A game-changer within the mystery genre: before this book, those who told us candidly of their lust, those whose malice we watched, those who concealed, more or less, their sicknesses—all of these came to a sticky end. After Ripley all things are possible.
At the beginning, Ripley is a small-time grafter in New York expecting to be arrested every minute. He is hired by Richard Greenleaf’s father to go to Italy to try to persuade his son to return. He ends up killing Richard, impersonating him for a time, killing one of Richard’s friends, and ultimately getting away with both murders. These heinous acts are not excused by the narrative, but are made fascinating by Ripley’s characterization. Ripley is an orphan raised by a cruel and stingy aunt who has left him a moral imbecile. Ripley has an abbreviated list of emotions: he can feel fear and hatred, but he’s incapable of remorse or anything like compassion. Ripley is a sexual innocent—probably a homosexual—with a talent for mimicry and acting that has helped him fill in his emotional gaps. When Richard tells him at one point that Ripley needs to be nicer to Richard’s friend Marge Sherwood, Ripley thinks that he must be more convincing when he pretends to be nice to her.
Ripley kills Richard in a boat at San Remo, an untidy murder reminiscent of the one in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. During the scene he is afraid of falling into the water and drowning, he is afraid of failing, but he never feels compunction or horror at the act itself.
Our horror at this murder and the nearly motiveless one of Richard’s friend Freddie Miles does not alienate Ripley from our interest, however. His character is compelling precisely because of what it lacks and the kinds of substitutions that Highsmith makes plausible. For Ripley the enjoyment of possessions, however they are obtained, takes part of the place of sex; gradually we come to realize that brushes with danger also have a sexual frisson for him.
After the second murder Ripley has to negotiate one crisis after another: his forged signatures on Richard’s monthly maintenance checks are called into question, the Italian police accuse him of having killed Richard when he is being himself and accuse him of having killed Ripley when he is impersonating Richard, and eventually Ripley has to confront Marge Sherwood, Richard’s father, and an American detective the father has hired.
All of these crises look as if they were building to Ripley’s entrapment, but suddenly he escapes the last threat and is free. We reach the last page and there is no retribution. Ripley looks out at the clear skies of Greece with his conscience—what there is of it—unclouded as well. Highsmith cannot make us love Ripley, but she has involved us in his fortunes and made him interesting, she has let him get away with murder, and she has changed crime fiction.
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