A review by sbright421
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Talented Mr. Ripley is a certified page-turner that follows the travels of Tom Ripley and/or Dickie Greenleaf through Europe in the 1950s.  I don't read fiction that often, but when I do it's usually because I need something that will get me through a book quickly and rebuild my love of the fun of reading.  I don't always have to learn something when I read, I can do it for entertainment as well.  This book definitely delivered the entertainment, I couldn't put it down and was eager to get to the apex of the plot to see if Tom Ripley could wriggle his way out of another or more sticky situations that he ultimately created for himself.  If you need something to read quickly, and breeze through, I definitely would recommend giving this book a shot.  I also loved how vividly the various places in Europe are described in the book.  Mongibello is the Italian name for Mount Etna (I think) so the town itself might not exist but when Highsmith describes this town on the coast of Southern Italy it really feels like you can transport yourself there.  Her descriptions of places like Paris, Rome, and the south of France really allow you to escape for a moment and it's easy to see how this was a book that had a really good skeleton to be made into a movie.   The descriptions of the places reminded me a ton of Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne series in that sense, and they both were turned into movies.  The characters, even the ones that only are described for a page or two, each have unique quirks that make them memorable and add to the suspense of the story.  Highsmith is clearly a talented writer who strength is bringing people and places to life even on a black and white page.  

I also really enjoyed Tom as a main character.  He reminded me a lot of Patrick Bateman from Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho in the way that they were very clearly flawed people but drove the story in a way where their unreliability was unavoidable (in Ellis's case you really couldn't escape it because Bateman was the narrator, and while Tom Ripley wasn't the narrator the story was told from his perspective).  I was never quite sure if I was rooting for Tom to get away with everything or whether I wanted him to get arrested, and that was fun to toy with in my head as I kept reading the story. I had some issues with the plot and how believable the premise of the story is, and I definitely spoil the ending, but I describe why below and is ultimately why I gave the book four stars.  The plot's unbelievability took away a ton from what was otherwise a fantastic book. 


SPOILERS BELOW

The story itself though left a little bit to desire for me.  I kept asking myself why these characters were even doing what they were doing in the first place.  It almost seemed pointless, and I couldn't get that out of my head.  Why would Dickie's dad go and try and find Tom Ripley and trust him with all of this money to try and get his son back from Europe?  Why didn't the dad just fly over himself, which he obviously have the means of doing so, to try and convince him instead of trusting some random stranger with all of this money to do it for you?  It's no surprise that Tom gypped him, at least to me.  The whole premise of the story was just a little bizarre, but it didn't stop my from wanting to find out what happens.

The ending was kind of a total dud too.  There is no way in hell Dickie's will would've left everything to Tom, and the fact that Dickie's parents just totally go for it was something that I just totally rejected in my head.  The fact that that was how the story ended was so ridiculous.  How did Highsmith make an entire series out of this?