Hello, faithful readers of my blog! I'm sure you all have been desperately awaiting my next post after last week's brilliant performance, so fear not! I have returned, and I have a LOT to say.
So now I'm going to solely focus on our book The Price of Salt, and I'm going to try to keep my thoughts as organized as possible. Furthermore, I'd like to add that sometimes I might not be able to provide a lot of evidence to back up my personal reactions; while I'll try to avoid doing this as much as possible, sometimes I'm just using a little speculation and imagination to fill in the blanks in certain scenes. I know that's not universally accepted in the writing world, but hey, it's my blog.
Eventually I'd like to talk about some of writing styles and techniques of Patricia Highsmith, what I like and don't like, but for now it's all about characters. This book is very much about the relationships between the main people, so let me begin with my initial view of the big three, Richard, Carol, and Therese, and I say "initial" because it all changes big time.
Richard makes me feel bad. He really does. He seems like he has a big heart, but he's got issues. I want him to succeed but his job as a painter is pretty stagnant and his relationship is DOOMED. It was doomed even before Therese met Carol. But something about him makes me like him; he appears to be aggreeable and confident, as Therese says, "I like his attitude-more than most men's," (81) and he definitely treats Therese with respect as he is unquestionably in love with her. Therese frequently suspects that he only likes her because she has sympathy for his dream, but I don't see it at all. For one reason or another, he loves her, and Therese admits, "He does treat me like a person instead of just a girl he can go so far with or not" (81). I know some people think he's manipulative when he wanted to stay with Therese even after she said she didn't love him, but come on! They are "together"! (I think? It gets really unclear but they certainly have been seeing each other for a long time). It wasn't smooth or well timed, but you can't fault a guy for wanting to sleep with the girl he's loved and dated for years! And I think he was genuinely embarrassed/sorry afterwards. I can't really back that up, but so far there is little to suggest Richard is in any way abusive towards Therese. Moreover, I feel as though he's the most dimensional character in the novel so far. While Therese and Carol are always kind of the same person, Richard can range from being happy and confident and laughing to moody and downright furious. I know having a temper isn't really a positive trait, but in a story full of flat characters, Richard feels the most human; he also has a purpose to his life other than love, namely his painting career, which is hard to say about Therese. So I have to sympathize with the guy, so he makes me sad.
Then there's Carol. It's hard to say a lot about Carol, because she's so goddamn mysterious. That's sadly the best way to describe her. So far we know she's a babe, she is getting divorced from a nice but an emotionally detached man, she has a child who she loves, and for whatever reason she likes Therese. We don't even know why. Therese is head over heels in love; we know that because she says it in her mind all the time, but we get no such luck with Carol. Frankly, I'm a little mixed about Carol. She can sometimes be very cool and relaxed, which is fine, but sometimes I get a very aloof sense from her. I think she does like Therese sincerely, but I have little idea what her plans are.
Finally, we have Therese. Honestly, I don't even feel bad, and I reaaaaally don't like her. Here's why: as this super timid, visibly emotionless, and practically silent female, Therese is the direct opposite of myself, so it's very difficult to relate, but I'll try to put that to the side. That said, I don't like the way she treats my man Richard. I know she told him she doesn't love him, but they've been at the very least good friends for a long time, so constantly saying you can't hang out with your best friend for dumb reason after dumb reason is not cool at all, especially if you're dating! She just keeps blowing him off and being really curt with him. Furthermore, she goes crazy in the whole kite scene. I get it; the kite=Carol, but in the end, it's a kite. Richard made it, he can decide if he cuts it. So she treats Richard like garbage and she bases her whole life around Carol. She fell in love with Carol when she met her. Why do I feel this is important? Because I don't care what anyone says, I've felt that feeling when I see a beautiful girl. It feels great. You want to just take her on a nice dinner date and walk around holding hands and get ice cream and kiss her good night. But in my brutally honest opinion, it doesn't matter if you're not thinking directly about sex, it's still lust. Plain and simple. Love is what you feel when you realize that if the person you're in love with got into a horrible accident and lost their beauty, you still couldn't live without her. Sure sexual attraction is a large part of being in love, but it's a part, not a whole! For the most part, Therese is feeling a form of LUST. So I don't like the way she treats Richard or her idea of love, and I know this is superficial, but to me she's just such a bummer. She shows almost no emotion, other than her bubbly excitement when with Carol. She's not funny or nice. I don't know why Richard likes this girl. People make stupid decisions when they're in love or whatever.
So what I'm going to do now is end on a bit of a cliffhanger. I would love to spew everything on my mind right now but then frankly I wouldn't have much else to write about in future blogs. So all I'm going to say is although Carol stays pretty much the same, we get a very different look at both Richard and Therese right around chapter thirteen. Very different. In fact, it's almost hard to believe the words coming out of their mouths at certain points, and some of the things I just said kind of fall apart. So before you leave seething responses about how I'm reading the wrong book and what not, be aware that these are INITIAL opinions and inferences. I'll talk next about how their characters change or become more apparent. So tune in next time for more high quality book reading!
Hi Steven, I think that your analysis of the characters is very thorough, and it's clear you are very passionate about your feelings towards the character. That said in terms of your comments about Therese, while I agree that a lot of the things especially concerning Carol seem extreme and bizarre, I think we should take both her age and inexperience in the world of relationships into account. Therese is nineteen years old, which in my mind is quite young. I am eighteen and certainly don't consider myself an expert on what is or is not love. That said seeing as Therese has never expressed any feelings for a woman before Carol, one can't really judge the validity of her "love", and considering that Therese has no other comparisons to draw from, her use of the term "love" could legitimately describe her feelings for Carol.
ReplyDeleteHey Steve, this was a pretty cool way of organizing your thoughts about the characters. I think you're right about Richard in that he seems very genuine in his love for Therese, but I feel that the other characters aren't as 'flat' as you say they are. Therese and Carol don't change very drastically but the Therese and Carol you know now definitely feel much different from the beginning of the book. I also think that Carol is very mysterious, but less so after all the exposition about her past love for Abby and I feel that her love for Therese becomes more sincere as we discover this past(Oh and I don't think Harge is nice after what he does to Carol on her trip). As for Therese, she is definitely the least liked character. In fact, most of her emotions are so blatantly against how most people would react that it might have been purposefully done so (but I wouldn't know the reason).
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