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Title: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0-394-75828-5 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 July, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (67 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A grim, grimy work that created a new detective genre
Comment: Raymond Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP was the first of his novels featuring private detective Philip Marlowe. In creating this tough-as-nails, chain-smoking, heavy boozing investigator, Chandler was one of the first writers of the ''hardboiled" mystery genre. While its style has become a tradition over 60 years since it was first published, it is important to understand how original THE BIG SLEEP was. Literature had only seen before gentleman detectives such as Sherlock Holmes solving the mysteries of the genteel classes. THE BIG SLEEP, on the other hand, involves the seedy Los Angeles underbelly, with a cast of gamblers, con-men, and perverts.
The book opens with the visit of Philip Marlowe to the estate of old, dying General Sternwood. The general's two daughters constantly vex him by getting into all sorts of trouble. One's a infantile neurotic, the other's mired in gambling debts and has already been thrice married. Sternwood hires Marlowe to resolve the blackmail of one of his daughters by a shady bookseller. Once bodies start to drop, however, it becomes apparent that Marlowe is in for more than he bargained for.
In his Philip Marlowe novels, Chandler was more concerned with creating characters of various degrees of depravity, dialogue, and narrative style than with plot. In fact, only in the last three pages does he put all the pieces in place, in such a fashion that resolving the mystery seems like an afterthought. Nonetheless, the reader enjoys the ride. Marlowe's thoughts, which we get from the first-person narrative, and the witty dialogue is entertaining enough.
THE BIG SLEEP is also a window on a period of American history much different from the present. Nearly every scene has the characters lighting up, whether pipes, cigarettes, or cigars. In one scene, the police harass a homosexual boy with glee. In few other books do we see there sorts of details which show how Los Angeles of 1939 was not like it is today.
All in all, I'd recommend THE BIG SLEEP. Even if this doesn't seem like your genre, it has an important place in American literature.
Rating: 5
Summary: A rollercoaster ride of a plot
Comment: "The Big Sleep" opens with private eye Philip Marlowe being summoned to the expansive estate of the aged and wealthy General Sternwood. Sternwood hires Marlowe to investigate a blackmailer who has been involving Sternwood's wildly misbehaving younger daughter in some embarrassing indiscretions. Marlowe's trail leads him through a labyrinth of murder and deceit, and it is impossible for the reader to guess the real story behind Sternwood's daughter's trouble until Marlowe analyzes and reveals the scheme at the end of the book.
As he explains in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder," Raymond Chandler disdained the linear "whodunit" style of mystery and set about to turn the genre upside down with this, his first Marlowe novel. Chandler's style of designing a complex plot and inserting the detective somewhere in the middle to put the pieces together was to be a big influence on many crime writers to follow and particularly on a TV show like "The Rockford Files." (Jim Rockford was not unlike a '70s version of Marlowe, and many of the episodes featured similarly complex plot structures.) While some of Chandler's dialogue, situations, and props may seem a bit dated, his mindbending plot concept seems as fresh and exciting today as it must have sixty years ago.
Rating: 5
Summary: Not to be missed.
Comment: Originally published in 1939, The Big Sleep is the first novel to feature fiction's legendary private eye, Philip Marlowe. The book starts off with Marlowe visiting the majestic estate of dying millionaire, General Guy Sternwood. As the General hires Marlowe to investigate a bookdealer who is extorting him for one thousand dollars, he happens to mention that he sorely misses the company of his son-in-law, an ex-bootlegger, who has inexplicably disappeared. A very fast paced and eventful search for the truth ensues, during which Marlowe encounters many colorful characters. Topping the list are the two wild Sternwood daughters, Carmen and Vivian.
The Big Sleep contains subject matter considered racy by 1939 standards. Specifically, pornography and homosexuality both play key roles in advancing the story. Chandler's writing is no less than masterful. The dialogue snaps, the descriptive passages are vivid and the complex plot comes together at the end.
There are really two main characters, Marlowe himself and the city of Los Angeles. Marlowe is a loner and if he is not an alcoholic, he could easily be mistaken for one. Always ready with withering put downs, he is a world class cynic who paradoxically adheres to a high minded code of honor. Los Angeles is portrayed as a dreary place, often rain soaked and in the throes of serious growing pains. The claustraphobic, shattered lives of many of its inhabitants made all the more grotesque by the coexisting wealth and glamor.
The Big Sleep has earned its reputation as an American classic and definitely qualifies as a must read.
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Title: Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394758277 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 July, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett ISBN: 0679722645 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 17 July, 1989 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394757688 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 August, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Trouble Is My Business by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394757645 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 August, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The High Window by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394758269 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 July, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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