Fish for Breakfast
Finding glimmers of hope in disappointment...
I started having fish and eggs for breakfast in the earlier half of 2024. Usually, it’s soft-boiled eggs and some kind of oily fish, like fresh sardines and mackerel or anchovies. Placed on top of seeded sourdough rye that’s been toasted, I add some rocket lettuce and drizzle the whole concoction in extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice and some cracked black pepper and flaky sea salt to finish. Being full of healthy vitamins like E, A and K, minerals like Magnesium, healthy fats and loads of Omega-3s this meal contributes to keeping my skin and my brain healthy. It’s such a protein rich breakfast that I can feel my body thanking me after I’ve taken the first bite. I don’t have it every day maybe once a week but it’s always fulfilling and now that it’s a firm part of my routine, I can’t believe I hadn’t done it sooner. I hadn’t had oily fish for breakfast until I read ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ by Truman Capote where kippers were featured as a breakfast choice for one of the characters. I can’t remember which character exactly because disappointingly, I didn’t take to the novella. Disappointing because I absolutely loved his first novel ‘In Cold Blood’ (1966). I devoured the 352-page book in a couple of weeks in January 2024 and I was so excited to read everything he had ever written after that unforgettable experience.
Unfortunately, the ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ didn’t live up to my expectations. The book is littered with racism, misogyny, easy-to-hate characters and a narrative that I just couldn’t get behind no matter how hard I tried. The only character that I truly cared for was the protagonist, Holly Golightly’s cat, who she describes as “a poor slob without a name” and violently rids of this poor creature towards the end of the book. This cat was only character I had any shred of true empathy for. I watched the film too just to see what all the fuss was about. To be expected I didn’t like it either, but I thought that perhaps I could forgive the plot for exceptional acting, chemistry, costumes and overall feel of the film. Unfortunately, I don’t think it delivered which is a shame because I part of me wanted to love it for it’s iconic status. The film famously stars the iconic Audrey Hepburn who plays Golightly. I was further disappointed. Apologies to all of you who enjoyed it but I couldn’t get over the white man playing an Asian character in the most offensive way possible.
On the other hand, ‘In Cold Blood’ was based on a true story, and maybe that’s why it was so successful. Unfortunately, Capote’s own imagination doesn’t live up to his skill as a ‘crafter of sentences’ so to speak. His first work was, in my opinion, his only great work and though he is in some ways an objectively good writer his ideas are less so. Sadly, his life following was drug fueled and as he became a victim of his own ego his final writings were about the secrets of his socialite friends—not the most interesting stories to be told, unless you love gossip. His first book is known as the first book written in the canon of true crime and that’s probably why I enjoyed it so much, for its authenticity. An interesting fact I found out after when I was researching about the book, was that Harper Lee, the author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and Capote were great friends since childhood. They both displayed their brilliance when they were still young, each skilled in the art of writing, they were a source of healthy competition for each other. She even accompanied him throughout a lot of his primary research for his first book, although they didn’t remain friends in later life. Rumours of Capote’s jealousy of her success lingers on the internet.
I don’t have exceptionally fast reading skills and unless I’m gripped by the story, I will sometimes tend to put a book down before it’s finished. I’m not one of those people who have to see it through. I’m more than happy to not my spend time on words (or anything for that matter) that I don’t like—I’ve been known to leave the cinema before the end and I’ve left numerous plays at the interval if they’re not doing it for me. However, I did finish ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ because I was hoping for a semblance of redemption. Nothing came and so I can confidently say, don’t believe the hype. There is one thing about this book that I am grateful for though, so I guess there is always a glimmer of hope in disappointment. And if not hope, at least something to be learned from things you don’t really like. I think I am better overall for having read the novella and not because of my newly formed strong opinions but because, thanks to this book I am now I’m having fish for breakfast.