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00:07In 1982, the South Bank Show met the writer Patricia Highsmith to talk about her most
00:11well-known creation, the character of Tom Ripley, an amoral crook and killer and hero
00:16of five of her novels.
00:19We dramatize extracts from the second novel, Ripley Underground, where Tom is driven to
00:23extreme measures in order to protect his interest in a forged paintings racket.
00:29It had been Tom's idea to get Bernard Tufts to try his hand at forging some Derwatt paintings.
00:35Now Derwatt Limited was big business.
00:41Tom had kept his name and reputation amazingly clean, considering all he did.
00:48It would be most embarrassing if it were in the papers that Thomas Ripley had dreamed up
00:52the money-making fraud of Derwatt Limited and had for years been deriving a percentage
00:58from it.
00:59a while, to come down with a lot of information.
01:04Good afternoon, Madame.
01:05Good afternoon.
01:06Spice grocery check-in.
01:08I'm about to fill out the registration form.
01:10Thank you very much.
01:14Running out for both of us.
01:19Do you have any messages for Mr. Tom Ripley?
01:23I have just two messages for you.
01:24I'll fetch them right away.
01:45Your favourite among your characters is Tom Ripley. What do you like about him particularly?
01:50That he's rather free in spirit and audacious and occasionally amusing to me too.
02:01Can you describe what Ripley was like at the beginning of the first Ripley book, The Talented Mr. Ripley,
02:07and then how he developed by the time we get to Ripley Underground?
02:12Well, in the first Ripley he was quite green and young, I think 26,
02:19and just learning about Europe or what he thought was culture and sightseeing.
02:30And then he became envious of the richer young man, as the readers know.
02:37And he decided to lift himself in his own eyes.
02:45Patricia Highsmith was one of the more intense writers I've met.
02:50I don't think it was to do with nerves in the slightest.
02:54I don't think it was to do with how she appeared in public.
02:59She was very tense, indrawn, and in many ways harbouring and trying to rein in opinions,
03:10which would have been, had you let them loose, entirely unpalatable and sort of ruined her reputation.
03:19So there was this holding in about her.
03:24And the film that The South Bank Show made was directed by a man called Jack Bond,
03:30who directed two or three films for us.
03:33A great distinction.
03:36And what he wanted to do here was to imitate the novel by creating dramatic scenes without Patricia Highsmith knowing,
03:49and without telling her, which was a little bit.
03:53Anyway, he didn't tell me he didn't tell her, because if he told me he wasn't going to tell her,
03:56I'd have told him that was wrong, he should have told her, but he didn't.
03:58And one of the ideas was that when she landed in London, she would be followed by Jonathan Kent,
04:07who was playing Ripley in those dramatic portions of the film.
04:15Well, she quite quickly, according to Jonathan Kent, clicked onto the fact that she was being followed.
04:23And at an appropriate or a good moment, turned on him, marched up to him, got him by the lapels,
04:34pushed him against a wall, and asked him what he thought he was up to.
04:37And when he explained, she took it in good part, and saw this cheerful, handsome Jack Bond with the crew,
04:45somewhere over there.
04:47The only, the one murder that bothers him sometimes is the Dickie murder, because...
04:52The first murder?
04:53Yes, because the motive was very, very sordid, and Dickie had been a good friend to him.
05:02But the other murders, all of them, I think, even Frankie, in the first book,
05:09he was about to uncover the fact that Tom was playing the part of Dickie,
05:13and Tom thinks quickly, this murder is necessary, and then he does it.
05:18And so that's the way, also in Ripley Underground, that the murder of Murchison is necessary,
05:23because Murchison was about to...
05:25Blow his cover?
05:26Yes, blow up the Derwatt hoax, which would have involved seven or eight people,
05:31and quite a lot of money for each of the people, and so Ripley thinks again,
05:36unfortunate, but it's necessary.
05:38Would you describe him as insane, or how would you...?
05:42Yes, I mean, I think certain areas he could be called psychotic, in the sense of being...
05:48Oh, psychopathic, in the sense of being a bit sick in certain areas.
05:52But I would not call him insane, because his actions are rational.
05:57The first story I really remember is when I was 16 years old.
06:05In the high school where I was going, there were three copies of a certain history book,
06:10and there were so many girls, it was an all-girls high school,
06:16trying to get at the book at the same time.
06:18It was rather a chunky book costing, you know, nobody thought of buying it somewhere.
06:24So it occurred to me to steal it.
06:26So I wrote a story about a girl who did...
06:29I never... I didn't steal it.
06:31So that was my first short story.
06:35And it was published in... Published? That's a joke.
06:39But it was printed in the school magazine.
06:44And it wasn't that bad.
06:46Same style as I'm using now.
06:48Really?
06:49Very simple. Yep. Very simple style.
06:52Did you ever have any childhood fantasies about killings or anything like that yourself?
06:59No. Not of any people, no.
07:03I may have disliked some people, but not that.
07:07But it's not quite the same thing, but I think I was 9 or 10.
07:11I had a feeling I would die when I fell asleep.
07:16And I was afraid of that.
07:18And I used to... It took me ages to get to sleep.
07:21I remember many a time I was awake until 2.
07:24And I had the feeling I would stop breathing.
07:27So I used to take water and snuff it up my nose a bit,
07:30as if that would keep me awake somehow.
07:33That must have gone on several weeks, or months even.
07:38But it's not... That's...
07:40Fear of death is not quite the same thing.
07:43I think Patricia Highsmith is really in a category of her own.
07:45She's obviously not really a literary writer.
07:49She herself said that style didn't interest her in the least.
07:52And her books are very much action-driven.
07:55And yet, at the same time, she's not in an obvious way simply a crime novelist.
08:00I think she is a different thing.
08:03She's a novelist of stealth, of disquiet, of menace.
08:07And the nearest person I think one could compare her to,
08:12and who perhaps owes something to her,
08:14although I think actually Highsmith is incomparable and immiscible,
08:19is Ruth Rendell.
08:20They both have these extraordinarily intricate plots,
08:25very, very dense writing when one looks at it,
08:28but apparently effortless, action-driven fictions.
08:34There's a particular problem with Patricia Highsmith
08:36because she doesn't do some of the things
08:39which traditional crime novelists do
08:41and which makes them popular.
08:43Because the crime novel, detective fiction and so on,
08:46is inherently a conservative genre.
08:49It consists of disrupting the world
08:50and then putting it to rights.
08:53Patricia Highsmith doesn't do that.
08:54She disrupts it and leaves it disrupted.
08:57This is deeply disturbing for people.
09:01Ripley is a murderer.
09:03And so there's this moral dilemma for the reader
09:06and I should imagine for yourself as well.
09:09Yes, for myself as well, that's true.
09:11But I think it's more amusing if the reader
09:16has to deal with somebody like Ripley
09:19just because he's neither good nor bad
09:24and because he's unusual.
09:26He's not so psychopathic that he has a desire to kill somebody
09:30like some people you read about in newspapers.
09:33Are you saying then that the fact that somebody murders,
09:39the fact that Ripley murders, let's stick to Ripley,
09:41doesn't mean that he's all bad?
09:43There are all sorts of qualities which are to be admired in him.
09:51I'm not sure I could find qualities to be admired in Ripley.
09:55He might have a little generosity here and there,
09:58but not much to be admired.
10:00But he's not entirely to be censored, I think.
10:05Simply because circumstances do mitigate.
10:09Well, yes, and also...
10:12No, because...
10:13I mean, I can't excuse murder on those grounds.
10:17But because under normal or everyday circumstances,
10:21Ripley leads a quiet, constructive life.
10:26Well, it's constructive from his own point of view.
10:28It's a selfish life.
10:29But he's not doing anybody any harm.
10:32Except one day.
10:34Well, unless something turns up.
10:36I don't really understand murder,
10:38but perhaps that's what fascinates me about it.
10:42Because it is snuffling out life or something like that.
10:46I mean, if one drowns a kitten in a bucket of water, for instance,
10:49you can see the...
10:50I've never done it.
10:53But suddenly the kitten is dead, you see.
10:56Something has gone.
10:58This, to me, is a mystery.
11:00And I don't really understand it.
11:03And I can't understand...
11:06Because I don't get angry in that fashion, you know, to hit somebody.
11:11And so...
11:12And I think, in a way, I'm interested in murder for the reason...
11:14Just because I cannot really understand it.
11:17And because it is considered a very serious crime,
11:23it should involve the greatest guilt.
11:26I think Highsmith style is extraordinary.
11:28It's obviously simple.
11:30She herself said she found a very simple style early on.
11:34That's to say, it's syntactically simple.
11:37The sentences are very short.
11:39They're staccato.
11:40And crucially, they're almost all the same length.
11:44And this enables her to build this menace and disquiet,
11:47because everything happens in the same space of words.
11:50Whether somebody's looking at a picture,
11:52having a cup of coffee,
11:54throwing somebody down the stairs,
11:58throwing them into water,
11:59killing them,
12:00or, rarely, smiling at them.
12:03They all happen in the same space of sentence.
12:07Deadpan is the obvious word for her style.
12:10And it struck me, when I was thinking about her,
12:13I think her great subject, in a way, is stalking.
12:16And in a way, that's what her sentences do.
12:18Because that very even, measured tread,
12:22one after the other,
12:23it's actually like hearing footfalls at night behind you.
12:27How would you describe Ripley's sexual nature?
12:31Very difficult.
12:36He's rather shy of it,
12:38and not very strong emotions,
12:43and a little bit homosexual, I would say.
12:48Not that he's ever done anything about that.
12:52Very lukewarm.
12:54Yet he gets on very well, indeed, with his wife, Eloise.
12:59Yes.
13:00Well, there's such a thing as meeting the right person, or something.
13:05In your books, there are often people together who dislike each other,
13:08but they're drawn tightly together.
13:12I can think of all sorts of couplings.
13:14But let's take Ripley and Bernard, and Ripley on the ground.
13:19Would you describe that as a relationship of that type,
13:21and what attracts you to it in that category, sir?
13:27Well, it does fascinate me, yes,
13:30with the attraction of the opposites or something,
13:33or good and evil sort of thing.
13:35But in the case of Ripley and Bernard,
13:37I think Bernard, he's not really attracted to Ripley.
13:42He's rather afraid of him, and he dislikes him.
13:46But they get drawn close together, I don't think you put them?
13:49Well, Ripley is much more attracted to Bernard,
13:52in the sense that he respects Bernard,
13:55the naivete and the goodness of Bernard, if I can use that word.
14:02Ripley would be drawn to that out of fascination,
14:05because he would think not many people are born like Bernard.
14:09He floats above.
14:10He's more than semi-detached.
14:14He's living in a drift world of his own,
14:16where he gets exactly what he wants, by any means.
14:22But there's always a certain...
14:24Elegance is the wrong word, but...
14:29He gets away with it with a certain style, I suppose.
14:33Her style is very plain, and it was from the start.
14:36She's a member of those women who came in very forcefully,
14:42as the second or third generation of women
14:44who are writing about crime or about murder.
14:48She's at the forefront of those.
14:50She was never part of that.
14:52She was very much alone,
14:54and wolf isn't a bad word to use either,
14:56that hungry look, that contained look about her.
15:02We interviewed...
15:03We did the interview in the Savoy,
15:06which somehow seemed a good place,
15:09rather detached from the real world,
15:12sort of floating above it.
15:15How would Ripley himself justify what he did,
15:18if he were called on?
15:19What do you think he would say about...
15:23as an excuse or as an explanation, even, what he did?
15:27There is none.
15:28I mean, except the...
15:31There is no excuse for the...
15:34for the first murder of Dickey,
15:36and there's no excuse for any of them.
15:39I mean, he could say it in words,
15:41but I don't think it would get him anywhere in a court of law.
15:44Because in some of your books there's a questioning
15:46of whether there is anything,
15:47there is such a thing as a sanctity of...
15:50as a sanctity of life.
15:52Would you think?
15:54I don't think anybody can say whether there...
15:56is or not, but it...
15:58that's just a mental attitude.
16:02It's like saying,
16:03should I have the attitude that there's a sanctity of life,
16:06or something?
16:08And I don't think Ripley has much of that.
16:12Would you say that you had...
16:15When you say...
16:16Not a lot, frankly, no.
16:20Bernard!
16:26What do you think about the way in which...
16:28we as a society look on and treat murderers?
16:36Well...
16:36I have to give you two or three answers.
16:38Well, first of all, I don't believe in capital punishment.
16:42And second, there...
16:44Some murders are manslaughter.
16:46They're done in a moment of anger.
16:49They're unpremeditated, at any rate.
16:51And I didn't say that it does any good to lock these...
16:54such people up for 18 years.
16:56And then on the other...
16:57Then you have another kind of murderer
16:59who is really...
17:01not right in the head.
17:03The kind of murderer who will...
17:04probably do more out on the street,
17:06you know, for no reason.
17:08And such people have to be locked up for life.
17:14Is there any chance of you writing a Ripley book
17:16in which he will get his comeuppance, or...?
17:21I hadn't thought about it,
17:23and it's not impossible,
17:24but I hadn't thought about it.