04.20.07
Patricia Highsmith: The Black House
Over the past year or two I’ve become a swooning admirer of Patricia Highsmith’s. I had read a couple of the Ripley novels before that, but when Bloomsbury began to reissue her other books in handsome new jackets, I discovered her extraordinary suspense novels. The best of these were her titles from the 1950s and 60s, like Deep Water, This Sweet Sickness and The Cry of the Owl. Three more will be published in October of this year, which seems a long way away; so to tide me over until then I read her collection of stories The Black House.
It’s fairly clear that in 1981, when this collection was first published, Highsmith had her best work behind her, and although it’s a stronger range of stories than 1987’s bizarrely bad Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes, it’s a real mixed bag.
Several of the stories, such as “Something the Cat Dragged In” and “Not One of Us,” turn on stretches of implausibility which may have passed unnoticed over the length of a novel, but which jar in a twenty-page story. They feel draft-like, and insufficiently worked out. Others have the air of being workings for her novels, and end abruptly, as though Highsmith ran out of patience, or interest. As ever, her prose is rarely more than functional, and when there’s no distracting style, the weaknesses show all the more clearly.
The best are those which combine Highsmith’s high-grade interest in human venality and perversity, with a snappier storyline. “When in Rome” has a rich society wife bribing her stalker to kidnap her husband. “Under a Dark Angel’s Eye” shows a man who’s had thousands of dollars stolen from him by his lawyer, finding that the world (or Highsmith’s world) has a way of exacting revenge. “Blow It” approaches a potentially farcical situation - one man, two girlfriends - and makes something satisfying and complete from it.
Perhaps the strangest and most interesting story in the collection is “The Terrors of Basket-Weaving,” where a woman becomes spooked by her own easy ability to repair a basket, fearing that some atavistic impulse or collective consciousness is at work in her, and that “she was part of the stream of evolution of the human race”:
She felt that she was living with a great many people from the past, that they were in her brain or mind, and that people from human antecedents were bound up with her, influencing her, controlling her every bit as much as, up to now, she had been controlling herself.
It shows Highsmith stretching herself beyond her normal boundaries and abilities: though it’s those ‘normal’ abilities that make her such an interesting writer, and that have me counting down the days until October.
Nick said,
Friday, 20 April 2007 at 11:06 pm
I read loads of Patricia Highsmith when I was younger and swooned myself. Really must reread some of them. What I remember most is that she seemed to be taking crime fiction into a new realm of deep psychological analysis of odd and deranged minds, a major departure from the conventional Agatha Christie-style whodunnit formula. I read a lot of Ruth Rendell for the same reason, though her work seemed to get progressively blander as her fame increased and I gave up on her many years ago.
John Self said,
Friday, 20 April 2007 at 11:23 pm
Hi Nick, good to hear from you again. Well it’s interesting you should say that as I have practically no tolerance for crime fiction of any kind, with the exception of Highsmith. I don’t know what it is about her. Part of the appeal may be that when there is a straightforward killing plot, it’s usually more about getting away with it than getting caught (see the ‘Ripleiad’). She even manages in some books, notionally suspense novels of adultery and murder, to have no sex and no death and still make it thrilling. She did try to stretch her wings with later work though it’s less successful: from the 1970s I loved Edith’s Diary but didn’t think so much of The Tremor of Forgery or Those Who Walk Away.
The next three in October are People Who Knock on the Door and Found in the Street (both 80s novels, should be… interesting) and one from her classic 50s period, A Game for the Living. If you have memories of any of these, please share your thoughts! (Of course I could get US editions easily enough, but I just love those Bloomsbury covers…
Nick said,
Sunday, 22 April 2007 at 1:37 pm
Sorry John, it’s such a long time since I read her that my memory of her books is too hazy to remember the pros and cons of particular titles. Certainly the Ripliad are the ones I remember best - really creepy and sinister and intense. As I said, I must revisit them all one day.
John Self said,
Sunday, 22 April 2007 at 3:42 pm
I know all about not being able to remember books a long time (or even a short time) after reading them - why do you think I keep this blog!