The talented Mr Ripley door Patricia Highsmith

1. The title of the book is: ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’. It has 249 pages and 30 chapters. 2. The book is called ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ because Tom Ripley is the main character of the book, and in the book, he displays his talents in impersonating and tricking people. 3. It was written by Patricia Highsmith, also famous for writing the book ‘Strangers On A Train’ later to become a movie directed by the famous Alfred Hitchcock. ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ is also one of her books that was adapted for the silver screen. She died on the 4th of February in 1995. 4. The book was written for quite a broad audience, I reckon, because it’s an easy read, but it still challenges the imagination. So it's not difficult to read for younger people but it has enough plot twists to keep anyone interested.
5. I think the writer tried to make the reader feel a bit uneasy. All through the story people are being followed or on the brink of being arrested, and every time you think a character is safe, something will happen that will alter everything. 6. The genre of the book is detective fiction. The story revolves around a crime, and whether or not it will be solved. 7. Thomas “Tom” Ripley: He is the main character. He is very cunning and a great con artist. When he’s Tom, he’s very shy and modest, a character he resents. He tries to escape his lifestyle by adapting someone else’s identity. Marjorie “Marge” Sherwood: She lived in Mongibello, along with Dickie. She’s quite gullible and Tom dislikes her strongly, even though he has to act like he likes her because she can provide him with an alibi. Richard “Dickie” Greenleaf: He’s a wealthy, flamboyant person who moved from America to Italy to paint. 8. The story takes place in the present, when it was written in 1955. The only tell-tale sign that it’s an outdated book is that Tom is able to live royally on 600 dollars for over two months. 9. There are a couple of flashbacks, for instance: When talking to Dickie’s father in the beginning of the book, he looks back on an incident a couple of weeks earlier when he thought he was going to get arrested for fraud, but the phone call was for someone else, who had been involved in drug peddling. 10. The story takes place in a lot of different places. In the beginning of the book they’re in America, then Tom travels to Mongibello, Italy. Then he travels to San Remo, Paris, Rome, Venice, Palermo and Naples. The story ends in Athens. I know so because it is told, for example: ‘It was the way Tom had felt, too, approaching Palermo. He had spent two days in Naples, and there had been nothing of any interest in the papers about the Miles case and nothing at all about the San Remo boat…’
11. The story was realistic, everything is described in detail and nothing happens that couldn’t happen in real life. 12. Tom gets an assignment from a vague acquaintance of his, Herbert Greenleaf, to try and talk his son into coming back to America. At first when Tom arrives in Mongibello, Dickie doesn’t want anything to do with him, but after a while they befriend each other. Tom moves in with Dickie so he doesn’t have to sleep in a hotel, but after a while of close contact, the jealous Marge tells Dickie she suspects Tom to be homosexual. Dickie starts to alienate Tom, making Tom feel like a failure. On a trip the two of them make to San Remo, -which Tom considers to be heir last trip, because he is sure Dickie wants him to leave Mongibello -Tom’s frustration builds up to the point where he decides he has to kill Dickie, and that he could then become Dickie Greenleaf himself. Tom asks Dickie to join him in taking a boat, and when they are on open sea, Tom bludgeons Dickie to death with the boat’s oar, takes all the possessions he could need in becoming Dickie, and sinks him with the boat’s cement weight. He disposes of the boat by sinking it near a deserted shore. Tom then returned to Mongibello, telling Marge that Dickie would stay in Rome for a while, because he needed a little time to figure things out. He gathers all of Dickie’s things and goes to Rome “To take his stuff up to him”. After a while of avoiding everyone who might have known Dickie or who used to know Tom as he used to be, a friend of Dickie’s, Freddie, showed up outside his hotel room because he had heard Dickie stayed there and Dickie had missed a skiing trip they had decided to make. Tom quickly changes into his old clothes and takes off all of Dickie’s jewellery. Well, at least he thought he did. Freddie recognises the identification bracelet as Dickie’s, but after Tom convinces him he was borrowing it he was able to get Freddie to leave, telling him that Dickie wasn’t here right now but he could probably find him at the café Othello. Freddie is still suspicious and returns, but Tom is waiting for him behind the door and bashes his skull in with a heavy ashtray. He then got rid of the body, by dragging him downstairs and into the car as if he was helping a drunk friend, and dumping him on a cemetery. A couple days later the police came to Tom’s room and questioned him as Dickie, they asked him when he had last seen Freddie, but they also told him that a boat covered in blood smears had been found near the coast of San Remo, and that the missing boat was rented in the name of Dickie Greenleaf and Tom Ripley. They believed the blood was Tom Ripley’s, because Dickie Greenleaf was still alive, as they were talking to him. Tom then left the country as Tom Ripley, to pretend he had been travelling all along and prove he wasn’t dead. This leads to a search for Dickie, because they wanted to question him about Freddie. Tom then starts to create evidence to make people believe Dickie had committed suicide. He almost kills Marge when he thinks she had figured it all out, because she had found Dickie’s cherished rings. But Tom told her Dickie had given them to him before he left. He pretended to be shocked in realizing that probably meant he really did kill himself. Marge believed him and therefore, she remained alive. Tom has to give up being Dickie, with all his manners and his lifestyle. The book ends with him lamenting over his loss. 13. I think the title was rightly chosen because it makes you curious what Tom Ripley’s talents are. I didn’t choose the book because of it’s title, though. I had seen the movie before, so I already knew what the book was about when I started reading it. Therefore I didn’t read the blurb, so that didn’t give me expectations. The expectations I had from seeing the movie have been easily surpassed, the feel of the story comes out a lot better in the book, because you get to imagine things yourself. The thing I find attractive about the story is that Tom’s character is so intriguing. He’s so detailed in his observation, so immaculate in impersonating others. On one side he’s a killer, a black-and-white thinker, if you’re a danger to him and he gets the chance, you’re done for. But on the other side, he’s remorseful for his every act. He’s a tormented soul, who has always been mediocre, underestimated and found to be boring, and wants to change that. The ending of the story is quite unsatisfying, as it ends with Tom contemplating if he’ll ever be able to walk without having to look over his shoulder. Waiting restlessly to get arrested for the crimes he had committed. On the other hand I don’t think I would have liked the thought of him feeling unburdened with the thought of his crimes, so I guess it ended well after all.