RARA-AVIS: Highsmith

Joshua B Lukin (jblukin@acsu.buffalo.edu)
Fri, 13 Feb 1998 16:00:26 -0500 (EST) There are also movies of _The_Glass_Cell_, _This_Sweet_Sickness_, and
_The_Blunderer_. Supposedly, Hitchcock and Wenders were the only adapters
of her work whom Highsmith liked.
I was very disappointed in the fifth Ripley novel, finding it almost
completely devoid of substance. Does anyone feel the same about this or
any of PH's other late novels (I'm kind of ambivalent toward
_A_Dog's_Ransom_)?
Another question: a publisher-friend of mine is looking to reissue some
out-of-print Highsmiths from the Fifties. He contacted Penguin to find
out who has the rights to them and was directed down a blind alley. Can
anyone advise as to whom he should contact?
The Observer, reviewing Philip Dick's _Humpty_Dumpty_in_Oakland_,
remarked, "It is often difficult to disentangle delusion from reality, as
in a novel by Patricia Highsmith." I think too that books from this era
in Dick's life (ca. 1960) contain a bleakness, domestic despair, and
paranoia-erupting-into-sudden-violence that contribute to the appeal of
Highsmith's work.
Just a thought or two,
Josh

#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.