Sajesh Kumar Kumar itibaren Parzha, Tverskaya oblast', रशिया, 171908
The world-building and plot complexity of this story were excellent. Unfortunately, it was pretty much spoiled from a readerly point of view by having the protagonist (the only character whose point of view we see) be a boring and self-centered girl who does her best to not notice what's going on around her and doesn't care about all the political turmoil and loss of life she causes, and mostly wanders around the castle moping about how her husband is away. The readers gets just enough sense of what is happening elsewhere to feel irritated with how we are stuck with Phaedra and her self-absorption. Phaedra and the plot action do improve nearer the end, but it was such a struggle to get past how uninteresting most of the book was that I can't recommend this as a worthwhile endeavor. Also, I saw most of the "twists" coming.
such a perfectly written short story by capote. and i am not a short story fan because i never feel like the story and characters get enough pages to become properly developed. not so with breakfast at tiffany's. the perfect length, the perfect characters with the perfect foils, truman capote rises again for me.