The Talented Mr Ripley: Patricia Highsmith’s Chilling Portrait of an Amoral Charmer
A suspenseful story of two friends, a crime novel and a classic of noir. The amoral Tom Ripley and his ego lead him to commit a fatal crime, and a misunderstanding makes him believe he has reason enough. The Talented Mr Ripley (1955) introduced one of the most disturbing characters in crime fiction: a killer we find ourselves rooting for.
Author: Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995)
Title: The Talented Mr Ripley (1955)
Format: English Kindle edition, introduction by John Sutherland
Series: First of five Ripley novels
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/B00HVF6S1C (ASIN B00HVF6S1C)
Taking Dickie’s Place
Tom is sent to Italy to bring home Dickie Greenleaf, the son of a rich American, and becomes fascinated by his life. Neither Dickie’s friends nor his family ever suspect him. With his gift for imitation and forgery, Tom types a will in his friend’s name on Dickie’s own typewriter, and so keeps the fortune and possessions of the friend he idolised.
The Perfect Cover
The evidence, including fingerprints that match only those of the victim, leads the authorities to believe that Dickie took his own life, and the crime is covered up. Tom walks free of all blame.
Tom Before Italy
When the novel opens, Tom Ripley is a young man in New York living by small frauds, impersonating a tax official to trick people into sending him cheques he has no way of cashing. He is poor, lonely and full of resentment, with a talent for observing other people and copying them. When Herbert Greenleaf, a wealthy shipbuilder, mistakes him for a friend of his son and offers to pay his passage to Italy to persuade Dickie to come home, Tom seizes the chance to become someone else.
Mongibello
In the fictional village of Mongibello, on the coast south of Naples, Dickie lives a lazy life of painting, sailing and drinking, with his friend Marge Sherwood always nearby. Tom is dazzled by the ease of it all, the sun, the money and Dickie’s careless charm, and his admiration turns into obsession and envy. Highsmith’s descriptions of Italy in the 1950s, from Rome to Venice, give the book a seductive surface that makes its moral emptiness all the more chilling.
Highsmith’s Achievement
Patricia Highsmith’s first novel, Strangers on a Train (1950), had been filmed by Alfred Hitchcock. With Ripley she did something bolder: she made the reader identify with a murderer and, against every convention of crime fiction, let him get away with it. She said she sometimes felt that Ripley was writing the book himself. The novel won the French Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and Highsmith returned to Tom in four more novels, from Ripley Under Ground (1970) to Ripley Under Water (1991).
On Screen
René Clément’s Plein Soleil (1960), with Alain Delon, Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), with Matt Damon, and Steven Zaillian’s black-and-white series Ripley (2024), with Andrew Scott, each find something different in the story. The novel, with its claustrophobic access to Tom’s thoughts, remains the most unsettling version.
Why Read It
It is one of the great psychological thrillers, and its influence on crime fiction can hardly be overstated: every charming, amoral narrator since owes something to Tom. Highsmith’s flat, precise prose makes his reasoning seem almost normal, which is the most frightening thing about the book.
A Mask of Cordiality
The killer’s letter to the victim’s family, full of lies and deceit describing a warm and affectionate friendship between the two, unsettles the reader: our fear of this psychopath grows as we see that behind his mask of friendly cordiality lies a cold, calculating murderer without feelings. Highsmith’s great trick is that we still, somehow, want him to get away with it.
As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases.
Part of the reading recommendations featured on books.sapiensverbum.com.
