Re: RARA-AVIS: The Talented Mr. Ripley

From: Terrill Lankford ( lankford2000@earthlink.net)
Date: 03 Apr 2007


Mike,

Please provide a reading list so I may correct my ignorant ways.

Terrill

P.S. - You might want to also actually illuminate us with your wisdom while you're at it instead of just making assumptions about my library.

Ripley is a sociopath. Psyche breakdowns of the terms and functions of corporate structure have found that the fundamental concept of the American Corporation is sociopathic (or maybe psychopathic) in nature. I think the Supreme Court also defined a corporation as being a "fictitious person." That's very Ripley. (There's a great quote out there that my sleepy brain can't pull up all the way. Something about a corporation being "a public company devised to avoid personal responsibility" or something like that. Teddy Roosevelt maybe?)

Having dealt with agents, attorneys, producers, publishers, distributors, managers, directors, actors, writers, IRS agents, credit card companies, and "businessmen" of every stripe over the last thirty years I can safely say that I have met more Ripleys than I care to count.

I don't find the character in the books that unusual.

-----Original Message-----
>From: mburch5717 < mburch5717@AOL.com>
>Sent: Apr 3, 2007 9:49 AM
>To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: The Talented Mr. Ripley
>
>Terrill,
>
>With all due respect it's time to set down the pulp fiction for a
>while and read some history and economics.
>
>Mike
>
>
>
>
>
>--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Terrill Lankford
><lankford2000@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >Patrick King wrote:
>> >
>> >Ripley may be a genius, but he is absolutely insane.
>> >
>>
>>
>> I don't think Ripley is either a genius or insane.
>>
>> He's a clever, amoral, American capitalist trying to make it in
>Europe. You know, like McDonalds and Starbucks.
>>
>> Corporations are never afraid to break a few eggs to make an
>omelet. And neither is Ripley.
>>
>> He is Highsmith's comment on Western capitalism.
>>
>
>



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