Ripley Under Water

The final Ripley. I'm glad Highsmith didn't try going out with a bang. A good wrap-up with some out-of-character bonhomie is perfectly serviceable and preferable in most series! Ripley is deservedly being toyed in this cat-and-mouse game. The resolution is a bit of a farce but I'm always a sucker for callbacks within a book and little recurring motif on the side.

The pleasing aesthetics account for most of my enjoyment of the Ripliad, with the ratcheting tension a middling second. I had finally watched the 1999 movie adaptation last year, and it captured exactly how I imagine the languid glow of Ripley's travels and the occasional slapstick nature of his violence that makes the reader root for him. I look forward to a future springtime show more marathon of the Ripliad. show less

Resulta curiosa la fascinación que ejercen ciertos criminales, verdaderos psicópatas en muchos casos. Personajes grises, tirando más al negro que al blanco, ambiguos, que aunque cometan los más aberrantes crímenes, estás deseando que no los coja la justicia y que se salgan con la suya. Ahí tenemos a Hannibal “el caníbal” Lecter, cuyo apelativo lo dice todo. O a Dexter Morgan y su “oscuro pasajero”. O a esos dos cocineros de metanfetamina de ‘Breaking Bad’. O el personaje creado por Patricia Highsmith, Tom Ripley. Todos ellos tienen en común el poder de atracción que logran ejercer sobre el espectador o lector, porque aunque parezca increíble, te mantienen en tensión, estás sufriendo por si los cogen, e incluso show more estás deseando que se salgan con la suya. Esto sería más normal en el caso de un atraco, donde quieres que la estrategia les salga bien y se hagan con el botín. Pero es que todos los tipos mencionados anteriormente se han manchado las manos de sangre, y aun así estás con ellos.

Patricia Highsmith creó a Tom Ripley en 1955, con ‘El talento de Mr. Ripley’, también conocida como ‘A pleno sol’. Después vendrían cuatro libros más: ‘La máscara de Ripley’ (1970), ‘El amigo americano’ (1974) (nombrada también como ‘El juego de Ripley), ‘Tras los pasos de Ripley’ (1980) y ‘Ripley en peligro’ (1991).

Ripley es egoísta, brillante, elegante, frío, un falsificador nato, que se mueve por interés propio, se puede decir que es un hedonista, que cometió unos crímenes en su juventud que le obligan a mentir y a matar, pero únicamente como último recurso, como autoprotección y como una manera de mantener el nivel de vida al que se a acostumbrado.

En ’Ripley en peligro’ nos encontramos a Ripley felizmente casado y viviendo en un pueblecito de Francia, dedicado a la buena vida. Todo es felicidad en la vida de Ripley, hasta que llegan a la región los Pritchard, un matrimonio americano, con un único afán: hacerle la vida imposible. Y es que parece que saben demasiado sobre Murchinson y Dickie Greenleaf, dos antiguos asesinatos de Ripley.

Después de haber leído las cinco novelas del personaje, he de decir que el Ripley de esta última es el más plano de todos, y que en la novela suceden realmente pocas cosas, pero eso sí, muy bien contadas por Patricia Highsmith, la reina del suspense, que te mantiene en vilo hasta el final. Pero sin duda, me quedo con los tres primeros libros, que son excepcionales, llegando a la cota máxima en ‘El amigo americano’. show less

Tom Ripley is perhaps my favorite psychopath. Even though he is frighteningly amoral, I still find myself somehow rooting for him as he murders his “best friend”, engages in art forgery (and commits murder to cover it up), plays with the lives of others (and murders some of them of course) simply because he feels he was snubbed, indulges in a lot of sexually ambiguous behavior, and generally plays a game of cat-and-mouse with anyone who crosses his path.

Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is a modern masterpiece, and widely deemed the very best of her many novels. There have been four sequels, none of which is anywhere near as good as that first work of the series. "Ripley Underwater" is the fifth and last in the Ripley series, and I would rank it marginally better than #s 2 and 3 ("Ripley Underground", and "Ripley's Game"). Yet the plot is implausible, and only a credulous reader will find the ending very believable.

Tom and his French wife Heloise, live quietly near a small French village, where he enjoys his fortunes, and spends his days gardening, playing the harpsichord, and doting on his wife. He becomes targeted by new neighbors, the Pritchards, a couple from the US show more who learn about his unsavory past and seek to torment and expose him. Early in the story, he gets a chilling phone call from a supposed "Dicky Greenleaf", among the first of his murder victims from the first novel. The phone calls give way to stalking and menacing confrontations, culminating in David Pritchard's search for, and discovery of the underwater corpse of one of Tom's victims in "Ripley Underground" -- a choice package that Pritchard deposits on Tom's doorstep.. Tom, of course, is able to respond in kind by dumping the body in the Pritchard's backyard pond and the Pritchards' attempts to see their involuntary acquisition results in their own deaths -- they drown in the 8 feet of water, supposedly being unable to get out of the pond.

The story's strengths come from the suspense and the imaginative plot, but some may consider it to be spoiled by the implausible ending, despite the "just desserts" it entails. Likewise, on reflection, the literal minded reader may wonder how the Pritchards have managed to learn so much about Tom's early exploits (outlined in novels #1 and 2) while knowing nothing about those of #s 3 and 4 of the series.

The prospective reader would do well to have read the second work in the Ripliad -- "Ripley Underground" -- since "Ripley Under Water" assumes a familiarity with its plot and characters. Best of all, start with "The Talented Mr. Ripley", since that's the best way to become acquainted with the charming, likeable and evil protagonist of the series. show less

Patricia Highsmith, as I have noted before, writes a intriguing set of novels using Tom Ripley as the antihero. Ripley Under the Water is a good example of her craft. Tom and his French wife Heloise, live quietly near a small French village. The only thing one might consider unusual about the house is the presence of a bloodstain on the floor of the basement that Tom explains came from spilling some wine. Indeed, there was wine mixed with the blood for it was with a wine bottle that Tom had killed Mr. Murchison several years earlier. All of a sudden an odd couple appear in the neighborhood and Tom begins to get calls from a man claiming to be Dickie Greenleaf —odd, because Tom had drowned him. Soon this Pritchard has become a positive show more pest, intimating that Tom is the killer of Murchison, a man who had threatened Ripley's successful painting forgery scam. Pritchard follows Tom and Heloise to Morocco, generally making life unpleasant, but Tom really begins to worry when Pritchard rents a skiff and grappling hooks and begins to drag the canals for the bones of Murchison that Tom knows are there. show less

The tables are turned somewhat in this 5th and final installment of the life and times of our boy Tom Ripley. Two new neighbors, an American and his wife, have made Tom and his, umm, shall we say, "checkered" past their pet project. Prank phone calls, cryptic and vaguely menacing confrontations on the street, and outright stalking cause Tom more than a little concern, although he's very careful about maintaining his unruffled exterior, and in keeping Heloise, his trés chic wife, ignorant about his past activities.

One of the more amusing things about Ripley is his sense of decorum. One gets the feeling that he dislikes these people not so much because they threaten his comfortable existence, but because they are crude and boorish and show more unrefined. They lack class, and that is a besetting sin in M'sieur Ripley's world.

As an aside, the title of this book worried me. In the previous novel, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, Tom mused absent-mindedly that his end would involve water. And, to a certain degree, I guess it does.

Enjoyable. show less

Another suspenseful and engaging Ripley tale. Not as good as the others, but still plenty enjoyable.