Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Highsmith

Bill Hagen (billha@ionet.net)
Sat, 21 Feb 1998 13:01:47 -0600 (CST) Recently, Michael David Sharp wrote,
"I will step back, reflect, and try to mount a brief but spirited defense of
Highsmith sometime next week. Right now what I will say is that I find
Ripley, at least initially, utterly sympathetic, esp. for a compulsive
liar and unrepentent misanthrope. What is it about the 1950s and
sympathetic psychos: Ripley, Lou Ford, Humbert Humbert . . . more later."

Good. We're starting to get some discussion. I, for one, look forward to
Michael's remarks, and hope he includes the reactions of his students. I
have a feeling he might have to mount some of his spirited defense in the
classroom.

I will say that I am now more driven to read the novel, but, again, it's
more a plot interest in how a criminal will manage to cover up things, how
well he will play the game of deception. Sort of the flip side of an
intellectual interest in the solution of crimes committed in detective
fiction. Ripley seems most human in the flashes of hatred, his impulses to
push someone in the water or his wish that chance harm occur. But unlike
Lou Ford or Nabokov's HH, the guy doesn't seem to commit to much beyond a
certain level of comfort.

How about some help, someone? Is Highsmith working with a psychological
profile of some kind? She uses his sexual orientation to set up a
distance, a coolness toward people--not sure I would call it misanthropy.
Are we also getting a 50s model of someone, outwardly directed, who cares
what people think of him, even while he may dislike them? Complicate that
with his homosexual feelings that he suppresses or denies, so as to be
accepted, and we seem to be in a psych textbook situation. I dunno.

Bill Hagen
<billha@ionet.net>

#
# 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/.