“Ever since she was a young girl, [Patricia Highsmith] had felt an extraordinary empathy for animals, particularly cats. The creatures, she said, 'provide something for writers that humans cannot: companionship that makes no demands or intrusions, that is as restful and ever-changing as a tranquil sea that barely moves'. Her affection for cats was 'a constant as was feline companionship wherever her domestic situation permitted,' says Kingsley. 'As for animals in general, she saw them as individual personalities often better behaved, and endowed with more dignity and honesty than humans. Cruelty to or neglect of any helpless living creature could turn her incandescent with rage.' Janice Robertson remembers how [...] Highsmith was walking through the streets of Soho when she saw a wounded pigeon lying in the gutter. 'Pat decided there and then that this pigeon should be rescued,' says Janice. 'Although I think Roland persuaded her that it was past saving, she really was distraught. She couldn't bear to see animals hurt.' Bruno Sager, Highsmith's carer at the end of her life, recalls the delicacy with which the writer would take hold of a spider which had crawled into the house, making sure to deposit it safely in her garden. 'For her human beings were strange - she thought she would never understand them - and perhaps that is why she liked cats and snails so much,' he says.” HumansGirlIndividualAnimalSeaHonestyStrangePersonalityCreaturesBehaviorEmpathyHumanDignityCatAffectionRageCrueltySavingWriterWritersNeglectAnimalsWoundedCompanionshipCatsUnderstandTranquilDelicacyFelineRestfulPersonalitiesDemandsSpiderDistraughtPigeonYoung GirlCrawlGutterDepositSnailsIntrusionsSafelyIncandescentBehaved Book:Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι Source: Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι
“If [Patricia Highsmith] saw an acquaintance walking down the sidewalk she would deliberately cross over so as to avoid them. When she came in contact with people, she realised she split herself into many different, false, identities, but, because she loathed lying and deceit, she chose to absent herself completely rather than go through such a charade. Highsmith interpreted this characteristic as an example of 'the eternal hypocrisy in me', rather her mental shape-shifting had its source in her quite extraordinary ability to empathise. Her imaginative capacity to subsume her own identity, while taking on the qualities of those around her - her negative capability, if you like - was so powerful that she said she often felt like her inner visions were far more real than the outside world. She aligned herself with the mad and the miserable, 'the insane man who feels himself one with all mankind, all life, because in losing his mind, he has lost his ego, his self-ness', yet realised that such a state inspired her fiction. Her ambition, she said, was to write about the underlying sickness of this 'daedal planet' and capture the essence of the human condition: eternal disappointment.” PeopleLifeMindLyingImaginationFictionVisionMankindIdentityEgoAmbitionEmpathyHumanMadDisappointmentContactInsaneMiserableHypocrisySicknessDeceitAutismAvoidanceVisionsLoathePlanetAvoidOutsideSplitIdentitiesCharadeEmpathiseSelf NessSubsume Book:Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι Source: Patricia Highsmith, ζωή στο σκοτάδι