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Title: The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0-393-02031-2 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Essential of a Highsmith collection
Comment: You often lose track of time reading this, because the stories don't drag, and they are mostly compelling - you'll often go through 2 or 3 of the collections in one sitting. And this also serves as a superb introduction to Patricia Highsmith's work.
We start with two odd collections, "The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder," then "Little Tales of Misogyny." The "Animal-Lover's Book" has "full-length" (i.e. about 20 pages long) stories of the blood-lusting intent of cats, goats, horses, rats, camels, and more! They're readable because the animals' feelings toward whatever malicious humans are involved are presented as they might be for a person, save for behavioral characteristics. A couple also have European settings which are used to the same effect as in some of her novels. "Little Tales" has a misleading title, since not all the stories can be considered misogynistic - rather, they are often tales of comeuppance, or victimization, just the main character is a woman (who won't always be on the receiving end - like in "The Hand," or "The Breeder"). All are very brief, so they're either "over with fast, at least" or "good, for their confines."
The remaining 3 collections - "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind,"
"The Black House," and "Mermaids on the Golf Course" play it straight, with stories of crime (the unsettling "The Black House"), suspense ("A Shot From Nowhere"), horror ("Slowly, Slowly in the Wind," "Woodrow Wilson's Necktie" [kind of]), "apprehension" by Graham Greene's introduction ("The Terrors of Basket-Weaving," "The Pond"), and what may be called "stylistic experiments," or none of the above - some ("Chris' Last Party," "Not in Ths Life, Maybe the Next") work, some ("Please Don't Shoot the Trees") don't; although even the lesser stories are still readable, if not as memorable as the best ones.
Anyway, this stands as a very worthy purchase, as is its companion volume (the uncollected stories).
Rating: 5
Summary: The Talented Patricia Highsmith
Comment: My interest in Patricia Highsmith was sparked by the two movies based on her novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (the Matt Damon picture and "Purple Noon" in which Alain Delon plays Tom Ripley). I have read a couple of the other Ripley novels, but continue to prefer the first one over any of the sequels. In researching Highsmith on the Internet, I saw a collection of stories called "Little Tales of Misogyny" listed in her bibliography. Needless to say, the title intrigued me. Though many of the stories in "The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith" have been continuously in print, I have been unable to find a copy the Misogyny Tales.
The Misogyny Tales take up about 60 pages of this 724-page collection, each tale being only 3 to 5 pages long. It's hard to know what to make of them. Each story features a female character who embodies a specific aspect of the feminine personality; Highsmith allows this quality to unravel to the fullest extent possible, always to the detriment of those who live with or near the protagonists. The titles of the indivdual stories will give you an idea of the range of topics covered: "The Invalid, or, the Bedridden," "The Middle-Class Housewife," "The Breeder," "The Perfect Little Lady," "The Prude," "The Victim," etc. As damning as these stories are of their protagonists, in most cases the reader is likely to be somewhat in awe of the misguided heroines (as we are of the amoral Tom Ripley). Highsmith draws these characters with quick bold strokes using indelible ink. The reader is not given time to warm up to any of the characters and in the end they function more as archetypes than as full-blown fictional characters. Does Highsmith have nothing but contempt for her own sex? Possibly (think of Marge Sherwood in "The Talented Mr. Ripley"). Does she resist feminist rhetoric and politcal correctness? Certainly (you need only read "The Victim" to be convinced of this). Can she write in an honest and thought-provoking way? Absolutely! In some ways her attacks on middle-class convention and mores remind me of the stories of H.H. Munro (Saki) and Shirley Jackson--ironic and hard-hitting at the same time. Even when being her most brutal, she leaves room for pathos.
According to the dust jacket, Highsmith turned to writing short stories later in her life (beginning in the 70s). "Little Tales of Misogyny," interestingly, was first published in German (1975) before being published in English (1977). My only wish is that with a book of this nature (one spanning the author's entire career) that the date of authorship was given for each story. (It helps to know, for instance, that "Little Tales of Misogyny" was written during the height of the 70s feminist movement.)
The book, by the way, is very handsomely typeset and bound, worthy of an author whose recognition and esteem seems to be growing since her death in 1995. Graham Greene's Preface is brief but insightful.
Rating: 4
Summary: A brilliant, wide-ranging, if uneven talent.
Comment: Patricia Highsmith came late to short fiction after decades of novel-writing, and Joyce Carol Oates opined in the New York Review of Books that Highsmith had little talent for the form. The stories here certainly are uneven. Stories such as "Blow It" and "Something the Cat Dragged In" seem too formulaic; "Old Folks at Home" starts from an unbelievable premise and curdles quickly from its mean-spiritedness; "Please Don't Shoot the Trees" is warmed-over Ray Bradbury; most of the "Little Tales of Misogyny" are total throwaways. Highsmith's best stories, however, are breathtaking, and put the lie to Oates' blanket condemnation. My favorite stories in this collection are "Not in This Life, Maybe the Next," "The Cruelest Month" and "The Romantic," all touching and perceptive portrayals of women who have lived too much in their imaginations. "The Pond" and "The Kite" are brilliant and moving fantasies of bereavement; "Chorus Girl's Absolutely Final Performance," about the mistreatment of a zoo elephant and her final vengeance, would make stones weep. And that isn't even counting the tales of horror and suspense that were Highsmith's specialty. There are wonderful, Shirley Jacksonish tales of communities turning on their own ("Not One of Us," "The Black House"), Hitchcockian tales of murder ("Slowly, Slowly in the Wind," "A Curious Suicide," "The Button"), tales of conspiracies gone awry ("When in Rome," "Under a Dark Angel's Eye"). Highsmith's meticulous plots, wide knowledge of the world and bracingly acid view of life ensure that there are many more gems than duds in this book.
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Title: Nothing That Meets the Eye: The Uncollected Stories of Patricia Highsmith by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0393051870 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 07 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0375407928 Publisher: Everyman's Library Pub. Date: 12 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Beautiful Shadow : A Life of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson ISBN: 1582341982 Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Pub. Date: 15 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $32.50 |
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Title: This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0393323676 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith ISBN: 0393321983 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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