to talk about when one is doing the self-reference experiment. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=14533 or send a blank email to leave-14533-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
