[HN Gopher] Patricia Highsmith: Diaries and Notebooks
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Patricia Highsmith: Diaries and Notebooks
Author : fnubbly
Score : 26 points
Date : 2022-02-13 17:24 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.prospectmagazine.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.prospectmagazine.co.uk)
| slibhb wrote:
| I quite like Highsmith's novels. Wikipedia quotes someone as
| describing her as a "lesbian with a misogynist streak" which
| seems about right. I think that conflict comes through in the
| article: she was attracted to women but didn't like them and felt
| exactly the opposite toward men.
|
| She was supposedly very funny and offbeat. I love this passage
| (also from wikipedia):
|
| > Highsmith bred about three hundred snails in her garden at home
| in Suffolk, England. Highsmith once attended a London cocktail
| party with a "gigantic handbag" that "contained a head of lettuce
| and a hundred snails" which she said were her "companions for the
| evening."
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| I was quite obsessed with the five novels featuring Tom Ripley
| when I was in my twenties; before the Matt Damon movie
| happened. They are really good thriller novels and they kind of
| suck you in with the way she plays with notions of good and
| evil by making you root for what is basically a sociopath
| murderer. Characterizing her as some kind of gay icon detracts
| from the fact that these books weren't really about that.
| There's hardly any kind of sex or intimacy in them at all.
|
| If anything, they might leave you wondering whether she was
| more trans than lesbian. Most of her protagonists are male and
| heterosexual (except for one of her last novels portraying a
| gay protagonist with aids). Women are portrayed like
| accessories rather than developed characters. I don't think she
| actually did any female protagonists at all. Tom Ripley's
| relationship with his spouse is definitely very cold (he has
| one from the second novel onwards) and weirdly a-sexual (e.g.
| they have separate bed rooms even).
|
| There have been several movies based on the Tom Ripley novels
| that definitely portray him either as practically gay or at
| least very confused on that front. The Matt Damon one by
| Anthony Minghella is probably the most famous but arguably also
| the worst interpretation since it is all about guilt. There was
| one featuring John Malkovic loosely based on Ripley's Game that
| captured the cold psychopath a bit better and another one by
| Wim Wenders featuring Dennis Hoppers based on the same novel
| that had a very different spin on that. And there are a couple
| more obscure ones. Mostly those movies miss the main point of
| the character: he's egocentric, manipulative and ultimately
| sleeps like a baby without any guilt whatsoever once he's done
| murdering whoever stops him from that. All the tension in the
| books is about avoiding getting caught, which usually leads to
| additional victims. Not very compatible with the average
| Hollywood movie of course but it makes for an interesting anti
| hero.
| computerlab wrote:
| > I don't think she actually did any female protagonists at
| all.
|
| Of course there's Therese, the well-developed protagonist of
| The Price of Salt (aka Carol), a lesbian romance. This work
| and its movie adaptation are the reason she's a gay icon -
| both are popular and well-loved.
|
| Highsmith published The Price of Salt under a pseudonym after
| her success with "Strangers on a Train", which is driven by
| the masculine characters you mention. From what I can tell,
| The Price of Salt is more directly based on her personal
| life, or rather her fantasies, and part of the reason she
| used a pseudonym is that her agent warned her that writing a
| lesbian novel would be career suicide. Wikipedia has more
| here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Price_of_Salt
| "Highsmith described the character of Therese as having come
| "from my own bones"."
| gabythenerd wrote:
| I find the fact that it got popular because of it being one
| of the only lesbian novels with a somewhat happy ending
| really interesting. From Wikipedia:
|
| > Because of the happy (or at least, non-tragic) ending
| which defied the lesbian pulp formula, and because of the
| unconventional characters who defied stereotypes about
| female homosexuals, The Price of Salt was popular among
| lesbians in the 1950s and continued to be with later
| generations. It was regarded for many years as the only
| lesbian novel with a happy ending.
|
| Before reading the article I actually only knew Patricia
| Highsmith from The Price of Salt as it's really popular,
| even more so after the movie adaptation.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Interesting, never realized that book even existed.
| slibhb wrote:
| I like the Ripley novels too and I agree with you that
| reading her as a "gay icon" is detrimental. I was commenting
| on her personality and eccentricities and I would avoid
| reading those into her books.
|
| > Mostly those movies miss the main point of the character:
| he's egocentric, manipulative and ultimately sleeps like a
| baby without any guilt whatsoever once he's done murdering
| whoever stops him from that. All the tension in the books is
| about avoiding getting caught, which usually leads to
| additional victims. Not very compatible with the average
| Hollywood movie of course but it makes for an interesting
| anti hero.
|
| I read Tom as a rebuttal to Crime and Punishment.
|
| As far as the adaptations, Ripley's Game is my favorite.
| Malkovich gets so many good lines. Purple Noon is pretty good
| too (Alain Delon is great) though the ending is weak.
| fnubbly wrote:
| https://archive.is/6jW00
| openknot wrote:
| The regular journalling with a notebook was really interesting,
| as it's a habit I've been trying to implement. I've been trying
| to do interstitial journaling [0] by writing down the time,
| noting energy levels, and listing out tasks to complete for the
| next 90 minutes [1].
|
| It's far less reflective than Highsmith's notebook usage, and
| with a different intent, though it was inspiring to see the pages
| of notebooks one can fill out across their life, if one chooses
| to (from the article: "The 56 journals (18 diaries, 38 notebooks)
| add up to eight thousand pages in total.").
|
| I wonder why she journaled less regularly later in life. Privacy
| looks like a reason; from the article: "[...] that would also be
| the last diary entry for seven years. When her lover Ellen starts
| sneaking peeks at the diaries, Highsmith switches only to
| notebook entries, which are less personal (and less
| interesting)." Similarly, I've censored myself a bit with
| handwritten entries, as it's possible that I might lose the book,
| or a person might find and read the journal without permission.
|
| [0] https://nesslabs.com/interstitial-journaling
|
| [1] Inspired by Channing Allen's 'Plan, do, learn' loops posted
| on HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29841136
| nefitty wrote:
| I lost a pocket journal once at a bus stop in the rain. It was
| thick with thoughts and ramblings and personal information. It
| was devastating. It was one of my favorite habits but I never
| took it up again. It's like a pet died or something.
| openknot wrote:
| If you wanted to get back into it, maybe consider a full-
| sized notebook with high-quality paper (e.g. Seven Seas,
| Leuchtturm, or equivalent). It's harder to lose due to the
| size (and you could add a Tile/AirTag if you get a notebook
| cover for it), and it's also a nicer writing experience due
| to the paper quality.
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