2011 Reading #4: Strangers On a Train by Patricia Highsmith
1. Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution In Music by Marisa Meltzer.
2. The Patriot Witch (Book One of the Traitor to the Crown trilogy) by C.C. Finlay.
3. Power Girl: A New Beginning and Power Girl: Aliens and Apes by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Amanda Conner.
4. Strangers On a Train by Patricia Highsmith. I was worried, for much of the second quarter or so of this book, that I had overdosed on Highsmith. Part of the trouble, of course, was that I already knew the skeleton outline of this book, as does probably everyone who's seen more than three episodes of Law and Order. I keep running into this problem with Big Books like this, that their influence and/or impact is such that the book itself often has to succeed or fail based on things other than the iconic elements. Which this book does, in the end--in the early stages Highsmith's relentless examination of the psychology of the two characters sometimes feels excessive, but in the last twenty pages it all pays off in stunning fashion. I was very much reminded of two Scandinavian authors in the last third of the novel: Hans Christian Andersen and his story "The Shadow," which may best describe the dynamic at work throughout this book, and Knut Hamsun's Pan and its protagonist, Glahn, who reminds me very much of Bruno, especially at the end. I have no idea if those resonances were intentional or are even really there for readers who didn't major in Scandinavian Studies, but I'm fond of my reading.
2. The Patriot Witch (Book One of the Traitor to the Crown trilogy) by C.C. Finlay.
3. Power Girl: A New Beginning and Power Girl: Aliens and Apes by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Amanda Conner.
4. Strangers On a Train by Patricia Highsmith. I was worried, for much of the second quarter or so of this book, that I had overdosed on Highsmith. Part of the trouble, of course, was that I already knew the skeleton outline of this book, as does probably everyone who's seen more than three episodes of Law and Order. I keep running into this problem with Big Books like this, that their influence and/or impact is such that the book itself often has to succeed or fail based on things other than the iconic elements. Which this book does, in the end--in the early stages Highsmith's relentless examination of the psychology of the two characters sometimes feels excessive, but in the last twenty pages it all pays off in stunning fashion. I was very much reminded of two Scandinavian authors in the last third of the novel: Hans Christian Andersen and his story "The Shadow," which may best describe the dynamic at work throughout this book, and Knut Hamsun's Pan and its protagonist, Glahn, who reminds me very much of Bruno, especially at the end. I have no idea if those resonances were intentional or are even really there for readers who didn't major in Scandinavian Studies, but I'm fond of my reading.