I knew next to nothing about this book. I never watched any of the movie productions and haven’t yet watched the newish Netflix show. That was probably a good thing because it allowed me to be surprised at the turns of events several times in the book.

Set in the late 1950’s, the story begins with Tom Ripley trying to make a life for himself in New York and he’s not above a con game here and there. He’s approached by a wealthy businessman who believes that Tom is a friend of his son, Dickie. He offers to pay Toms travel and expenses to go to Italy and convince Dickie to return to America.

Once there, Tom inserts himself in Dickie’s life and sees that he’s a man who thinks nothing of money because he has plenty. Tom finds himself both fascinated by and jealous of Dickie and his lifestyle.

I really don’t want to say more because the events of the story build on each other and become a web of deceit and crime. It was a fascinating thriller and there are more Ripley books that I plan to read. In the meantime I’m looking forward to watching the Netflix series. ( )

A breathtaking dive into the mind of a sociopath, narrated by an actor who conveyed all the duplicity of his personality, to the point that you feel how he is a opaque to himself in a way, and aren't we all? Aren't we all in loathing of ourselves at some stage, willing to do everything to escape the boundaries of our socio-economic, personal, even interior identity?
In this sense, the literary ancestors of Tom Ripley are Mme Bovary, with her eternal, puerile dissatisfaction, and Mattia Pascal, with his futile attempt at escaping identity as a mean to conquer freedom.
However, mr Ripley leaves the parental nest quite early, ever the daring Young American White Male. His Bouvaristic pining for a life of luxury and affluence doesn't stop at second-hand enjoyments. He (or better his subconscious and his conscious rationalisations of murderous instincts) takes matters in his hands and becomes the protagonist of his fantasies in real life, no matter the price for others. Will he fall again into the throws of dissatisfaction that destroyed his literary mother? The novel leaves it to us to decide. Ok, yes, I know, there are sequels in which Ripley enjoys his wealth and position without qualms, but honestly, that guy is a pale ghost of the gloriously maladaptive social climber of the first novel.
In the light of the sequels, it is not surprising at all that this guy became the archetype of the charming psychopathic villain, although the role doesn't do the Ripley of this first novel any justice. The psychology here is too chiselled and alive, for a mono-dimensional Stavlo Blofeld in the making.

SMALL SPOILERS AHEAD

The only dated element is the facility with which a superficial disguise allows him not to be recognised by the same inspector under two different identities. Indeed, the movie with Matt Damon changed this detail, in an anxiety-driven scene where the feared meeting at the Venice police station is defused by the arrival of a different inspector than Ripley expected.

END OF SPOILER

This said, I am available to give this novel all the suspension of disbelief I am capable of. The portrait is too deliciously believable to condemn it because of secondary blunders like this, also because they don't influence the character's arc at all.
All in all, there is a lot that I am available to forgive Patricia Highsmith for, in the light of her superb characters. ( )

It's definitely a page-turner, but it's a page-turner in the same sense that [b:Crime and Punishment|7144|Crime and Punishment |Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1382846449s/7144.jpg|3393917] is a page-turner. That is, while the suspense element isn't lacking, it's mostly a psychological portrait of guilt and police procedure. And Ripley is a genuinely complex character with ambiguous morals and sexuality. But mostly, he's a guy that feels like he's deserved a better shake from life than what it's given him. A 20th century must-read. ( )

It's definitely a page-turner, but it's a page-turner in the same sense that [b:Crime and Punishment|7144|Crime and Punishment |Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1382846449s/7144.jpg|3393917] is a page-turner. That is, while the suspense element isn't lacking, it's mostly a psychological portrait of guilt and police procedure. And Ripley is a genuinely complex character with ambiguous morals and sexuality. But mostly, he's a guy that feels like he's deserved a better shake from life than what it's given him. A 20th century must-read. ( )

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6574022900

I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in this. I think it is a rare case of not one but both of the adaptations I’ve seen being better than the source material.

Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film with Jude Law as Dickie and Matt Damon as Tom, has a lively excitement and almost eroticism (especially in the first third) that the book simply does not have, almost shies from. Plus, we get the legendary Philip Seymour Hoffman as Freddie.

The more recent adaptation, the 2024 mini-series directed by Steven Zaillian featuring Andrew Scott as Tom and Johnny Flynn as Dickie, feels custom-made for me. Scott is about double the age of book Tom, and I did not find Johnny Flynn to be in any way comparable to Jude Law (but then, who is?), but the ambiance, the cinematography, and the fantastic performances by Scott, Dakota Fanning as Marge, and Eliot Sumner as Freddie (even if not remotely book accurate) produce a thing that is much more compelling than this book.

It is very readable, I’ll say that. Few chapters if any are more than 10 pages, so there’s always a sense of getting one more chapter in. Then again, Tom is simply not an enjoyable character in this debut. His self-hatred becomes tiresome, and while there are interesting bits in his exploration of Dickie and navigating his schemes, it all falls a little flat for me.

I wonder about the reception of this book on its publication in the 1950s. The 1999 film will have viewers thirsting over Jude Law. The 2024 mini-series has us thirsting over Andrew Scott, wishing we could go on a European vacation with the ill-gotten-gains. The 1955 book gives us a (closeted? probably?) Ripley that essentially detests everything, most of all himself; he is capricious, and mostly trades off of the incompetence or good faith of others, not necessarily his own cleverness.

I am not sure why I expected the book to be a little more gay, or at least a little more gay-friendly. I think many of my fellow gays have fallen for a straight guy, perhaps had the question of, “I don’t know if I want to be him, or sleep with him.” Tom clearly has this feeling, but is self-hating to the point of denial and scorn. Almost to the point of unawareness. I guess this was the expectation in the 1950s. The book rarely misses a chance to throw out words like fairy and sissy and queer, and again, I guess these are all the words that would be going around in the 1950s. The end result, however, is not the erotic, dark, passion of the 1999 film or even the 2024 adaptation. Instead, the scene of Tom dressing as Dickie feels more like Norman Bates wearing his mother’s clothes than something of passion. Tom is simply very cold, and his blue flame only crackles to life when he is smashing someone’s head in with an ashtray or lying to the police about it. Or, watching someone else struggle to lie.

In any event, the book is readable but after the first third it became a little laborious. I have a copy of the third book, but I probably will not get around to reading any of the sequels. ( )