my review of The Boy Who Followed Ripley is, I am too ruined by it to write a proper review

that is to say, it's very tragic and sobering, though also witty and bizarrely charming

more than that, until it devolves into hopelessness, it's a very comfortable place to dwell in

I think the Ripley series has been unfaired passed over by many readers because it's characterized as crime fiction, of the plot-over-substance type, when it's nothing of the sort

this book is, in particular, a character study and not a thriller, and the entire series is carried by a superb control of prose and understanding of the central character

I was going to say a lot about Tom, his shit way of doing things, the fact that he is more heroic in this story than I would have dreamed of, his bear-stealing and dress-wearing

(even if he forgot the nail polish), the fact that he consciously puts to himself that this is the first time he tried to shape someone's life (for what he believed to be the better, and failed)

the fact that he can't remember if he killed 7 or 8 people, that he isn't a sadist or larger-than-life as many fictional antiheroes and villains are, that he gets nervous during thunderstorms and

sorry for lobsters being cooked, that his furniture is infested by carpenter ants, that he bought a handbag for his wife to make sure he would be alive to give it to her

that he understands the importance of fantasy and letting loose before getting serious or tackling a fight in real life

that, iin spite of everything, he gets over it.

all these details in themselves, I suppose, speak it better than any summary I could make.

he isn't the aching young man, the desperate outsider of the first book, the dark inverse of Jay Gatsby or whatever the hell the reviewers say. he has left the American dream

but in a way he has become more complete and believable- and more easily idealized (in a way, this book is even about how someone idealizes him)

I was also going to say that for all the mundane detail in this book, it feels incredibly real-

that this is not really the spending of time in the company of someone who is fascinating, or such a tired and drab term as relatable

but rather the details, the tone, the stream of little observations and opinions are- well, they are familiar because it is all very similar to how I am

...but given how many reviewers go at length about how scary this character is to them, I suppose I'd better not say that.

I'll need to organize my thoughts a bit more, reread the whole series (goodbye money), etc

this will be, incidentally, the 2nd time I've been so full of praise for a fictional character named Tom (where is Cromwell book 3, that is the question)