Patricia Highsmith

I recently finished Joan Schenkar's biography of the novelist Patricia Highsmith. It was a very interesting read. Figure 1 shows the cover of that book. I've seen four movies that I know of, based on her books. The first is Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 "Strangers on a Train" that I saw many decades ago and just now watched again because I'd forgotten the details completely. The second is "The Talented Mr Ripley", the third is "Carol" based on her novel "The Price of Salt" and the fourth is "The Two Faces of January". Sadly, I've not read any of her books as yet but may get around to doing so
.

Figure 1: front cover of biography

Some details that emerge from the biography are:

• she was predominantly a lesbian although she did have some affairs with men
• she started off writing captions for comics in the 1940's
• her novels usually involve murder and duality e.g. Tom Ripley impersonating Dickie
• she had an intense love-hate relationship with her mother
• she had little contact with her biological father and never liked her step-father
• she enjoyed sketching, gardening and working with wood (making tables, chairs etc.)
• her sexual relationships with women were very stormy
• she travelled relentlessly, especially in her earlier years
• she was more comfortable living in Europe and was far better known there
• all of her novels were translated into French, German and other European languages
• many of her novels were made into movies, either in Hollywood or Europe
• she drank prodigiously throughout her life (and smoked as well)
• she ate very little
• she was parsimonious, although sometimes uncharacteristically generous

Figure 2 shows her chart and I'll try to relate it to some of the dot points I've made earlier.

Figure 2: https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Patricia_Highsmith

Patricia's sexual ambiguity (she felt from an early age that she was a boy) is attributable to Mars conjunct Venus in the fourth house in Pisces. The fourth house represents ones psychological foundations suggesting the male and female principles struggling for supremacy and the boundaries between the two eroded by the amorphous nature of Pisces. She was always at war with herself or her mother, onto whom she tended to project her this inner conflict. She perceived less as a mother figure and more as a rival. She was largely raised by her grandmother for the first six years of her life and she got on well with her (Moon trine Sun).

The struggle between Mars and Venus in her psyche is echoed in the conjunction between Jupiter (her ruling planet) and Saturn in her tenth house, in Virgo. Once again there are two diametrically opposite tendencies in close proximity to each other. This constant tension in herself, that she usually projected into her relationships, was fuel for her novels and whenever she was going through a period of relative equanimity in herself and in her relationships, her productivity would suffer. The pairing of Mercury (ruler of her tenth house) and the Sun on the cusp of the third house is consistent with her career as a novelist.

Her penchant for homicide as a plot element in her novels can be attributed to the close trine between Mars and Pluto (in the eighth house) or the almost exact trine between Pluto and the mid-point of Mars and Uranus. Murder was always on her mind, with sex and death closely interlinked.

Her fondness for gardening and her lifelong interest in woodworking can be attributed to her grand trine in Earth signs, the Sun is in Capricorn, the Moon in Taurus, and Saturn is in Virgo. The Moon in Taurus accounts for the importance she attached to her base or bases of operation. Even though she moved continually between the United States, England and Europe (Sagittarius is rising let's not forget), the houses in which she lived were very important to her.

There is an almost exact quincunx between Neptune and the mid-point of Mars and Venus. Patricia's copious consumption of alcohol was a constant throughout her life and doubtless this aspect contributed to her dependency.

That's enough for now. I'll probably return to this later and add more comments. Here are some snaps of the movies that were made from her books: Figures 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Figure 3: A thriller centred on a con artist, his wife,
and a stranger who flee Athens after one of them is
caught up in the death of a private detective.

Figure 4: A psychopath forces a tennis star to comply with
his theory that two strangers can get away with murder.

Figure 5: In late 1950s New York, Tom Ripley, a young underachiever,
is sent to Italy to retrieve Dickie Greenleaf, a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy.
But when the errand fails, Ripley takes extreme measures.

Figure 6: An aspiring photographer develops an intimate
relationship with an older woman in 1950s New York.