by moritzwarhier | 2025-06-15 17:44:20+00:00
I disagree, apart from them being creepy.

Do you think the novels are there to fulfill creepy "wishes"?

In my opinion, this is not the case, but to each their own.

What I find lazy is when stories try to make me guess about "what" happens in the story, flex about technological details, or use surprise as a narrative device.

Highsmith's stories are about "how" and "why" something happens, they are not movie stories trying to lead you astray and make you guess what will happen.

I prefer this, always, in movies, books, writing, art.

I like open questions. I hate plots that try to build surprises or riddles to keep me interested. These kinds of stories make me tune out and feel dull to me.

I really love her other novels too, many of them also have the perspective of a crime perpetrator though.

For a slightly different variant, maybe look at, for example, "Edith's diary".

Also, her short stories are amazing, for example "When the Fleet Was in", or many other ones published in collections along with it.

These stories are far from painting criminals as desirable, in my opinion. Sure, it's a part of the entertainment value to take the criminal's perspective.

Her novels challenge simplistic morality, but she does not "side with the criminals" IMO.

I get what you mean with her novels having in common a certain atmosphere of psychological determinism, and, a focus on dark motives that are somehow presented to the readers as "relatable".

I suggest to read some interviews with her: she did not have a nihilistic view on hunamity. She believed in good and evil. Certainly she was a difficult person.

This one has some content about these questions, it unfortunately also focuses strongly on the Ripley case, and you might feel it affirms your view in some sense (I'd disagree though):

https://quartetbooks.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/patricia-highs...

(please ignore the PL-related stuff... should not distract from the content)

> Q: Your heroes are usually unscrupulous, amoral and sometimes schizoid. Is it simply that they are more dramatically interesting figures to write about, or does your attention to them run deeper than that?

> A: It’s not so much attraction. I find them interesting, puzzling. Nobody questions why somebody is good, but most people are curious about a murderer – they want to know why. Also there is entertainment value in somebody getting away with something. One may disapprove, but it’s still fascinating.

I couldn't retrieve the most interesting interview I read with her, didn't bookmark that, unfortunately.

I don't think her novels simply exploit people fantasizing about be murderers. That kind of "crime-porn" is much more prevalent in simplistic crime novels about killers who are caught in the end, but get to commit atrocities described in details before.

The "wish-fulfillment" you describe, in my opinion, I would call something else. I did not enjoy Highsmith because I wanted to murder people.

But sure, nobody has to like her, and there are plenty of other writing styles to enjoy.

She certainly has a style and complex of themes that leaves one with an urge to read something different after a couple of books.