The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 19, 2016 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, psych-psych-psych, classic, suspense-thriller, 1001-books, hard-boiled, literary-schmiterary, oh-unlikeable-you

This is just delicious! Tom is so irascible, such a complete misanthrope!! Each time he thinks he's set, something else comes up and the vise tightens. Tom Ripley is clearly a sociopath, and yet I found myself fully empathizing with him. Talk about tension!

He is just so full of irritation and hate, his thoughts made me laugh. For example, during an evening in Venice:

Marge was in a giddy mood that irritated Tom throughout their long five-course dinner, but he made the supreme effort and respon

This is just delicious! Tom is so irascible, such a complete misanthrope!! Each time he thinks he's set, something else comes up and the vise tightens. Tom Ripley is clearly a sociopath, and yet I found myself fully empathizing with him. Talk about tension!

He is just so full of irritation and hate, his thoughts made me laugh. For example, during an evening in Venice:

Marge was in a giddy mood that irritated Tom throughout their long five-course dinner, but he made the supreme effort and responded in kind—like a helpless frog twitching from an electric needle, he thought—and when she dropped the ball, he picked it up and dribbled it a while. He said things like, “Maybe Dickie’s suddenly found himself in his painting, and he’s gone away like Gauguin to one of the South Sea Islands.” It made him ill. Then Marge would spin a fantasy about Dickie and the South Sea Islands, making lazy gestures with her hands. The worst was yet to come, Tom thought: the gondola ride. If she dangled those hands in the water, he hoped a shark bit them off.

It took me a little while to get into at first. In the beginning, not really much happens, Tom has a lot of internal conversations and it's not clear where the story is going. I wasted a lot of mental energy trying to remember what happened in the movie, which was a mistake. I should've just trusted the story.

By the 40% mark, it became difficult to set the book down! The noose tightens .... The noose loosens ... The noose tightens again .... Delicious shivers!!

One could say (and I'm going to say it) that this is like a mash-up of James' The Ambassadors, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I haven't actually read The Ambassadors, but it's mentioned in this book so I looked it up, and the set-up is the same as this one - basically, young man goes to Europe to retrieve another young man. So, if you ever wondered: "what would happen if Jay Gatz impersonated Lewis Strether and then acted like Rodya Raskolnikov?" ... well, here ya go! Though I don't know why anyone would wonder that.

Now I want to watch the movie again to see how close it is to this fantastic book!

Really, just ignore my subpar review and read this excellent book!! ...more

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