January 1, 2022
"My New Year’s Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envys, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace."
Wrote Patricia Highsmith "well after midnight on what had been Dec. 31, 1947," quoted by Dwight Garner in his NYT review of her book "Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995."
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22 comments:
I would've liked to party with her.
-Loren
Patty would have been easier to deal with if she had put a lot of her passion and energy into just making up lists.
Just noticed "My New Year's Toast" is a double entendre.
Loren
And she with you, my dear.
This is a New Year's toast peculiar to a peculiar person, not words to live by. Artists draw our interest because of their creativity and I certainly share that interest. But I'd never want to model my life after the lives of the artists I have become aware of. There seems to be an intersection of creativity and life unbounded by society's guardrails. Then again, if I was as creative as they are, would I think again about my position?
I heard about this book of Patricia Highsmith's Diary back in September. I cannot get into the NYT review because they asked that I subscribe for the bargain price of $1 per week. An occasional glance into the old gray lady's dark mirror for free is enough to give me the willies. I'd never pay for a cheap thrill.
Ah, the quote from Highsmith's New Year's Toast shows so clearly how much she willingly embraced her sinister muse. An artist works out his or her own creative salvation turning loose the angels or demons within their imaginations.
If she partied at all it was with a bottle. But her flirtation with booze never interfered with her real honest and true lover, writing.
What a clever and insidious mind Highsmith possessed. It was original and shocking. That she must have enjoyed immensely. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, A DOG'S RANSOM and the RIPLEY series are all suspense masterpieces, not to mention her short stories. Like many, I think she may have often asked what the meaning of life was. She lived through many turbulent, violent eras of the 20th Century. Her brilliance in concocting the evil doings of men is a sinful entertaining delight to read. The real deal, the other "authors" of depraved behavior, like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Jeffery Epstein and their disciples, are the villains who demonstrate life can be more horrible than fiction. I prefer my monsters to be in the pages of a novel, and not in the headlines, or on the streets, and certainly not in political life.
My hope for Patricia Highsmith is that she finally put her devils to bed and drove a stake through there hearts. Everyone. Afterwards, she may have encountered angels.
Hooboy, the spam is starting to make it through. I don't need any OB/GYN services, and I don't read Arabic(?)
Somebody please let me know if Highsmith mentions me.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Jeffery Epstein?
Dude, breathe.
Feminine roles. I just looked at more modern analysis of sociologist Erving Goffman's Gender Advertisements, a highly illustrated book on the topic and its meaning. As with his "Asylums" everybody modern misses the point. Goffman was studying it, not condemning it. It's how society works, in the sense of managing to work. The commercial ads have to fit in, having done their own sociology implicitly by picking the right kind of ad to work.
Nothing prevented women from doing what they wanted, and those that went along weren't being tricked.
Outrage as a political position on that topic hadn't come along yet.
I read the review. It was favorable and mostly sympathetic towards Highsmith. I wonder if the reviewer would be similarly disposed towards a hetero writer of the same quirks and opinions.....I read the wiki entry. Highsmith sounds like a rather bleak person with few redeeming qualities beyond her talents as a writer and affection for snails.
Does anyone really and sincerly make New Years Resolutions anymore? That used to be a thing, but I think its going out of style.
Highsmith - good 2nd tier writer. Her biography of Brando was well written but insubstantial.
"My New Year’s Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envys, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace."
It is sad how some people embrace and revel in their slavery.
And here’s a toast to the old fashioned hand crafted althouse blog. And in the category of best 2021 posts, Ann laughing at ducks with butts in the air, and her husband’s excellent video with musical accompaniment. (What was that song?)
Right, Bender. Denial and a holier than thou attitude is much healthier.
How to say "I'm not a Christian" without actually saying "I'm not a Christian". What a painful, hellish thing to wish for.
ust 12 months ago the US was energy independent and a net energy exporter.
Now we once again are dependent on the ChiComs and OPEC.
Democratical Mission Accomplished.
Will 2022 be the year that Taiwan and Ukraine cease to exist?
And before we blame Brandon, let's take a look at all of the "U.S. out of Afghanistan" crowd. China and the New Soviets know that if they move, no one will do anything about it.
Diaries or just more fiction? From the review: "She kept her diaries — she knew they’d be published one day — in French, German and other languages, in part to master those languages and in part to repel prying eyes." I dunno but, if you're writing a diary, which you believe/hope will be published, wouldn't you kinda, maybe, perhaps slant things to reinforce the persona you want people to see?
Wince said...
Just noticed "My New Year's Toast" is a double entendre.
My Year's Toast is indeed a double entendre but neither meaning fits anything in the list that follows after the inserted colon.
In 1948, there were obviously few psychologists available that could help her figure out that she was her very own worst enemy.
Bender said...
Will 2022 be the year that Taiwan and Ukraine cease to exist?
And before we blame Brandon, let's take a look at all of the "U.S. out of Afghanistan" crowd. China and the New Soviets know that if they move, no one will do anything about it.
So getting out of one dead war (that Trump signed up to do) to engage in WWIII against our most dangerous enemies is better? Perhaps you should read up on the complex history of the Cold War.
Brandon, at least, won his race.
Patricia, the girl who never grew up. Here's to a life that is gay, fanciful, unmoderated, and irreconcilable.
What a lady. Say what you will about the toast; she wasn't some John O'Hara or pathetic yet talented poetess with her head in a stove or a fifth of gin.
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