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I begin this post with a warning to the many devoted Goldfinch fans who evidently put the latest Tartt magnum opus on a par with the Bible. You won’t like this, not one little bit. You see, I put down The Goldfinch smack bang in the middle of it and picked up The Glass Cell, which I didn’t stop reading until I finished it. ‘OMG, How COULD you? The greatest book in the whole history of books ever and you did THAT????’ I can hear them all, as I write. Well, I did, so there.

I needed to take something to an afternoon of film noir and the only goldfinch in existence which weighs two ton was not what I was going to take with me. For a start, what if it pooed in the cinema? That alone would weigh more than this petite offering from Highsmith.

Rest here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/the-glass-cell-by-patricia... ( )

I begin this post with a warning to the many devoted Goldfinch fans who evidently put the latest Tartt magnum opus on a par with the Bible. You won’t like this, not one little bit. You see, I put down The Goldfinch smack bang in the middle of it and picked up The Glass Cell, which I didn’t stop reading until I finished it. ‘OMG, How COULD you? The greatest book in the whole history of books ever and you did THAT????’ I can hear them all, as I write. Well, I did, so there.

I needed to take something to an afternoon of film noir and the only goldfinch in existence which weighs two ton was not what I was going to take with me. For a start, what if it pooed in the cinema? That alone would weigh more than this petite offering from Highsmith.

Rest here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/the-glass-cell-by-patricia... ( )

http://www.book-blog.com/2012/06/highsmith-patricia-the-glass-cell.html ( )

An innocent man imprisoned. Beaten down (literally) by the authorities, addicted to painkillers, helplessly watching his wife create a life on her own—and then freed, to do what?

Highsmith was inspired to write this book by a fan who wrote to her from prison, and the book does feel at times like an expose, not merely of poor prison conditions (though these come into play) but of the psychological trauma that prison can inflict and the impossibility of getting past it. Prison life changes main character Philip Carter—it causes him to doubt human nature in a way he never had before. (Indeed, his earlier tendency to trust is what landed him there.) It also causes him to doubt the system, as it obviously didn’t work for him. Authorities, promises, relationships—none of it means what it did. And without that grounding, how can he get along in the world? Upon his release from prison, he has every financial and material advantage one might want in his situation, but the psychological damage has been done. Can he be healed?

I was surprised to find that I wanted Philip to get away with terrible acts—some against innocent people. Such is the beauty of Highsmith’s characterization and her framing of the situation. Philip does plenty of things that are clearly wrong, but he’s been pushed to a point where he can’t operate logically anymore. I had to take pity and want his suffering to end.

See my complete review at Shelf Love. ( )