The Incidental Mass Murderer

Title: The Talented Mr Ripley

Rating: 5 Stars

I hadn’t read this book in decades. Over the past year or two, I’ve developed a deeper appreciation for Patricia Highsmith. Rereading this novel deepened this appreciation even more.

This novel is basically Highsmith’s version of Henry James’ Ambassadors. In both, a wealthy parent is worried about a son that is apparently wasting his life in decadent Europe. In both, they send a person out to convince the young man to return home and to take up his preordained place back in the States. In both, instead, the person that they send ends up being seduced themselves by the romantic antiquated dereliction of Europe.

What makes the two novels different is that, while James uses it as an opportunity for a deeply sensitive comparison of the stunted American life to the broader, more romantic European life and the struggle of the ambassador between duty and desire, Highsmith uses it as an introduction of her most popular and durable character, the murderous sociopathic Tom Ripley.

Tom Ripley is in New York, kind of running from the law doing a half hearted IRS scam, when Herbert Greenleaf runs into him. Thinking that Tom is a close friend of his son Dickie, he bores Tom with his description of Dickie idling off in Italy, striving to be a mediocre painter, when he has a bright career ahead of him at the shipyard that Herbert runs. Tom is disinterested but his ears perk up when Herbert mentions that he’d be willing to send Tom to Italy, all expenses paid, to try to convince Dickie to come back home.

Knowing that the police might be nipping at his heels at any moment, Tom sees this as a great opportunity to escape. He agrees to go to Italy, even though he barely knows Dickie.

Once in Italy, after some initial fumbling, Tom becomes good friends with Dickie. Tom falls in love with European life. He does not want to go back to the States. Dickie has his own trust fund that can sustain him indefinitely. Tom hopes that he can ingratiate himself with Dickie and that they can live together in Europe. To Tom’s dismay, it becomes increasingly evident, even with Tom’s best efforts, that Dickie is beginning to lose interest in him. Being one of the often bored idle rich, Tom is just no longer amusing to Dickie. Once Dickie catches Tom wearing his clothes, it’s only a matter of time before Dickie abandons Tom.

A half formed plan begins to develop in Tom’s head. Tom and Dickie are about the same size and bear a certain resemblance. Tom is a gifted mimic. Perhaps he could kill off Dickie, forge Dickie’s trust checks, wear his clothes, and become Dickie? Once the idea comes into his head, he seems compelled to act. In a boat far off shore, he kills Dickie, throws him overboard, and scuttles the boat. He heads back to Dickie’s place, packs all of Dickie’s things, and heads off to Rome as Dickie.

From that point on, he has to be two steps ahead of everyone. Dickie’s kind of girlfriend, Marge, is looking for him. Dickie’s good friend Freddie catches onto Tom’s game (as can probably be guessed, this is not great for Freddie’s long term health). The Italian police are asking a lot of questions. Dickie’s father, along with a private investigator that he’s hired, have arrived in Europe. He has to, at the drop of a hat, assume the identity of either Dickie or Tom. As his crimes, violent or not, continue to accumulate, he expects to be arrested at any moment.

This expectation is what makes this novel great. Ripley is, in fact, not some genius mastermind two steps ahead of everyone else. He’s at best half a step ahead desperately having to make spur of the moment choices. Most of his actions are simply leaping at opportunities as they arise. Switching back and forth between Tom and Dickie causes so much confusion among all involved that they don’t know what to think. At any moment it appears that Tom’s lies will be exposed but he continues to barely just escape. Murder is never far from his mind. At one point, Tom stands over Marge with a shoe just waiting for her to make the connection that will force Tom to beat her to death.

Speaking of Marge, here is another troublesome female Highsmith character. I’ve written about this before (here). Highsmith was a bisexual woman that apparently preferred to be around men but have sex with women. Women in her novels usually do not come off well. Marge seems to actually be fairly innocuous. Tom simply can’t stand her. He sees her as clingy, simpleminded and vacuous.

Tom’s sexuality is also in question. Is he in love with Dickie? If so, is it sexual love? Does Dickie respond? It’s pretty clear that Marge thinks that Tom is gay and is trying to seduce Dickie. On the one hand, Tom seemingly has no interest in women at all. His one relationship with a woman in New York is successful precisely because neither one of them desire the other sexually. He does have an attraction to Dickie, but it’s not clear that it’s sexual. Given Tom’s sociopathic tendencies, is he even capable of love? Given Highsmith’s own struggles with her sexuality, leaving Tom’s sexuality open is an interesting choice.

As I was writing this, I did a quick search of my blog and realized that, way back in 2017, I’d actually re-watched the film and wrote about it here. Having written close to 900 of these posts, I guess that I can be forgiven the fact that I’ve forgotten about this post. It is interesting that I apparently enjoyed watching the film as much as I enjoyed reading the book. I do remember that the acting and the casting in the film was first rate.