Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
Tales of the Natural and Unnatural
In this eerily up-to-date collection, Highsmith's incisive prose chronicles a world gone slightly mad, its catastrophes precipitated by human folly and excess. From the White House under siege by the homeless to a 190-year-old woman perpetually near death and dimly glowing, each tale unfolds the illogical extremes of humanity in the late twentieth century. Highsmith transm...more
Paperback, 192 pages
Published
January 31st 1994
by Atlantic Monthly Press
(first published 1987)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
203)
When reading Patricia Highsmith, I always expect her stories to have some sort of point. Is the story about cockroaches in a luxury apartment building about the idle rich getting their comeuppance? Is the story about homeless people picnicking on the White House lawn advocating the institutionalization of the homeless? Surely, in a few more pages, the story will take some twist to make it clearer where she's going with this. But instead, the story just ends naturally and inconclusively. There is...more
Feb 21, 2010
Lobstergirl
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
ten year olds
Recommended to Lobstergirl by:
Evan Bayh
A pretty low quality collection of tales. The first one, about mysterious excrescences growing in an Austrian cemetery, was about on the level of the horror stories I wrote when I was fourteen. In tone and style, these remind me of Roald Dahl. The one I liked best was about a corrupt west African nation expecting a visit from a U.N. watchdog group - but first they have to kill all the homeless people and burn their bodies, spiff up the Presidential Palace for their visitors, and try to get rid o...more
An interesting collection of bizarre short tales from a skilled yet tortured writer in her later years, better-known as the author of The Talented Mr Ripley. Every one of these stories follows poor judgement, misunderstanding, mixed with a heavy dollop of stupidity - and gleefully describes the disastrous outcome. Clever satires, they lurk on the edge of our tenuous reality, making us wonder if any of these tales could actually take place. There is little by way of dialogue, but that doesn't see...more
I’m a sucker for Patricia Highsmith, but this was the first of her non-Ripley books I’ve read. These gloomy short stories are all about beginnings – Highsmith constructs a nightmarish or upsetting scenario, lets the consequences play out for a handful of pages… and then stops abruptly, apparently uninterested in conclusions.
Stories with an agenda, sure, but I don't see the problem with that. It's still Patricia Highsmith, and although it certainly isn't her best work she still gets the characters and their motives and delusions painfully right almost every time.
Although I am not a friend of short stories (they seem to end before they have actually started), this is the second book with short stories by Patricia Highsmith I have read.
I did not like all of them; and the one with the liberated patience from the mental homes and the other with the cockroaches I liked best. The Pope with the red slippers isn't bad either and I really wonder where she got all her ideas from. No wonder the book is called "Tales of the Natural and Unnatural" where in my eyes t...more
I did not like all of them; and the one with the liberated patience from the mental homes and the other with the cockroaches I liked best. The Pope with the red slippers isn't bad either and I really wonder where she got all her ideas from. No wonder the book is called "Tales of the Natural and Unnatural" where in my eyes t...more
Witty political fables, which often stray into the fantastic. Not recommended to "conservatives".
Definitely not up to her usual standards. Awkward, cartoonish stories. Read any other Highsmith first.
Some of these stories are great. I love her minimal but somehow foreboding style of writing, and the sudden endings - they set these stories apart from others in the somewhat saturated genre.
Ham-fisted. Avoid.
LOVE HER
Short stories with an agenda. I'm guessing this was not the best book to read to get an introduction to Highsmith.
If you hate roaches, never read this book.
Humor negro, negro, negro! Gostei muito de alguns contos; doutros, nem por isso...
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist who is known mainly for her psychological crime thrillers which have led to more than two dozen film adaptations over the years.
She lived with her grandmother, mother and later step-father (her mother divorced her natural father six months before 'Patsy' was born and married Stanley Highsmith) in Fort Worth before moving with her parents to New York in...more
More about Patricia Highsmith...
She lived with her grandmother, mother and later step-father (her mother divorced her natural father six months before 'Patsy' was born and married Stanley Highsmith) in Fort Worth before moving with her parents to New York in...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
Jan 29, 2010 08:24pm