The Birdcage Archives

Friday 27 May 2011

The Talented Miss Highsmith: A Biography Review

Hello Gentle Reader

It has been raining here all week. The pond behind the house is actually almost to the point of overflowing. It will be interesting to see if the house is or will flood. I am sure once the weather turns nice and warm, that the pond will turn into a slew. A nice breeding ground for mosquitoes. It is so disgusting, thinking about it. Part of me hopes that it doesn’t stop raining so the mosquitoes do not have time to breed, but if that happens then the house is certainly going to flood. I suppose one has to take a lesser of the two evils. A lesser of two evils, is certainly a way to describe “The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith.”

The biographer Joan Schenkar certainly picked an interesting person to write about. After reading this Patricia Highsmith is more human than certainly I am sure then Patricia Highsmith would prefer to admit. Patricia Highsmith is an interesting writer for sure. Not a great writer in my opinion, but she is a good writer at what she writes. She is first and foremost a writer of mystery and suspense fiction – a book she had actually written about titled: “Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction.” Murder was never far from Patricia Highsmith’s mind as Joan Schenkar points out.
‘“Pat couldn't look at a flight of stairs, without imagining someone falling down them.”’
Needles to say after reading this book, and about Patricia Highsmith I can never look at myself the same way again, not to mention look at simple household items the same way again. It is pretty scary when you read a book about someone so human and yet so misanthropic, and hated people and the world so much, and when you relate to that, you find yourself almost horrified at such a thought of being able to relate to such an ugly human being. A human being that was so horrible, vicious, angry and full of such piss and bile; you find yourself almost unable to look at yourself in the mirror every morning when you are brushing your teeth.
Even though Patricia Highsmith was a hateful creature. A person who was a walking, talking paradox, her entire life was a contradiction. A life so turbulent, and she herself lost and a drift in this turbulent world and life. Obviously a person who was quite misanthropic she was also a person who loved.
‘“God knows love, in this room with us now, is not kissed or embraces or touches. Not even a glance or a feeling. Love is a monster between us, each of us caught in a fist.”’

It should be noted that Patricia Highsmith was a lesbian. I think from reading this biography Patricia Highsmith was terribly ashamed of her lesbianism. In fact at the age of twelve as pointed out in the biography; Patricia Highsmith had pointed out to herself that she was a boy in a girl’s body. What an odd person Patricia Highsmith is and was. She could fall in love in a matter of minutes, and yet she despised people. Human contact, and human relationships – in fact anything human at all was alien to Patricia Highsmith.

Humoursly speaking about Patricia Highsmith’s gender is a following quote from the book.

“In Paris restaurants, where French waiters are uncomfortably good at reading gender code, Pat is sometimes directed to the men’s lavatory,”

It should be noted that Patricia Highsmith lived abroad in Europe for probably most of her life. Her home country had since abandoned her, and refused to acknowledge her as a good and talented writer. Perhaps it is because she refused to play by the rule of suspense fiction. She certainly was not going to write like Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler. And yet Joan Schenkar does see it fitting to add in the next bit about Patricia Highsmith’s little lavatory experience at French restaurants:
‘“Pat thought that waiters stopped her ‘because I have big feet and skinny thighs.’ She had to think something.”’
Something that would forever destroy Patricia Highsmith’s world would be her mother. Her stylish but very critical and very destructive mother. If Patricia Highsmith ever did anything of great admiration or was awarded for her hard work, her mother would simply criticize it. Nothing was good enough for Mary Highsmith. Nothing at all. Everything her mistake of a child did would only be met with criticism by Mary Highsmith. Yet both women could not leave the other alone. No matter what, these two women did to escape or run away from each other; they could not help but go back for another fight.

However though a good biography – though unusual in the way that is written in; there are certain faults with Joan Schenkar’s biography. A deeply detailed book. It is marinated and saturated with detail. Every person that ever appeared to have walked behind Patricia Highsmith’s life is explored. Her charming family – who she hated all of them; are always explored. The style in which the book is detailed in, sometimes does not feel much like a biography but rather a psychological study and encyclopedia hybrid.

Joan Schenkar is a writer whose eye is detailed. No interview ends at just one. No piece of paper or mundane task is not examined at face value. Everything is examined in an extreme detail. Mundane tasks like ironing and gardening are almost examined with psychoanalyst interpretation. It is hard to say if Patricia Highsmith enjoyed ironing to the point that she thought of murder while ironing and gardening. Perhaps she just enjoyed the physical enjoyment of the meditating experience that these two activities gave to Patricia Highsmith. But instead the biographer Joan Schenkar makes it her duty to examine these mundane tasks as a way that Patricia Highsmith helped cope with her turbulent and difficult life. Personally I find ironing quite enjoyable at times. When a bookmark gets crinkled I try to iron it to its pristine order that it once had. Then again I am a bit cheap or frugal. Depends on the way one looks at it.

Despite the detail as a fault, it is also a great strength. It is a richly detailed book. It is richly filled with details. Part of this is due to the fact that Patricia Highsmith was a richly detailed woman. She kept diaries and cahiers; she wrote numerous lists, drew maps, doodled, and made furniture.

Which is quite ironic to me at times. Because Patricia Highsmith’s novels and stories are sometimes written in a very sparse forum of minimalism. The mundane details are often portrayed, time appears to have no meaning, events just happen as they happen, and the novel just putters out. Quite the contrary to Patricia Highsmith’s own life. Nothing ever appeared to putter out; especially not her relationship with her mother Mary Highsmith. Her life is richly detailed in every dark aspect that had incorporated it, was detailed. Her love life was richly detailed with obsession. Her hatred was written down to the perfection. Every I was doted and every T was crossed. Joan Schenkar’s serious, detailed, experimental and unorthodox (I think) biography of Patricia Highsmith is probably the best biography that will ever be produced about Patricia Highsmith for sure.

In this biography the reader, will begin to understand just how frightening Patricia Highsmith was; but also how fundamentally lonesome and turbulent her life was. I wonder if Patricia Highsmith ever thought of suicide, then again I suppose Patricia Highsmith was a bit more interested in not removing herself from the problem or the situation, but rather remove the other person or people from the situation. One can certainly say that Patricia Highsmith was more homicidal then suicidal. Yet she was a particularly sad creature. Lonesome, and unhappy. She enjoyed her solitude and her time by herself. Though even if she was not by herself, in the physical sense, she was still emotionally cut off from others. No matter what Patricia Highsmith could do or did, she was forever doomed to a life of being cut off from others. Which suited her fine. I suppose her solitude and exile in Switzerland suited her fine. She appeared to enjoy her own company, but there was no choice in that.

In all Patricia Highsmith was a beautiful and horrifying woman. A person that we as readers will never know. She has long since been dead. The only remnants of her existence are her novels and stories. She certainly was a one of a kind woman. Not a person that I personally would ever want to meet. But what is most horrifying is what if I am that kind of person? A question that I appear to be asking myself on a constant basis lately. After seeing points that I could resonate with, and reflect and also empathize with, it certainly makes me wonder if my life will be much like Patricia Highsmith’s. I can certainly hope it will not be. Partly because Patricia Highsmith was a fragile and above all else a horrifying person. Certainly cut off from the world around her, by her own hatred, and inability to understand and comprehend those that were around her.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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