More Ripley

I'm not a big reader of mysteries or thrillers, but the Ripley novels of Patricia Highsmith have been favorites of mine for many years. I first heard of Highsmith in the mid-70s, when Wim Wenders made his wonderful movie The American Friend (1977), based on "Ripley's Game." At the same time, the Village Voice Lit. Supp. published a big feature on the author. A Texan who lived most of her life in New York and in Europe, Highsmith was most famous for writing "Strangers on a Train" (subsequently made into a 1951 Hitchcock film) until people started making movies of the Ripley books. I saw the Wenders film several times, relishing Dennis Hopper -- he had not yet made his American comeback -- in the Ripley role.

Highsmith's most successful books -- the ones published before 1980 or so -- tended to feature amoral, alienated anti-heroes as protagonists. Her books never focus on "who done it;" they're character studies of psychological pressure and the breakdown of the inhibitions that keep ordinary people from resorting to violence to solve their problems. The five Ripley books show a young, not-yet-sophisticated American who eventually becomes a wealthy, sophisticated expatriate through a series of murders, assumed identities, and art frauds. As he grows older, he only resorts to violence when interlopers of various stripes -- usually more gauche than he -- threaten his comfortable life in the French countryside.

In 1999 The Talented Mr. Ripley, with Matt Damon in the title role, was a big hit, and introduced the Ripley character to a new generation of film viewers. (I doubt the 1999 film was as successful as the Wenders picture in attracting readers to Highsmith's work, though -- Damon and the Venitian setting were just too glamorous.)

Now comes word that John Malkovich is starring in a new version of "Ripley's Game," to be released in April. That'll be worth seeing. Malkovich, as did Hopper before him, has the requisite weirdness and suggestion of sociopathy, where Damon was just a bit too sweet.