Are people still awake and posting?!
Mar. 31st, 2006 01:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaWell, okay, then I'll post what I journaled on bookcrossing.com, for Patricia Highsmith's The Tremor of Forgery.
I wish someone else I knew had read this recently so I could discuss it with them. :P It's deeper and more enigmatic than I thought it would be - I expected a psychological thriller but it's hardly a genre novel at all, despite the sensationalistic cover. The exotic locale is Graham Greene-like but not the style (nor the POV I think). It's one of those cases where the writing is taut, the whole well-structured and I can tell every scene takes place as the author intended - I greatly enjoyed reading it, I just have no idea what happened. Or rather I have ideas and directions of inquiry, but no sense of certainty.
(The last time this happened was with an early Murakami Haruki work that I think is not widely available in English.)
What blocks me might be the over-simplicity of the dichotomy pulling at the protagonist, as he and the other characters in the book conceive of it: Western/conventional ethics versus Arabic/moral vacuity...? I keep thinking it can't be as black and white as that, if only because Highsmith draws such a scathing portrait of both the monoculture-blinkered "our way of life" American and the NYC intellectual who despises him (going by this book telecommunications have changed immeasurably since 1969, American attitudes vis-a-vis Middle Eastern politics and each other not at all), but for both the Arab is inextricably Other... I mean I can't tell if it's consciously post(?)-colonialist or not. Ahaha um. Actually I get the impression all that is a red herring and the real tension/opposition is between what Ina represents and what Jensen represents, and the fracturing not to say outright dismissal of conventional ethics is on Jensen's part (N.America vs Europe? heterosexual vs homosexual?). Ingham and Jensen's interaction is loaded with crypto-gay (and not so crypto-) but Highsmith likes to mean something by that, it's not to be dismissed as slash fangirl meandering.
Ingham's sympathy definitely lies with the latter, anyway (he keeps stressing that the hero of his novel sees nothing wrong about what he's doing, only the disapproval of his peers baffles/irritates/saddens him). I guess the question I'd like to be able to answer for myself is, has his stay in Tunisia cleared his head and made him see what he really wants (Lotte???), or is he going to think he was nuts as soon as he gets back to New York? The ending sort of suggests the latter, but if so, why? Because he was polluted by Tunisian moral vacuity? Because he didn't go far enough and should have eloped to Copenhagen with Jensen and *avoids what passes for a major spoiler in this book*? Um, I guess you can see what I was secretly rooting for there but I get the impression Highsmith wanted the reader to think that way. Except um. I dunno.
In conclusion, if you can get hold of this book easily, read it! It's enjoyable and well-written enoughalso there is crypto-gay, and I badly need a second opinion. XD
I wish someone else I knew had read this recently so I could discuss it with them. :P It's deeper and more enigmatic than I thought it would be - I expected a psychological thriller but it's hardly a genre novel at all, despite the sensationalistic cover. The exotic locale is Graham Greene-like but not the style (nor the POV I think). It's one of those cases where the writing is taut, the whole well-structured and I can tell every scene takes place as the author intended - I greatly enjoyed reading it, I just have no idea what happened. Or rather I have ideas and directions of inquiry, but no sense of certainty.
(The last time this happened was with an early Murakami Haruki work that I think is not widely available in English.)
What blocks me might be the over-simplicity of the dichotomy pulling at the protagonist, as he and the other characters in the book conceive of it: Western/conventional ethics versus Arabic/moral vacuity...? I keep thinking it can't be as black and white as that, if only because Highsmith draws such a scathing portrait of both the monoculture-blinkered "our way of life" American and the NYC intellectual who despises him (going by this book telecommunications have changed immeasurably since 1969, American attitudes vis-a-vis Middle Eastern politics and each other not at all), but for both the Arab is inextricably Other... I mean I can't tell if it's consciously post(?)-colonialist or not. Ahaha um. Actually I get the impression all that is a red herring and the real tension/opposition is between what Ina represents and what Jensen represents, and the fracturing not to say outright dismissal of conventional ethics is on Jensen's part (N.America vs Europe? heterosexual vs homosexual?). Ingham and Jensen's interaction is loaded with crypto-gay (and not so crypto-) but Highsmith likes to mean something by that, it's not to be dismissed as slash fangirl meandering.
Ingham's sympathy definitely lies with the latter, anyway (he keeps stressing that the hero of his novel sees nothing wrong about what he's doing, only the disapproval of his peers baffles/irritates/saddens him). I guess the question I'd like to be able to answer for myself is, has his stay in Tunisia cleared his head and made him see what he really wants (Lotte???), or is he going to think he was nuts as soon as he gets back to New York? The ending sort of suggests the latter, but if so, why? Because he was polluted by Tunisian moral vacuity? Because he didn't go far enough and should have eloped to Copenhagen with Jensen and *avoids what passes for a major spoiler in this book*? Um, I guess you can see what I was secretly rooting for there but I get the impression Highsmith wanted the reader to think that way. Except um. I dunno.
In conclusion, if you can get hold of this book easily, read it! It's enjoyable and well-written enough
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-31 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-31 04:33 pm (UTC)Last night after I talked it out with myself (contents of post) I grew increasingly convinced that it was really about HOMOSEXUALITY, as metaphorically expressed through KILLING PEOPLE. Which basically makes it like the Ripley movie but much more subtle. Hey maybe all Patricia Highsmith's books are about MURDER as a metaphor for GHEI, that would be... sort of horrible actually.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-31 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-31 04:54 pm (UTC)Mkay, I just read the description of yours and you're game, I tink. Sadly, I just looked and my lib doesn't have The Tremor of Forgery. My local discounted books store might, though. I'm pretty sure they have a bunch of Highsmith's books, unless visual memory is screwing with me. Will check it out this weekend.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-31 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-31 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-31 11:47 pm (UTC)