(Drivebycuriosity) - Patricia Highsmith belonged to the most important writers of the 20th century, blending art with entertainment. Her murderous tales are deeply influenced by Sigmund Freud and her own secret obsessions. Higshmith novels got turned into movies by Alfred Hitchcock (Strangers on a Train), Anthony Minghella (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Todd Haynes (Carol) and many other directors ( imdb).Joan Schenkar´s biography "The Talented Miss Highsmith" dives deep into the life of the author ( amazon). Apparently the Highsmith (1921-1995) didn`t have a nice childhood, resulting in an strong hatred against her stepfather, even though she took his name, and deep aversions against her mother, with whom she had continuous severe conflicts over her whole life.
Maybe her conflicted childhood was the cause that she became an alcoholic and a heavy smoker. The Higsmith disliked food and lived mostly from peanut butter, beer and filterless cigarettes. And she was an enthusiastic coffee drinker; her heavy caffeine intake may have saved her from a lever damage.
But her habits and addictions took their tole, she was underweight, aged fast and turned from a breath taking beauty in a very unattractive woman. Her biographer describes her as "an improbable tough woman with an impossible soar center".
Triumph Of Evil
Highsmith novels & short stories mirror the author`s dark fantasies & tastes, influenced by Brothers Grimms`sinister fairy tales. She declared that "obsessions are the only things that matter" and "perversion interests me most and is my guiding darkness".
Schenkar describes her object as an amazingly fecund creator. The Highsmith had "ideas as often as rats have organism". At twenty she declared "I am four people: the Jewish intellectual, the success, the failure, and the Fascist snob. These shall be my novel characters". Her Ripley and other books showed "the unequivocal triumph of evil over the good, and rejoicing in it. I shall make my readers in it too".
The Highsmith appeared to be very ambitious. In 1950 she wrote in her diary: "I find I have no sympathy for the individual whose spirit has not led him to seek higher goals, in the first place, at a much younger age." She confessed about the pleasure she felt in choosing art over life and claimed that "acquired tastes are so much delightful than natural ones".
Unfortunately her novels & stories were not for the American taste. At the begin of her career her articles - written for the New Yorker or other magazines - got usually rejected. To make a living she worked for comic books publisher, very successful, but she did not like the job and was not proud of her success. Even when
the Highsmith reached the peak of her career, she stayed almost unknown in her homeland, but she was lauded in
Europe and the Swiss publisher Diogenes became her global
representative. That also tells something about the taste of the Americans.
Besides her published works (when I lived in Germany I had a full book shelf just with Highsmith works) she left 250 unpublished manuscripts of varying length, thirty-eight writer´s notebooks and at least eighteen diaries. She drew, she sketched, she made sculpture. She hand-crafted furniture and carved out little statues. In 1961 the Higsmith wrote: "I am person of many parts/With a goal beyond me reach". She lived to write and she literally wrote for her live.
Obsessed With Numbers
She was obsessed with numbers. Her letters, cashiers, and diaries bristle with figures - financial calculations, numbered lines of task, addresses, miles, kilometers, times, dates, body temperatures, red blood cell counts, her IQ (121 in her mid teens). Early in her college career, she was also making numbered lists of the relative virtue of different religions and she delved into Hinduism.
The
Highsmith liked to travel. She visited Mexico, Germany, France, London and many places in the US, and she often changed her residences. And very frequently she replaced her lovers, usually females.
The Texas born writer settled finally in Europe, first in France, then in a remote Swiss
village.
She had an aversion to crowds. Higsmith was most at ease in smaller gatherings. Intimate parties, gallery exhibitions, and drawing classes were the assembles she frequented most. And she was very self-determined. When she visited a library, she was not interested in consulting with the librarians. She came in, got what she wanted and left.
Watching Snails Mate
And the Highsmith was obsessed with snails! In the 1960s she kept about three hundred snails as pets! And she took her favorite snails with her on trips. It fascinated her watching the mating process of two living organism that "can go on for fourteen hours". She found it "relaxing" to watch her snails mate because their copulation had an aesthetic quality, nothing more bestial in it than necking".
She also noticed that "it is quite impossible to tell which is the male and which the female, because their behavior and appearance is exactly the same". Patricia Highsmith's favorite snail was named Hortense and she named a character in her novel Deep Water after her. It is not surprising that the Highsmith wrote a lot snail stories, but her first story of this kind, the now famous "The Snail-Watcher", needed years to be accepted for publication.
Unfortunately the Highsmith suffered on anemia and was counting her red blood cells frequently. She was sensitive to "noise". When she lived in France she complaint about a noisy Portuguese family who lived close to her home: "The Portuguese - it is like a pot of boiling soup next door, every vegetable leaping out of the pot and screaming". She declared: "I can easily bear cold, loneliness, hunger and toothache, but I cannot bear noise, heat, interruptions, or other people".
Very Heavy Swords
The Highsmith had always been fascinated by the image or the presence of a young girl - even when she herself was still a young girl.
Close to the end of the biography there is a long list of items - former Highsmith possessions - that the Swiss Literary Archive had inherited and now preserves. The list contains objects like a wooden head, whose face is frozen in an expression of horror and sorrow; a goat´s bell; two long, very heavy swords (Confederate swords, that she had bought in Texas); many little cat figurines and toys; reproductions of David Hockney drawings; an AL Fatah pin; a lace snail encased in fiberglas.
Highsmith`s biography is as fascinating as her tales.
