NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

<EM>Patricia Highsmith:</EM> Nothing That Meets the Eye

By Reviewed by Linda Herrick
21 Jan, 2006 08:24 AM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Patricia Highsmith, the US writer who came to fame in 1951 when Alfred Hitchcock filmed her first book Strangers on a Train, is still best known for her studies of the suave sociopath Tom Ripley. It's hard to believe now that the chillingly charismatic Ripley first appeared way back in 1955, resurfacing several more times in book form and then much later in film.

In the mid-70s, Dennis Hopper played Ripley in The American Friend, a version of Ripley's Game, directed by Wim Wenders. In 1999, Matt Damon and director Anthony Minghella turned Ripley into a priss in The Talented Mr Ripley, but thankfully John Malkovich nailed our hero's fastidious malevolence in 2002's Ripley's Game, imbued with a European sensibility by director Liliana Cavani.

It was right that a European director would "get" Highsmith. Her prolific output — 30 novels and collections of stories — has more of a European flavour than American, a cool eye, a detachment, time taken over craft and character as much as plot.

Highsmith spent many years of her adult life in Europe — she died in Switzerland in 1995 — but this collection of stories written between 1938-1982 (many have never before been published) offer a clue as to why she was underestimated in America during her lifetime. She was too subtle.

On the other hand, she has long been exceptionally popular in Britain and Europe, especially Germany, and this collection has been gathered together by her Swiss primary literary editor, with an overall assessment by a German critic.

Sexuality was inevitably a factor in her work. As critic Paul Ingendaay points out in his interesting end-essay, Highsmith hid her gay predilections during her youth, from her parents anyway, and underwent psychotherapy "in order to be 'cured of her condition'."

Whether or not as a result of that short-lived repression — for she went on to have many affairs while still craving solitude — loneliness and despair thread through most of her oeuvre. Misogyny is also present — revenge, Ingendaay suggests, on spurned lovers.

And there is one more word, or human foible, evident in this collection. Writes Ingendaay, "Despite their [the stories'] consistent literary mastery, their central motif can be summed up in a single word: failure."

There are murders, suicides and psychoses aplenty in Nothing That Meets the Eye, but what is also pleasantly present in some stories is a pure quality of compassion. Born Failure is about a gentle man called Winthrop Hazlewood who has been a hardworking financial no-hoper all of his life. When he comes into a windfall, then loses the lot before he gets back home to the celebrations, he is redeemed by the reaction of his wife and neighbours. They love him for what he is.

In The Trouble With Mrs Blynn Highsmith squares off two aspects of elderly women: Mrs Palmer, who is dying in a seaside cottage in England, and Mrs Blynn, the mean-spirited nurse who covets Mrs Palmer's brooch. It is Mrs Palmer's misfortune at her moment of epiphany to die gazing into the "glassy, attentive eyes" of Mrs Blynn.

Man's Best Friend features another loser, a dentist called Dr Edmund Fenton. Fenton's only companion is a German shepherd, Baldur, given to him by a woman he loved as consolation for her rejection. Fenton doesn't relate to the watchful young dog, who he believes is judging him. "He felt the dog was saying as he stared down his long nose: 'You failure, you poor excuse for a man! Now I see you in your proper setting, eating your miserable dinner in your shirtsleeves at the end of a kitchen table'."

Fenton grows ever more depressed, then tries to commit suicide, twice. Both times Baldur saves him, and Fenton's life starts to change. By the time his former love invites Fenton and Baldur to a cocktail party, which goes badly for her, the good doctor is feeling much better about himself. "Baldur looked up at him with a smiling adoration and with understanding," writes Highsmith. "Dr Fenton winked at him."

It's not always so sweet. Mid-life ladies are often the target of Highsmith's scan. Where the Door is Always Open is a day in the awful life of Mildred, a desperate clerk living in New York who is dreading the arrival of her older sister from Cleveland.

Mildred is dashing home with a leaking bag from the delicatessen to get the apartment cleaned up for inspection before dashing back to the station to meet Edith. Everything goes wrong, and Mildred is left defending her existence, as opposed to the alleged idylls of Cleveland. Anyone familiar with sibling rivalry will experience a frisson.

Another highlight, one of many, is The Pianos of the Steinachs, in which a deluded, extremely immature 36-year-old invalid called Agnes Steinach imagines that an arrogant young music student brought to stay at the house by her older piano teacher sister will be her lover. Agnes, dumpy and doughy of flesh, also believes she is as willowy as the maidens depicted in her favourite book, Ivanhoe. The outcome is counter to those wild expectations.

As varied as her characters are — two pigeons are the leads in one dotty story — as well as the predicaments they find themselves in, there are many things to savour here: Highsmith's economy of prose, her dark perception of behaviour and motivation, among them. She can also be extremely funny, macabre and tough. Let's hope she will continue to reach the wider audience she deserves, even though she's not around to savour it anymore.


* Bloomsbury, $59.99
* Linda Herrick is the Herald books editor

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Lifestyle

Lifestyle

No more crying in the kitchen: 'Tearless' onions launch in NZ - at a cost

07 Jul 06:27 AM
Premium
Lifestyle

My weird week on a Government-prescribed ‘perfect diet’

07 Jul 06:00 AM
Premium
Lifestyle

What makes someone cool? These six traits it seems

07 Jul 01:08 AM

Sponsored: Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

No more crying in the kitchen: 'Tearless' onions launch in NZ - at a cost

No more crying in the kitchen: 'Tearless' onions launch in NZ - at a cost

07 Jul 06:27 AM

Tearless onions are now being grown in Auckland and sold nationwide.

Premium
My weird week on a Government-prescribed ‘perfect diet’

My weird week on a Government-prescribed ‘perfect diet’

07 Jul 06:00 AM
Premium
What makes someone cool? These six traits it seems

What makes someone cool? These six traits it seems

07 Jul 01:08 AM
Premium
I thought my stitch was from over-exercising. It turned out to be cancer

I thought my stitch was from over-exercising. It turned out to be cancer

07 Jul 12:25 AM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP