2011 Reading #18: A Game for the Living by Patricia Highsmith
Books 1-10.
11. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron.
12. The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith writing as Claire Morgan.
13. Surviving the Siege of Beirut: A Personal Account by Lina Mikdadi.
14. Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason.
15. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.
16. The Robotics Primer by Maja J. Matarić.
17. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi.
18. A Game for the Living by Patricia Highsmith. This book starts with a murder, but it's not really a mystery novel and it's not a crime story; it's mostly a psychological novel about the contrasting reactions to the murder by the victim's two lovers. Mexican painter Lelia is murdered and mutilated, and friends and semi-rivals Theodore--a wealthy German expatriate--and Ramón--a furniture-maker and devout Catholic--have very different reactions. Theodore is bewildered and determined to find answers; Ramón is consumed by guilt for his occasional fights with Lelia. Highsmith spends the entire novel bouncing the two men and their worldviews off of each other. In the process much is revealed about Ramón's character, but less about Theodore's; on the other hand, Ramón becomes a bit of a caricature of a religious thinker, while Theodore is the calm and rational atheist. It's something like Strangers On a Train in that it's really about the collision of two men, but the two men don't feel quite equally balanced, here. It's still an impressively plotted and crafted piece of work, but as a character study I don't think it quite does what it sets out to do.
11. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron.
12. The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith writing as Claire Morgan.
13. Surviving the Siege of Beirut: A Personal Account by Lina Mikdadi.
14. Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason.
15. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.
16. The Robotics Primer by Maja J. Matarić.
17. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi.
18. A Game for the Living by Patricia Highsmith. This book starts with a murder, but it's not really a mystery novel and it's not a crime story; it's mostly a psychological novel about the contrasting reactions to the murder by the victim's two lovers. Mexican painter Lelia is murdered and mutilated, and friends and semi-rivals Theodore--a wealthy German expatriate--and Ramón--a furniture-maker and devout Catholic--have very different reactions. Theodore is bewildered and determined to find answers; Ramón is consumed by guilt for his occasional fights with Lelia. Highsmith spends the entire novel bouncing the two men and their worldviews off of each other. In the process much is revealed about Ramón's character, but less about Theodore's; on the other hand, Ramón becomes a bit of a caricature of a religious thinker, while Theodore is the calm and rational atheist. It's something like Strangers On a Train in that it's really about the collision of two men, but the two men don't feel quite equally balanced, here. It's still an impressively plotted and crafted piece of work, but as a character study I don't think it quite does what it sets out to do.