BookSeries· 1955· Crime
Ripliad: 2 recorded works trace back to it, and it draws on 1 recorded source.
Works that record this one as a source, with the evidence a contributor gave.
Anthony Minghella's film adapts the first of Highsmith's five Ripley novels, with Matt Damon as Tom Ripley. It changes the ending: in Highsmith, Ripley gets away with it entirely and returns in four more books; the film leaves him free but forced to kill again to stay hidden, and alone.
Steven Zaillian's Netflix series adapts The Talented Mr. Ripley, Highsmith's first Ripley novel, in black and white, with Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley. It follows the novel more closely than Minghella's film, including its ending, in which Ripley escapes undetected.
The works this one is recorded as drawing on.
Highsmith's subject is Dostoevsky's: a young man of no means who decides the ordinary prohibition on killing does not apply to him, told by staying with the murderer instead of with whoever is chasing him. Tom Ripley is Raskolnikov with the conscience removed, and that is the argument. Dostoevsky's case is that the theory collapses under guilt; Highsmith's novels let Ripley prosper across five books, which is what made them notorious and is only legible as a reply. Filed MEDIUM: an inherited question rather than an inherited plot. Highsmith named Dostoevsky among her reading without citing this as a source.