The Talented Mr. Ripley
It's here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith's five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a "sissy." Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley's fascination with Dickie's debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie's ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game. "Sinister and strangely alluring" (Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly) The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confidence man, whose talent for self-invention is as unnerving--and unnervingly revealing of the American psyche--as ever.
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Community Reviews
I really can't decide what I thought about this book. I definitely enjoyed it, and even though I knew Tom Ripley would get away with the murders in the end, it was still fun to see how everything played out in the end. He's clearly pretty disturbed, especially his ability to compartmentalize the murders and manipulate everything and everyone. And omg there was so much GAY going on. Though does that mean that Tom is really trying to murder the part of himself that he sees as gay, since he murders the object of his affection/obsession? >.> But anyway, I liked the intense psychological aspects of the book and just exploring his mind and how screwed up he was lol.
While I enjoyed this book though, I'm not sure if I'm going to read the sequels. This book really felt like it should be a one-shot, and I feel like any other books aren't going to be as good as this one. This one defined the character and set him up and really explored his psychology, and I'm not sure what new things there are to say on the matter.
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