review: Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith
3.75/5⭐; spoilers
About a year ago, I went to Paris for my birthday. My cousin took me out to the cozy, however, overcrowded bookstore Shakespeare & Co. Her birthday gift to me was a book of my choosing, so as I was browsing the shelves trying not to disturb anyone around me, I saw this beautiful book. Hardback, interesting design, no blurb on the back, perfection. I didn’t look it up, I didn’t look at its rating, nothing. Saw the cover, saw the title - Strangers on a Train, that was enough. Instant buy. Of course, I ended up walking out of the bookstore with another book, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo - I had to, I was in Paris, afterall, - and with a Shakespeare & Co. sturdy tote bag. My favourite of the few I have.
Fast forward to last week and there I was with this stamped Shakespeare & Co. book in my hands. Strangers on a Train sucked me in with the first encounter between the two main characters, Guy Haines, an architect seeking a divorce, and Charles Bruno, a weird young fellow who seemed unhinged right off the bat. The latter’s craziness is completely unveiled the moment he comes up with the concocted plan of… double murder. Bruno’s so desperate to get rid of his father, presenting a barely there explanation, and through insistence and coercion, gets Guy to listen to him.
Bruno offers to kill Guy’s still-wife, Miriam, and, in exchange, Guy must kill Bruno’s father. Understandably, Guy dismisses the notion and once of the train, he hopes that his meeting with Bruno was a one-off. Of course, there’d be no story if Guy hadn’t left his Plato book behind allowing Bruno to track him down and become an insistent bothersome presence always at the back of Guy’s mind.
This novel heavily presents the power of human persuasion, the weakness of the human mind under pressure, and what psychological guilt can lead to.
It wasn’t an easy book to get through, mostly because I couldn’t bear Bruno’s character. This is the reason why it took me a while to settle on a rating. Bruno is presented as a maniac whose main goal is to have his father offed without involving himself. He’s looking for a scape goat, actually, and constantly tries to persuade Guy into giving in. He uses the murder of Miriam, which Bruno committed, as means of persuasion. Guy feels guilty for Miriam’s death, and as much as he tries to stay away from Bruno, the later keeps coming back into his life.
Eventually, Guy gives in and listens to Bruno and his absurd plan. Guy commits the murder and expects Bruno to be out of his life, only it doesn’t really go that way. The Bruno family’s private investigator is on their trail and Guy’s mind is constantly occupied with what will happen - it costs him his happiness and peace of mind with his lover and new-wife, Anne.
Bruno’s character was so annoying and desperate, essentially an alcoholic with many, many issues and reading his chapters and his interactions with other characters gave me a headache. I absolutely hate the man. On Highsmith’s part, this is brilliant writing - to get the reader to dislike a character so much they want him off the page, there are a lot of literary devices used for that. Also, it requires a lot of knowledge about the human nature. As such, the novel offers insight into the human nature’s weakness and darker sides.
Guy, I’d say is mostly chaotic neutral - he wants for Bruno to stay far away from him, and actually he dances all the time to the maniac’s jig. Guy is the example of people running away from their problems, instead of facing them. There were many instances when Guy had the opportunity to unmask Bruno as the criminal, and yet he chose to stay away, I’d say, for his own comfort. Ironic, though, since Guy never again gets to experience peace.
I realize this may be an incoherent review, and that I barely grazed the surface of what this book represents. I would encourage you to read it since I view it as a study of the human nature, of the darkest and most hidden corners of the human psyche.
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