Patricia Highsmith (she of The Talented Mr. Ripley, etc.)

[Mobbd]

I've become quite an admirer of Patricia Highsmith.

I've heard it said that she should be considered an 'Existentialist writer' alongside Dostoevsky but that it will never happen because she's seen by some as a bit too low-brow and of course because she's a woman. I've read and enjoyed the D-Man's Crime and Punishment and Sartre's Nausea and Camus' The Outsider and very much see what is meant by this but that's not quite why I like her.

She's so immensely readable but not in a trashy or silly way. She's not "merely" fun like, say, Agatha Christie and she's a much better, more serious writer (no shade on Aggie). She writes with a very masculine tone if such a thing can be said to exist, i.e. quite sparse and authoritative and with no pissing about with The English Grammar. It's all very tidy -- almost sturdy -- and well-crafted without being fussy or intricate and certainly not purple.

I like this style of writing very much (think George Orwell, William Golding) but other examples of it often contain too much toxic masculinity or simple uncaring nastiness in both the plot and use of language that genuinely puts me off/makes me feel a bit weird (think Ian Fleming, John Le Carre). The fact that Highsmith is a woman kinda gives us the perfect balance, it's almost a drag king act. She's not a male writer and doesn't intend to "pass" but in terms of "realness" she has something approaching that headmasterly William Golding voice and it feels just right.

Her books are also very, very stylish in a way that Ian Fleming wishes he were capable of. I don't know if it's because she's a woman but she gets details right. It's a very 20th-century Mad Men kind of stylishness -- all cigarettes and telephones -- but with a keen eye. It doesn't feel like she's using placeholders for stylishness to signal to the reader that a character is well-dressed without fussing over detail; she knows the details inside out and gives them to us without it feeling fussy. So it's a masculine tone, speaking from a vault of information that (maybe) only a 20th-century woman would accrue.

She's a Modernist writer, I think, but not in a challenging or experimental Virginia Woolf sort of way.

I enjoy the moral ambiguity of her books. In the Ripley ones, it's about one immoral man with whom we develop a vicarious but enjoyable relationship (a bit like watching Dexter) but in The Cry of the Owl, she creates a whole morally-off-kilter universe that you sort-of have to get over but you come out the other side feeling invigorated, somehow not creeped out by it.

I think she's brilliant. Over the past few years, I've read all 5 Ripley novels (3 of which are ace, two less so, but all have a very enjoyable sense of European luxury to them), Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt, and now I'm reading The Cry of the Owl.

Any other fans?

[Jerzy Bondov]

I've not read much of hers, but I really loved A Suspension of Mercy. A weird book with a really interesting protagonist, a crime writer who pretends to commit a murder for research and ends up incriminating himself. Things go out of control in a really enjoyable way. Oh and I've also read The Glass Cell, an addictive and scary look at the damage done by wrongful imprisonment. I need to read more. Massive anti-Semite of course.

[Ignatius_S]

Her diaries have recently been published - think they're out this month over here - although the more recent biographies have accessed these, so a lot is already out there.

Re: Ripley novels - the penultimate is okay-ish, the last one less so; both written out of the affinity with Tom and really, she should have left alone. Far better writing than the dreadful prose in the Dexter novels, which shamefully rips from Ripley.

[Artie Fufkin]

I purchased TTMR only yesterday, so looking forward to reading that.
She's a writer I've been meaning to read for sometime, now.
Have heard nothing but good things.
Don't disappoint me, Patty!

[Artie Fufkin]

Massive anti-Semite of course.

Oh. Really?
You've disappointed me, Patty!

[Mobbd]

Feeling bummed out about the antisemetism. Quite unambiguous too. Goddammit.

[Emotional Support Peacock]

I read The Talented Mr Ripley having enjoyed the film, and while I could appreciate the writing, I didn't enjoy being in Ripley's sick mind. If you know what I mean.

[Twonty Gostelow]

Feeling bummed out about the antisemetism. Quite unambiguous too. Goddammit.

She hated Catholics and black people too, in fairness.

I liked the first two or three Ripley books and some of the short stories when I was about 20. Compelling prose, and a definite feeling of her wanting to make the reader complicit in the nastiness, which I'm not sure I'd want now (but for some reason I was happy with then) - especially now I've learned how unpleasantly mad she was.

[Mobbd]

It's such a shame. Beyond the horrible fact of her bigotry, it's returned me to an old thought that anyone would need to be an utter bastard to be overground successful. Not necessarily a racist but I think the kind of hardnosed ruthlessness it takes to become a significant cultural concern in your own right naturally goes hand in hand with a lot of other unpleasantness. Ah well.

[Glebe]

Her name only registered with me when I watched Armchair Thriller serial 'A Dog's Ransom' on YT awhile ago, which is based on her novel of the same name. Then looking her up on Wiki discovered she'd written the original novel of Strangers of a Train... she sounds like an absolute nightmare of a human being.

[Twit 2]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/13/bed-hopping-martinis-and-self-loathing-inside-patricia-highsmiths-unpublished-diaries

[Bracing Skegness]

The Tremor of Forgery is a great book to read on a hot holiday.

[QDRPHNC]

Never read here. Where would be a good place to start?

[Mobbd]

Never read here. Where would be a good place to start?

I started with The Talented Mr Ripley, which worked for me. Strangers on a Train is more satisfyingly standalone though and I found it genuinely thrilling. I'd say start with that one but TTMR worked too. Let us know if you go for it!

[QDRPHNC]

Cheers!