Highsmith and Gloria

Highsmith interested me a lot while writing my third paper and I couldn't help relating her to Gloria while I was reading Queenpin. Highsmith felt unattached to people and was similar to Gloria in that she never wanted a relationship with anyone. The difference is that she had sex and affairs with everyone, while Gloria refrains from it all. Highsmith had a love for destroying other relationships and loved to be the other women. She found some satisfaction in breaking love as the way Gloria reacts when killing Vic I think, a strong need to destroy. In an biography written about her there was a quote taken from Highsmith where she says, “I learned to live with a grievous and murderous hatred very early on. And learned to stifle also my more positive emotions.” I think this is the way the mobsters work, they all have the same mentality. Gloria is training her new girl so that she can learn to live with murderous hatred and stifle her positive emotions to become more successful. 

Here's the interesting article on the review of her biography: Highsmith

Women in Cotten and Queenpin

The portrayal of women in Queenpin and Cotton Comes to Harlem is something I've been thinking about lately. In Cotton the women are used so vulgarly as sexual beings, while some of them tend to have strong personalities it seems whenever a women is discussed sex must be mentioned. Then when it comes to Queenpin sex is used again in a vulgar manor as our main character can't get enough of it and it drives her insane. Yet the whole time Gloria is trying to teach her "how to keep her legs closed" while in cotton women use their sexuality as a tool. So which is more effective? The women who use their celibacy as a weapon or the women who use their bodies as a tool? I think refraining from sex is what helps them the most, sex for women makes them seem weaker and uncontrollable even though it works to their advantage at times. When it boils down to it women cannot be respected by men if sex is put on the table I think in these two novels.

Immaturity with Tom and Dix

I know we stopped talking about Tom Ripley and Dixon Steele, but I just thought I'd throw this idea out for you.  Are Dix and Tom immature?  The more I think about it, they kind of are.  Tom does rather childish things, such as wanting to travel to Paris in coffins.  And then when Dickie understandably turns down the idea, he gets upset, like a child would.  There is no denying that Tom is definitely confused mentally, however I would argue that many of his tendencies come from his immaturity.

Dix on the other hand may not look immature on the surface, but I really think he is.  He is so quick to act with violence, it's like he is a bully in high school.  The second you step to him, he resorts to violence.  In addition, his work ethic is even immature.  He refuses to read the book he has to adapt, he gets a girl to read it for him, and when he does finally decide to do work, he acts like he is the only person in the world.  To me, that is very childish.  As a grown adult, you have to live by certain standards and jumping to violence and being a needy worker are not those standards.  I know there are so many readings of Tom and Dix, but I just think the immaturity aspect is certainly plausible.

Who's Your Favorite?

Just curious. I think we've got a wide enough range of characters with a wide enough range of personalities and motivations that there could potentially be a lot of different answers. For me, my favorite has gotta be the talented Tom Ripley, issues and all.

Weakness in "Queenpin"

This was an entertaining but, overall, disappointing read- our nameless narrator is a wet noodle, displaying almost no agency and just generally getting swept along. The bulk of the plot centers on her heedless manipulation by an alcoholic/gambler on an endless losing streak. Then, even after realizing that she'd been played both sexually and financially, the narrator is still unable to pull the trigger, and Gloria has to kill Vic herself. In the end, it really just seems that Queenpin's narrator is a lens from which to view Gloria, and not necessarily a strong character herself.

This is why I find it laughable when reviews say things like "Queenpin is a story about crossed loyalties and personal rebellion" (James Winter, http://januarymagazine.com/crfiction/queenpin.html). Where is the rebellion? The narrator is a conformist trying, and failing, to become a clone of Gloria Denton. Her relationship with Vic certainly does not constitute a rebellion precisely because she does not initiate it- she is played, and simply swept along. Nearly everything that she does professionally is the result of some direction by Gloria- the narrator merely follows orders.

I suppose that Gloria is a more compelling character, but it still feels like she's trying to be hardboiled and just not cutting it. Maybe at first she was passably so, but when she kills Vic by needling him a thousand times she loses that credibility. It just doesn't seem to work when a character talks sharp and hard but then gets all hyper and hysterical when the knives come out- it's not cold-blooded or as deliberate, and this is what made Frank Chambers and Johnny Marr so interesting.

Follow the Money

Cotton Comes to Harlem got me thinking about the trajectory of money. Think about the Greenleaf money. It starts with an old-time bourgeois who actually builds things and has a hands-on involvement with his business. Then it goes toward a cheerful idler with no interest in such things. Then it ends up in the hands of a psychopath who has better tastes than the cheerful idler and whose remunerative labor is basically personality-work: he runs on charisma and performances. Do any aspects of this trajectory remind you of other texts?

The "Irony" Article

Get a load of this! Christy Wampole, part of whose article on irony we dissected in class, has a band! Also, a Drexel professor gave a big wtf to her article too.