The Talented Mr Ripley

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THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY
- Patricia Highsmith -

Dickie Greenleaf, a young man from America, has moved to Europe to concentrate on his new life as an artist and painter. His parents are not too happy about it. They both want him to come home to America again, at least for Christmas, especially now when Dickie´s mother is seriously ill. They realise they cannot bring him back themselves, instead they start looking for some of Dickie´s old friends to help them out. They start searching among his social circles and they find a certain Tom Ripley, which everyone talks good about. Tom Ripley seems to be the first one who is actually willing to help old Mr and Mrs Greenleaf. They start planning Tom´s trip to Europe, how he will persuade Dickie to come home, and how Herbert Greenleaf will help Tom out economically.

When Tom finally reach the place where Dickie is living he immediately starts his mission, but he does not accomplish it the way as Herbert Greenleaf might wanted him to do...

Tom Ripley is what some people would call ´a nobody´, and this is something that the book keep mentioning. Tom is also aware of this and that is why he starts to act through his life. He adopts characters he meet and take over their role and do things he, Tom Ripley, ordinary would not dare to do. "He could become Dickie Greenleaf himself. He could do everything Dickie did."

Basically the main theme in this book is how an insecure and rather shy person manage to escape from his or hers mentally prison by acting someone else. Though, this book also describes, in this case, rather
drastic effects and the reason of the impersonating. It is really about the fear of losing control, which Tom actually does. When he gets insecure, he often panics and it results in him murdering someone, which turn the story into how Tom has to hide from the police and the book into a crime novel. Murder, forgery and impersonating permeate the book as well as the thoughts of a mad man, carrying the name Tom Ripley.

Your first opinion of Tom Ripley is that he is more or less suffering from paranoia.

"Tom glanced behind him and saw the man coming out of the Green Cage, heading his way. Tom walked faster. There was no doubt that the man was after him."

You are also very early told about his childhood, his parents died when he was very young and he had to live with his aunt, who according to him, treated him very bad. Now, at an age of 25 when he is finally living
on his own he realises what she really did to him and what effects it had. He has traumatic memories of her calling him a sissy. This is coming back to him when he is accused of being homosexual.

He is totally denying it, though it is evident that he is more attracted to men (especially Dickie) than to girls, this does not seem to be anything he has noticed, he sees himself as an asexual human being. "I can´t make up my mind whether I like men or woman, so I´m thinking of giving them both up." He often compares himself with Dickie, who you never really get to know.

Everything you know and experience in the book is through Tom Ripley. Tom sees Dickie as an attractive but naïve young man. He has no close relationship with him, though he pretend he has, when he suspect that Dickie might not like him he gets very disappointed. "It was as if Dickie had been suddenly snatched away from him. They were not friends.

They didn´t know each other. It struck Tom like a horrible truth." Tom Ripley is also very jealous at Marge, a woman that Dickie spent most of his time together with while being in Europe. Dickie was not romantically interested in Marge, but Marge was and it grew rivality between her and Tom. Tom is
constantly imagining himself killing Marge in all such of brutal ways. He finds her annoying and irritating, basically for being a woman.

"Tom hated her. He suddenly remembered her bra hanging over the windowsill in Mongibello. Her underwear would be draped over his chair tonight, if he invited her to stay here."

Since the book is told from Tom´s view you soon understand that his intentions are not to bring back Dickie home. He just takes the opportunity to make it to an advantage of his own. During his dialogues with himself and the
adventures of his imagination you get inside him, but you do not only see everything though his eyes, also through the eyes of the people he is impersonating. Though, everything is still how Tom believes they would
interpret the environment.

Through the chapters you always follow Tom, and what is happening to him. You never jump from place to place and everything is in chronological order. That is very facilitating since otherwise you might have problems with catching up and understand the story.

The book is timeless, though you could imagine it is supposed to be during the 50´s, and it takes place in both Italy and France. You only get a small insight of the scenery, though it is described as very beautiful but you do not get any revealing details. The language in the book is much more important than the environment, especially when Tom pretends to be someone else.
He has drawn in all their expressions and the way they sound. There are also small sentences in French and Italian to improve the impression of being in a foreign country still it is not difficult to understand. The language they use is
with no doubt upper class American English.

Patricia Highsmith, the author of this book, has told that she was ´interested in the effects of guilt´ and The Talented Mr Ripley is a good example of her
fascination. She also seems to focus on what a traumatic childhood could lead to. That a child need his or hers ...