Mr Ripley and You

After publishing this novel in 1955, a quarter of a century later, Highsmith returned to Ripley for another novel. Then again in 1974, 1980 and 1991. Five novels (the Ripliad!) but 25 years between the first and the second.

I was quite surprised to learn about the other four novels once I finished this one. There is nothing in this novel which suggests four sequels. Knowing nothing about Highsmith, I have no idea why she decided to turn this into a series after two decades. It is also odd that we do not yet have a Made-for-Streaming-Service Ripliad series. The plots of the first five seasons are good to go.

The first novel really is a made for TV plot. Tom Ripley, an American of dubious moral character, cons his way into a free trip to Europe to meet with the son (Dickie) of a wealthy New Yorker, and then travels about a bit in an idle way reminiscent of The Beautiful and Damned. Eventually, and you knew this would happen because the book is in the collection Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s, Ripley gets around to murdering Dickie so he can impersonate him and live off Dickie’s income. The bulk of the novel is solving all the problems that come about when trying to pull off a con of this magnitude. Suffice it to say: it is not easy to kill someone and take on their identity. You might want to think again about your plan to do so.

At that level, the novel is a pleasant enough read. Highsmith’s prose is good and the Reader gets to spend lots of time trying to imagine how to weasel out of the latest difficult as Ripley is trying to figure out the same thing. Plenty of intellectual puzzles to keep the pages turning.

There is, however, a deeper matter well worth pondering. Tom Ripley has found his way to Sicily, imitating Dickie, but has run into yet another snag:

Beyond Sicily came Greece. He definitely wanted to see Greece. He wanted to see Greece as Dickie Greenleaf with Dickie’s money, Dickie’s clothes, Dickie’s way of behaving with strangers. But would it happen that he couldn’t see Greece is Dickie Greenleaf? Would one thing after another come up to thwart him—murder, suspicion, people? He hadn’t wanted to murder, it had been a necessity. The idea of going to Greece, trudging over the acropolis as Tom Ripley, American tourist, held no charm for him at all. He would as soon not go. Tears came into his eyes as he stared up at the campanile of the cathedral, and then he turned away and began to walk down a new street.

Tom Ripley likes pretending to be Dickie Greenleaf. It isn’t really about the money at all; it is about the thrill of pretending to be someone he is not. Why is that a thrill?

Highsmith cleverly sets the stage for this aspect of Tom’s personality early in the novel. Before heading to Europe, Tom in involved in an elaborate scam. Having stolen some letterhead from the Department of Internal Revenue, he sends letters to artists, writers, and other free-lance workers informing them that there was an error in their income tax forms and they owed more money. Fake phone number to call; fake address to which to send the money. The scam works; rather than fight over adjustments to their tax bills, people dutifully send checks to the fake address. Ah, but here is the twist. The checks are inevitably made out to The Department of Internal Revenue. Tom cannot cash the cheeks. He never makes a dime off the scam. He knows he will never earn anything from the scam. The scam, pretending to be someone he is not, is the whole point. Again, why is this a thrill?

There is another interesting feature of Tom Ripley’s psyche. He like to imagine things; he likes to imagine himself in situation after situation. He sets the scene, and works out the whole conversation. He goes over the situation time after time. Eventually, the imagined situation takes on the aspect of reality for Tom. He is good at pretending to be Dickie because he plays out the role of Dickie time and again in his mind. You can see the effect in the passage quoted above. Tom ruminating about how he really wants to go to Greece as Dickie, internally notes, “He hadn’t wanted to murder, it had been a necessity.” Note, Tom is not saying this to anyone but himself. Yet, it is not true. It is not even remotely true. There was absolutely no reason for Tom to have murdered Dickie; no necessity at all. Yet Tom has imagined the narrative so much, it has become reality.

Why is Tom like this? Perhaps the more interesting question is: are you really that surprised that Tom is like this? Tom spends a lot of time crafting an image of himself to be seen by the world. The images he crafts happens to be those of Internal Revenue agents or wealthy sons. The images he creates of himself have different names than the one he received at birth. They aren’t really him, of course. When we think about how he is pretending to be someone he is not, we focus on the different name. Tom and Dickie are not the same person.

You do the same thing, of course. You too spend idle minutes imagining the future, picturing conversations yet to be had in your mind. You too craft an image of yourself to present to others. You do this every day. You prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.

You even have multiple faces that you have crafted. You play your roles in different ways depending on the situation in which you find yourself. Sure, all these faces have the same name as you, but they are distinct personalities, distinct people, with slightly different mannerisms and ways of speaking and even, most likely, dress. You don’t really think of these images of yourself as different people than you. They really are you. Honestly. Yeah, they act a bit different than you do here or there, but it’s not like you are pretending to be someone else. Just the new you. The better you. The you that you would be if you could be. The not-so-boring you.

Tom Ripley is a cold-blooded murderer. You (hopefully) are not. But, the murder isn’t the thrill of Ripley’s life. The thrill of his life is pretending to be someone he is not. You and Tom Ripley aren’t really all that different. You too have a role you would love to be able to play for the rest of your life, to start again as that new and better person without all the baggage and problems of your current life. You have imagined many times what that life would be like. You and the Talented Mr. Ripley are not really all that different. He is just better at it than you.