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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Feb 9, 2016 2:16:25 GMT -5
This is the thread for TI Book Club discussion of Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith, but you probably already knew that because you are presumably a literate person and the thread's title clearly states what I just said in this sentence. (If you're not literate, I'm not really sure how a) you're reading this comment right now, or b) how you've managed to contribute to this forum in the past, or c) why you would even want to be involved in a book club when it has already been established that you cannot read. But that's neither here nor there.) Note: If you, a putative literate person, read this thread title and thought "What the fuck did I just use my literacy skills to comprehend? This sure as hell isn't the thread for How to Build a Girl, the winner of the book club poll! I know this, because I can read!" then do not fret. We did not have a winner in our run-off poll, so we're going to have two separate threads for Edith's Diary and How to Build a Girl. And this thread that you're reading now, as an ostensibly literate human being, is not the thread for How to Build a Girl. It's the thread for Edith's Diary. But you already knew that, because, again, I am assuming that if you are reading this then you are a literate person. So if you're looking for the thread to How to Build a Girl, you can find it right here. |
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Ice Cream Planet
AV Clubber 
I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy.
Posts: 3,833 
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Post by Ice Cream Planet on Feb 10, 2016 18:17:22 GMT -5
I started Edith's Diary yesterday and I'm currently five chapters in. Holy hell, even by Highsmith's infamous standards, it's an unsettling read. Within the first five chapters there has already been a dream sequence involving a severed cat head eating food in a fridge, a Christmas party from hell, and the titular character cheerfully writing in her diary, 'Life has no meaning.'
Interestingly enough, all the unease is so far rooted more in tragedy than horror. One thing I love about Edith's Diary is, at this time, it's more a reflection about what it means to be happy and whether a lot of happiness is simply lying to oneself. Whether it dives into full thriller/psychological horror mode remains to be seen, but I'm happily on edge.
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Ice Cream Planet
AV Clubber
I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy.
Posts: 3,833
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Post by Ice Cream Planet on Mar 2, 2016 14:36:52 GMT -5
I finished Edith's Diary today, and even and hour later, I still feel so unnerved. It's a heartbreaking novel, but a surprisingly compassionate one, which is all the more surprising given Highsmith's oeuvre was famously misanthropic and sour. It's also one of her few novels that doesn't involve crime thriller elements and has a woman as its central protagonist.
While the story follows relatively familiar terrain as James M. Cain's Mildred Pierce, one thing I loved about Edith is how her unhappiness doesn't really come too heavily from either her more overly accepting attitude of her family trampling on her and taking her for granted. Nor does it come from her pride when... well, later on you'll see. Highsmith strikes a healthy balance between the two and shows a woman whose life gradually comes apart, bit by bit, instead of having some melodramatic twist that sending everything toppling down. It's masterfully done and all the more harrowing because of it. The final five pages are shattering.
One of my favorite passages from the book:
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Mar 18, 2016 19:33:14 GMT -5
Finally requested from the library! Let’s see how long it takes to get in…
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on May 12, 2016 12:21:39 GMT -5
SPOILERS, OBVS
Just finished this yesterday! A really brisk read, actually, despite the more “literary” (anomie on the outskirts of the northeastern megalopolis) subject matter—Highsmith’s background as a thriller writer shined through. And it’s impressive, too, that it manages to be so when the whole point is how little happens to Edith. Her ambitions as a writer and journalist are mostly limited to Brunswick Corner, despite submissions to The New Republic and such. Her politics aren’t taken seriously, even by her like-minded friends. Her husband leaves her for a younger woman of similar ambitions (and they have more—and it’s implied better—children). It’s a life of missed opportunities and, as revealed in the diary, wishing things had turned out differently. It’s a tragedy of things just going slightly wrong, again and again, and building up. And how quickly the book passes, in a sense, stands in for how quickly Edith’s frustrated life does, too—it’s more than a bit frightening when you step back and think about it.
None more so than Cliffie—he’s pretty much the nightmare son, all the worse since he doesn’t have the wherewithal to be a true terror, just disappointment incarnated (if there’s any ambiguity as to whether he killed George it’s whether he could muster the effort). He’s still pretty interesting for that reason, though—he’s all id, but he’s an inactive, lazy id, just coasting along. No wonder he’s afraid to crack open the diary—with Edith essentially cushioning him from any consequence, he’s left vulnerable in the end, and seeing what lies within (expecting disappointment, perhaps, so maybe Edith’s fantasy Cliffie’s success would be worse) would be shattering. And of course Cliffie’s lying to himself in the end, too, thinking about having children in the future, for instance.
An excellent read, and one that becomes more and more disturbing on reflection.
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Ice Cream Planet
AV Clubber
I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy.
Posts: 3,833
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Post by Ice Cream Planet on May 12, 2016 17:17:18 GMT -5
SPOILERS, OBVS Just finished this yesterday! A really brisk read, actually, despite the more “literary” (anomie on the outskirts of the northeastern megalopolis) subject matter—Highsmith’s background as a thriller writer shined through. And it’s impressive, too, that it manages to be so when the whole point is how little happens to Edith. Her ambitions as a writer and journalist are mostly limited to Brunswick Corner, despite submissions to The New Republic and such. Her politics aren’t taken seriously, even by her like-minded friends. Her husband leaves her for a younger woman of similar ambitions (and they have more—and it’s implied better—children). It’s a life of missed opportunities and, as revealed in the diary, wishing things had turned out differently. It’s a tragedy of things just going slightly wrong, again and again, and building up. And how quickly the book passes, in a sense, stands in for how quickly Edith’s frustrated life does, too—it’s more than a bit frightening when you step back and think about it. None more so than Cliffie—he’s pretty much the nightmare son, all the worse since he doesn’t have the wherewithal to be a true terror, just disappointment incarnated (if there’s any ambiguity as to whether he killed George it’s whether he could muster the effort). He’s still pretty interesting for that reason, though—he’s all id, but he’s an inactive, lazy id, just coasting along. No wonder he’s afraid to crack open the diary—with Edith essentially cushioning him from any consequence, he’s left vulnerable in the end, and seeing what lies within (expecting disappointment, perhaps, so maybe Edith’s fantasy Cliffie’s success would be worse) would be shattering. And of course Cliffie’s lying to himself in the end, too, thinking about having children in the future, for instance. An excellent read, and one that becomes more and more disturbing on reflection. Yay! I'm thrilled you enjoyed it. It's my second favorite book of hers (after The Price of Salt). I loved it for many of the reasons you listed, particularly your spot on summation of Cliffie. It was a wise move on Highsmith's part not to have him completely become the male version of Rhoda Penmark; having him simply be a lazy, disappointing, unbelievably selfish slob can be just as unnerving. Edith's Diary is a rarity in that its central protagonist is a woman and that there is little, if any (eye of the beholder regarding George's death) violent crime. It's still paced like a thriller, but in avoiding more obvious thriller developments, it shows what Highsmith did best: creating genuinely complex, deep characters and picking apart why they do the things they do. I think a big reason why Edith's Diary is so heartbreaking and disturbing is how Edith is a good person and so many developments in her life, whether they be big or small, just continually knock her down. It starts to feel a bit like a horror novel after a while. The final 15 pages are some of the saddest I've read in a novel in a very long time. |
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on May 12, 2016 18:14:20 GMT -5
Yes on those final fifteen pages. You knew the end was coming, you weren’t sure of the shape, but it was going to be disappointing (well, dramatically satisfying, but disappointing on Edith’s level).
I’m curious why the book’s fallen into obscurity, at least here in the states (aside: interesting she set it in the States—she was living full-time in Europe by this point, I think, and Ripley’d relocated there permanently by this point I think). I know a few other people interested in joining had trouble finding it at their libraries, I had to wait for it to be taken out of mechanized storage, and I just recommended it to my mother (on Mother’s Day!) and she’s going through a similar rigamarole getting it (though it will be the first novel she’s read in a couple of months so she’s very much looking forward to it; it was the same for me, which is probably one of the reasons why I flew through it).
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Ice Cream Planet
AV Clubber
I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy.
Posts: 3,833
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Post by Ice Cream Planet on May 13, 2016 5:35:04 GMT -5
Yes on those final fifteen pages. You knew the end was coming, you weren’t sure of the shape, but it was going to be disappointing (well, dramatically satisfying, but disappointing on Edith’s level). I’m curious why the book’s fallen into obscurity, at least here in the states (aside: interesting she set it in the States—she was living full-time in Europe by this point, I think, and Ripley’d relocated there permanently by this point I think). I know a few other people interested in joining had trouble finding it at their libraries, I had to wait for it to be taken out of mechanized storage, and I just recommended it to my mother (on Mother’s Day!) and she’s going through a similar rigamarole getting it (though it will be the first novel she’s read in a couple of months so she’s very much looking forward to it; it was the same for me, which is probably one of the reasons why I flew through it). I think what makes those final pages so sad and disturbing is that Edith's fate has a commonplace banality (not that it wasn't dramatically satisfying, like you said) to it that feels like salt on the wounds. Given everything she had been through in the novel, for her fate to end up like that, it's absolutely brutal. There's a true-to-life quality that really got under my skin. I keep forgetting that save for The Talented Mr. Ripley, Strangers on a Train, and The Price of Salt (no doubt helped by the film adaptation), a lot of her work isn't well know Stateside. Over here, Virago Modern Classics have been steadily reproducing her entire catalogue; it's easy enough to go to any bookshop in London and find a copy of Edith's Diary. As for why the majority of her work is relative obscure in the US, I think a part of it has been her work, while mostly psychological thrillers, have a depth and intelligence more akin to existentialist novels, which doesn't allow for the easiest of classification. I also wonder if the fact her books lack the dark-hearted romanticism of novels by people like Raymond Chandler plays a part of it too. Most crime fiction (certainly not all) that is commercially viable either has a humor or some hint of inner lightness, but with Highsmith, the vast majority of her work is ostentatious in its misanthropy. But, I may be reaching, particularly given Gillian Flynn and her ilk are all doing well on the charts (no doubt all of them owe a HUGE debt to Highsmith). But, all that aside, given Highsmith's relative obscurity in the US, Edith's Diary is even more of an anomaly. It's one of her very few books with a central female protagonist, one where violent crime is kept at a minimum, and there aren't any 'true' thriller elements. It stands out, alongside The Price of Salt and Small g: A Summer Idyll. I know Highsmith's publisher initially rejected her manuscript because it wasn't a thriller, even though the book would get some of the best reviews of her career. Anyway, I hope your mum loves it as much as we did! |
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on May 21, 2016 9:51:45 GMT -5
Hey Ice Cream Planet, I'm working my way through an anthology of '40s and '50s crime fiction (just finished Dorothy B. Hughes' In a Lonely Place - excellent - excited to now see the Bogart movie with the new Criterion release) and coming up is The Blunderer by Highsmith. Will be my first novel by her, though I gather it's not acclaimed in the top rank of her work. Coincidentally, a Blunderer movie just debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. |
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Ice Cream Planet
AV Clubber
I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy.
Posts: 3,833
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Post by Ice Cream Planet on May 21, 2016 9:57:37 GMT -5
Hey Ice Cream Planet , I'm working my way through an anthology of '40s and '50s crime fiction (just finished Dorothy B. Hughes' In a Lonely Place - excellent - excited to now see the Bogart movie with the new Criterion release) and coming up is The Blunderer by Highsmith. Will be my first novel by her, though I gather it's not acclaimed in the top rank of her work. Coincidentally, a Blunderer movie just debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. Ah, I know that anthology! I hope you enjoy it. The Blunderer frequently ranks as one of Highsmith's top ten best novels, so I hope you enjoy it. I haven't read it yet myself. And I really loved In a Lonely Place, although I hear the film is very different from the book. |
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