I'm not sure if this should go here or in crime, but they were written long enough ago and have an iconic enough standing that I'm going to chance it and put them here. Feel free to move me if I am in the wrong!
I started reading the first Tom Ripley novel the other day and due to various commitments am only half-way through, but I am enjoying it much more than I expected. Despite, or perhaps because of, the remote tone of the novel, which offers only a very thin internal narrative from the main character, I find it very engaging, a unique and unexpected portrait of a sociopath. Ripley is far from the confident con-man I was expecting from what I knew of the story, but is instead a refreshing mixture of a man both daring and riddled with self-doubt.
The books were written long enough ago that the style is no longer in line with those common to modern crime or thriller novels, but the enigmatic psychological portrait is definitely keeping me engaged despite any stylistic reservations I have!
Has anyone else read the books? What do you think in general of Highsmith's writing, or her main character?