Mystery Review: The Talented Mr. Ripley is the work of an expert of the grotesque, dropping us deep into the mind of a sociopath and suggesting that it's not all that different from the existentialist nightmare. It's an uncomfortable place to be, and can become exhausting for the reader as the "protagonist" repeatedly and narrowly evades the forces pursuing him. I couldn't keep track of what lies he had told to whom and when. Began to be overwhelming as the reader waits for Ripley to slip up. The reader understands Ripley's sexual confusion better than he does, but Patricia Highsmith (1921-95) doesn't overtly conflate it with his sociopathy. Rather, she creates a profound character unable to accept himself, trying to change his "dreary role" of "being nobody ... looked down on ... incompetent and incapable." To escape his boring identity by becoming another person: "If you wanted to be cheerful, or melancholic, or wistful, or thoughtful, or courteous, you simply had to act those things with every gesture." At one point he even forgets the sound of his own voice. Ripley is happiest when acting a role, becoming another, the person he feels he was meant to be. The one limitation of The Talented Mr. Ripley is that it becomes a one-trick-pony. The bulk of the book is watching as Ripley frets, panics, schemes, and puzzles about what will happen. The reader wonders how long Highsmith can play that one note, but she does it so well! The author here sees the moral construct through a divergent lens: she's determined that the one outside the law is the hero, that wrong will win over right. Ripley is a classic and interesting character. "Something always turned up. That was Tom's philosophy." The Talented Mr. Ripley is the first in a five-book series about Ripley (the "Ripliad"). Although this was an effective and affecting experience, I'll take my time in reading the others. [4★]
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