Great Beginnings Book Club discussion

Hello everyone, David here. Thank you to those who managed to join our digital meeting for Ripley! I hope that people and their families remain safe and well during these uncertain times. If there is anything that the library can do for you, whether it’s just help with getting access to ebooks and audiobooks or finding reliable health and financial information, please know that we are here for you right now.

I know that the situation for the Great Beginnings Book Club is less than ideal, especially with the need for some creativity in getting books to people while our physical locations are closed. Just know that I really appreciate your continued patience and good humor. I look forward to discussing many more books with everyone in the months to come. Our selection for May, The Blithedale Romance , is just one of thousands of books in the public domain that are worth remembering and exploring. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s completely free for people to read and download. Feel free to contact us at Moffat Library if you need recommendations or help getting public domain books.

But enough housekeeping, let’s talk about The Talented Mr. Ripley! It’s not every day that we get to read a watershed book in a particular genre. Ripley was a formative moment for psychological thrillers – and, in my opinion at least, a clever twist on classic whodunit style mysteries. Here we already know all the information of the case since we ride along in the murderer’s head, but we get to watch the police slowly close around him, waiting to see if they can reach the correct conclusion in the end. It was quite entertaining to watch Ripley imagine all the ways that the detectives could deliver a summation of how they discovered his guilt, and then for him to desperately try to avoid such a situation. For a villain protagonist, Ripley certainly tries to work hard for his success, even as a judicious amount of luck and naiveté on the part of those around him deliver far better results than his own skill.

1.
Tom is unmistakably a villain protagonist. That is, despite being the main character and having a sympathetic point of view (there’s no better opportunity for readers to understand Ripley than by being present for his own thoughts), Ripley’s place in the story is destructive. Earlier villain protagonists tended to brooding figures with deep personal flaws (think of Shakespeare’s Richard III) who tend to enjoy their malevolence. In contrast, part of the main argument for Ripley’s “affability” is just how casually he treats his murders. They aren’t something on which he normally dwells, and he’s just as happy to get what he wants without murder.

What makes for a well written villain protagonist? As a reader, do you prefer the villains be sympathetic, with complex and nuanced motivations or just be fascinating, stylish, and a worthy adversary for a hero? Does Tom have any sympathetic characteristics? What is his eponymous talent?

“After all, would anyone, anyone, believe that such a character had ever done a murder? And the only murder he could possibly be suspected of was Dickie’s in San Remo, and they didn’t seem to be getting very far on that. Being Tom Ripley had one compensation, at least: it relieved his mind of guilt for the stupid, unnecessary murder of Freddie Miles.” (pg. 194)

2.
Much is made by several characters of Tom’s supposed homosexuality. Tom himself resents the idea, but his attachment to Dickie is unmistakable. Does Tom’s sexuality play a role in the novel? Does it provide a motivation for his murders or for his goals? Given the fact that his murders are primarily ones of self-advancement or convenience to protect his false version of events, it does not seem that sexuality is a major factor. It is worth noting, however, that Highsmith herself was gay and that she openly included homosexual relationships and themes in other novels. Her 1952 romance novel The Price of Salt was possibly the first lesbian novel with an affirming and relatively happy ending. The Price of Salt was later republished under the title Carol and adapted as the critically acclaimed film of the same name in 2015. For all of the speculation by characters within the novel, Ripley is a decidedly non-erotic, non-romantic story. What should we make of this tension? And what of Dickie’s friendships with Tom and with Marge? Why was Dickie generally so welcoming to Tom in the early stages of the novel?

(As an aside, I think it is worth mentioning the similarities between Ripley and A Separate Peace . Both involve friendships between two figures, one relatively timid and shy and the other gregarious and generous with others. Both involve episodes where the narrator has a strong emotional reaction to wearing a shirt belonging to their friend. Both have potential – but not overt – homosexual undertones. And, in both cases, the narrators are ultimately responsible for their friend’s death. Is this a valid comparison to make?)

“Tom laughed at the phrase ‘sexual deviation’. Where was the sex? Where was the deviation? He looked at Freddie and said low and bitterly: ‘Freddie Miles, you’re a victim of your own dirty mind.’” (pg. 147)

3.
Luck plays a significant role in Ripley’s success. Indeed, if not for Marge’s spur of the moment decision to conclude that Dickie committed suicide, Ripley would have almost certainly killed her and been caught shortly afterward in the tangle of his own lies about Dickie and Freddie’s deaths. Several times throughout the story, evidence surfaces that Ripley did not predict or had expected to remain hidden, such as the bloodstained boat in San Remo and Dickie’s possessions at the American Express in Venice. And it seems that only the sheer audacity of Ripley’s plan prevents people from suspecting his version of events. No one in the police imagined that the testimonies that they received from Dickie in Rome and from Tom in Venice were actually from the same person.

At the same time, Ripley does work exhaustively to imagine how people might react to his claims and how he might respond in order to convince them of his sincerity. He practices his Dickie and Tom personas over and over until he can switch seamlessly from one to the other. And he genuinely plans out his moves days and weeks in advance in expectation of the sort of actions Dickie and Tom needed to take to make it appear that both were alive.

Were the Italian police genuinely incompetent or did they reach the most likely conclusion based on the evidence and testimony available to them? Was Ripley successful in anticipating how people would react to different bits of information and what pieces of evidence he would need to control? Would Ripley be able to pull off his plan in a more modern world with cell phones, CCTV and video surveillance, and online records?

“It was a good idea to practise jumping into his own character again, because the time might come when he would need to in a matter of seconds, and it was strangely easy to forget the exact timbre of Tom Ripley’s voice. He conversed with Marge until the sound of his own voice in his ears was exactly the same as he remembered it.” (pg. 122)

4.
Ripley is a dark retelling of Henry James’s 1903 novel The Ambassadors where a family friend travels to Europe in an effort to convince a wayward son to return home to contribute to the family business. Along the way, the narrator discovers how Europe provides an allure as a cultural and emotional outlet for stunted Americans even as it hides additional decadence and danger. In a bit of ironic intertextuality, Mr. Greenleaf recommends The Ambassadors to Ripley during his journey across the Atlantic.

The treatment of Americans abroad in Ripley provides a good look at a bygone historical era of international travel and expatriation. What are we to make of the treatment of Dickie, Tom, and Marge in Italy? How has our picture of tourism changed since both 1903 (when The Ambassadors was published) and 1955 (when Ripley was published)? Are Americans viewed the same way abroad? Do we view Europe the same way? Are American tourists regarded with the same degree of prestige and deference that we see Dickie and Tom receive?

”So they were still looking for Tom. But maybe it meant that something had happened on the Miles case, too, Tom thought. The Italians didn’t summon an American in words like these. That last paragraph was a plain threat. And of course they knew about the forged cheque by now.” (pg. 191)

Stay well everyone!
As always, feel free to answer any, all, or bring up your own questions.