Recently read Dorothy B. Hughes's The Scarlet Imperial and Patricia Highsmith's Deep Water back to back. Highsmith, at least in my book, isn't a noir writer by any stretch but certainly underlines who is. Her's is the more satisying effort here, in fact Ripliad aside, it's probably the most compelling Highsmith I've read. It's a very simple and even unoriginal tale of two married people who've grown to detest each other. The fact that our sympathies are almost entirely with one of them, but we understand the other equally well is testament to Highsmith's skill. Another factor is the small New England town they live in. The protaganists play on the support of each of their friends and neighbours in their poisonous battle, and as we watch them take sides a vicious, and ultimately brutal story, unfolds.
Highsmith is above all a realistic writer. Her characters are flesh, blood bone and brain believable. Hughes is quite the opposite, a romantic (as all noir is) who very much disliked Highsmith's approach. Certainly she was a generation older, but her antipathy is reminiscent of Charlotte Brontë's toward Jane Austen: "Miss Austen merely writes about what is real. I write what is true."
The Scarlet Imperial is a classic McGuffin, an egg with no real import that's good in parts. It's about one woman and three men. Two of the men are prospective love interests, the third is a father figure/mentor. All are dodgy, all are charismatic, who should Eliza believe? Who should she choose? Who the hell is she anyway? Only the last question is of interest, to me any rate. Hughes witholds as much information as she can get away with, for as long as possible about Eliza. We don't know whether she's implicit in the loss of The Scarlet Imperial, or being used by one or more of the men to get it, or even if that's her real name. By releasing information piecemeal and sporadically, at unlikely intervals, Hughes kept my attention glued to the page for well over half the book. After her identity is revealed however, my interest fell off a cliff. Still and all it is a pretty darned good half a book.
Highsmith is above all a realistic writer. Her characters are flesh, blood bone and brain believable. Hughes is quite the opposite, a romantic (as all noir is) who very much disliked Highsmith's approach. Certainly she was a generation older, but her antipathy is reminiscent of Charlotte Brontë's toward Jane Austen: "Miss Austen merely writes about what is real. I write what is true."
The Scarlet Imperial is a classic McGuffin, an egg with no real import that's good in parts. It's about one woman and three men. Two of the men are prospective love interests, the third is a father figure/mentor. All are dodgy, all are charismatic, who should Eliza believe? Who should she choose? Who the hell is she anyway? Only the last question is of interest, to me any rate. Hughes witholds as much information as she can get away with, for as long as possible about Eliza. We don't know whether she's implicit in the loss of The Scarlet Imperial, or being used by one or more of the men to get it, or even if that's her real name. By releasing information piecemeal and sporadically, at unlikely intervals, Hughes kept my attention glued to the page for well over half the book. After her identity is revealed however, my interest fell off a cliff. Still and all it is a pretty darned good half a book.
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