The talented Mr. Ripley (novel)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Talented Mr. Ripley (Engl. The Talented Mr. Ripley ) is a mystery novel of the American writer Patricia Highsmith in 1955 and the first of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley . In 1961 the book was first published in German under the title Nur die Sonne was Zeuge , later as The Talented Mr. Ripley .

action

Tom Ripley is a young man who gets by in New York with odd jobs and petty scams. When he was asked by the wealthy shipyard owner Herbert Greenleaf to travel to Italy to convince his son Dickie, who was an amateur painter in the (fictional) seaside resort of Mongibello near Naples, to return to the USA and face his obligations as a corporate heir, Tom sees this as a welcome opportunity to escape his old existence. When he arrived in Italy, his concern was unsuccessful at Dickie, but he quickly got into the life of Dickies and his friend, Marge Sherwood, who wrote. Tom feels both a growing affection for Dickie and a desire to claim Dickie's prosperous life for himself. His identification with Dickie even goes so far that he secretly wears Dickie's clothes and plays for himself scenes in which he takes on his role. Marge, in turn, suspects Tom to be homosexual .

Tom's time in Italy seems to be coming to an end after a few weeks: Herbert Greenleaf thinks Tom's efforts are unsuccessful and asks him to stop them and the visit of an old friend of Dickie's, Freddie Miles, causes Dickie to lose interest in Tom. Freddie also suspects Tom's motives. Dickie decides to dedicate more time to Marge again. During a trip to Sanremo, Tom forges a plan to murder Dickie and assume his identity. The two rent a boat, and Tom kills Dickie in the open sea. He then sinks the body and lets the boat sink near the beach.

Tom sends Marge a letter allegedly written by Dickie, in which he asks her not to see each other until further notice, and he rents an apartment in Rome under Dickie's name . Freddie Miles, however, becomes suspicious. A confrontation between him and Tom ends with Tom killing Freddie. Tom's existence now becomes a cat-and-mouse game with the Italian police, but in which he manages to continue to pretend to be Dickie - until the police suspect Dickie of the murder of Freddie Miles. As a consequence, Tom reluctantly decides to give up the disguise and only perform under his own name. When questioned by the police, he makes Dickie's disappearance look like a suicide.

At the end of the novel, the police in the American Express office in Venice find some items from Tom's Roman apartment, which he had sent there under an alias. Since Tom was known as Dickie in Rome at the time, he now believes that his fingerprints will reveal him. In addition, he had fabricated Dickie's will, in which he stood up as the sole heir, and sent it to Herbert Greenleaf, which could now make him even more suspicious. But since Tom is going on board a ship to Athens at this point , he no longer learns the outcome of this story and firmly believes in his imminent exposure. In Athens he finds out that the police hold the fingerprints for Dickie's and that Herbert Greenleaf does not object to the will. With that Tom is free.

background

The talented Mr. Ripley was born in just six months in 1954. As the driving force behind the writing of the novel, which, according to Patricia Highsmith, wrote itself as if by itself, she cited her fascination with the amorality of the hero: “[I show] the unambiguous triumph of evil over good, and I am delighted with it. "On another occasion, she admitted:" I myself have a penchant for criminals [...] I have a secret sympathy for wrongdoers [...]. "

She quickly reduced the original draft, which included a gang of smugglers and corpses filled with drugs, to a study of the tension-filled relationship between two men, a theme that she had already varied in her novels Two Strangers on a Train and Der Stümper . Highsmith: "There is the plot of Ripley nothing spectacular, but the book was popular because of its feverish prose and the audacity and boldness of Ripley himself." Some motives they borrowed from Henry James ' novel The Ambassadors (dt. The envoy , who also) is mentioned by name in the book. Despite the openly homoerotic subtext , she described Ripley's sexuality in an interview as "a little homosexual [...] very moderate".

reception

The novel received positive reviews when it was published. The New Yorker described Tom Ripley as one of the "most repulsive and fascinating characters in a long time" and the story as "remarkably immoral". Anthony Boucher in the New York Times Book Review praised the novel for its characters and called the result "skillful", albeit "a little too long".

In contrast, Thomas Wörtche expressed himself thoughtfully in 2009 in Kindler's Literature Lexicon about the reception of the Ripley novels by literary criticism. The plot works “only at the expense of a strong deflection of reality”. Good and bad are equally present in the Jedermann figure Ripley and can therefore be "accessed" at will. The reception of the Ripley novels seemed “too one-dimensional” to him: the protagonist's quarrel with the consequences of his deed, his panic attacks and the need to commit more and more subsequent deeds to cover up the previous ones showed that he had none Can find peace of mind. The description of Ripley as "ice cold" or as amoral is therefore wrong.

In 1957 the book received the French Grand prix de littérature policière for the best foreign-language detective novel; it was also nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America .

Sequels

The author had her protagonist reappear in four other books:

Translations

The Talented Mr. Ripley was first translated into German in 1961, with Barbara Bortfeldt doing the translation. According to Anna von Planta, co-editor of the edition newly edited in 2002, this was slightly shortened compared to the original edition and was slightly revised for the first Diogenes edition from 1971. In the course of the new editions of Highsmith's novels published by Diogenes from 2002 onwards, a “first complete” new translation by Melanie Walz took place . However, these freedoms and omissions compared to the original were also allowed:

Tom stood up and brought the oar down again, sharply, all his strength released like the snap of a rubber band. "For God's sake!" Dickie mumbled, glowering, fierce, though the blue eyes wobbled, losing consciousness. […] Tom got a bayonet grip on the oar and plunged its handle into Dickie's side. Then the prostrate body relaxed, limp and still.
- Original version
Tom got up and let the rudder down again, sharply, with full force, like a rubber ball bounces back. "For God's sake!" Muttered Dickie, staring, grim, but his blue eyes blurred, he passed out. […] Tom grabbed the oar in the bayonet handle and drove the rod into Dickie's switch. Now at last the battered body relaxed, lay limp and still.
- Translation by Barbara Bortfeldt
Tom got up and let the oar crash down again with unexpected force. "What are you doing?" Dickie muttered threateningly and angrily, but his blue eyes blurred and he passed out. […] Tom took the oar with both hands and rammed the handle into Dickie's side. Now the body lay still, limp and motionless.
- New translation by Melanie Walz

expenditure

  • The Talented Mr. Ripley, Coward-McCann, New York 1955
  • The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cresset Press, London 1957
  • Only the sun was witness, translated by Barbara Bortfeldt, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1961
  • The talented Mr. Ripley, Diogenes, Zurich 1971
  • The talented Mr. Ripley, Dtv, Munich 1974
  • The talented Mr. Ripley, Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1975
  • The talented Mr. Ripley, Diogenes, Zurich 1979
  • The talented Mr. Ripley, translated by Melanie Walz , Diogenes, Zurich 2002
  • The talented Mr. Ripley, RM Book and Media, Gütersloh 2007

Adaptations

Movie

Radio, theater etc. a.

  • 1989: The talented Mr. Ripley (radio play) - BRD, Hessischer Rundfunk , direction and adaptation: Bernd Lau , with Michael Quast as Tom Ripley
  • 2009: The Talented Mr. Ripley (radio play) - Great Britain , BBC , director: Claire Grove, adaptation: Stephen Wyatt, with Ian Hart as Tom Ripley and Stephen Hogan as Dickie Greenleaf
  • 2010: The Talented Mr. Ripley (play) - United Kingdom, Northamptons Royal & Derngate Theaters, directed by Raz Shaw, adapted by Phyllis Nagy , with Kyle Soller as Tom Ripley and Sam Heughan as Dickie Greenleaf

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Andrew Wilson: Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith , Bloomsbury, London 2003; German Beautiful shade. The life of Patricia Highsmith , Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2003. - The German edition contains a translation error: The “Edgar Allan Poe Scroll” (= nomination certificate) becomes the main prize there. Margaret Millar received the "Edgar Allan Poe Award" in 1956 for Beast in View (dt. Dear mother, I'm fine ... ).
  2. ↑ "[...] one of the most repellent and fascinating characters to come along for quite a while [...] remarkably immoral story [...]" - The New Yorker, January 7, 1956.
  3. ↑ "[...] solid essay in the creation and analysis of character [...] skilful [...] somewhat overlong." - Anthony Boucher in The New York Times Book Review, December 25, 1955.
  4. ^ Thomas Wörtche: Entry "Highsmith, Patricia - Das Romanwerk" . In: Kindler's Literature Lexicon in 18 volumes . 3. Edition. 2009 (retrieved from Munzinger Archive on August 10, 2016).
  5. ^ Afterword by Anna von Planta, in: Der talentierte Mr. Ripley, Diogenes, Zurich 2002.