The Big Sleep

Rating:
Summary: A rollercoaster ride of a plot
Review: "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:
Summary: THE DEBUT OF THE MODERN FICTIONAL DETECTIVE KNIGHT
Review: As a mystery author with my first novel in its initial release, I make frequent appearances at mystery conventions to promote my debut title. At one recent convention, I was sitting on an author panel discussing "The Private Eye." Following our presentation, a reader in the audience asked us to trace the development of the modern private eye. I fielded that question and explained that Raymond Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP is one of the crucial developmental steps along the way to the private eyes contemporary authors write about today. In THE BIG SLEEP, Chandler started with a pulp magazine character-type and transformed that character-type into a Romantic hero--the modern urban knight-errant. He took Hammett's tough guy, kept him tough yet gave him heart. THE BIG SLEEP tells a complicated tale in a complicated fashion. William Faulkner, when he was scripting the classic Bogart film, claimed he couldn't comprehend the plot. I've always assumed Faulkner was joking. The story can be comprehended by even small minds, like mine. The story involves murder, blackmail, gambling, a family of great wealth, self-destructiveness, and other standard plot fixtures of detective fiction. Most importantly, this book marks the debut of Philip Marlowe. Without Chandler's Marlowe the mystery genre would not be what it is today.

Rating:
Summary: perfect writing, massive wit, and philosophical, too!
Review: Chandler is, bar none, the best writer of the so-called "hard boiled detective" genre, and this is his greatest work.

In a labyrinthine plot featuring corrupt, orchid-growing millionaires, beautiful blondes, gray men with guns and the cynical, deeply romantic narrator-protagonsit Marlowe, we see Los Angeles of the 1940s as Marlowe looks for the truth about murder, pornography and, ultimately, loss.

The sheer genius of Chandler's writing-- aside from the accompished plot twists-- is his deceptively simple language, which sparkles, and his narrator's deadpan wit. From the descriptions of women ("Inside was a blonde. A blonde! A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.") to the caustic remarks in the face of death ("She would either shoot me, or she wouldn't.") to his existential comments ("I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun"), Marlowe is as entertainign to lsiten to as he is to watch.

Chandler's achievement here goes beyond the action sequences, or the wit of his narrator, or the complexity of his plots. His narrator, the tough-as-nails Marlowe, appeals because he is profoundly romantic at heart, but doomed, like Hamlet, to be disappointed. Like Hamlet-- who writes a play to discover the origins of his misery-- Marlowe too is a storyteller, whose stories lead to one kind of understanding, where actions and sequences finally cohere. But Marlowe's dilemmas are Hamlet's, in that although he can tell the story, his sense of what it all means at the end is far from complete.

Chandler's stories are really about people who are lost. Marlowe's quest to find the body and re-tell the story-- although always successful-- is always undermined by his elliptical and understated awareness that, for all our ingenuity and striving, it all ultimately comes down, as it does for Hamlet and for all of us, to the big sleep.

Rating:
Summary: Chandler's Unpolished Debut in Hardboiled Tradition
Review: HEAVY SPOILERS INCLUDED

In his debut novel to introduce private eye Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler seems to have combined two different short story materials into one plot. The first case, which looks complicated on surface but turns out quite simple, is completely resolved within the first half of the novel. Then Marlowe starts getting himself involved in further search of missing Rusty Regan, partly because of curiosity and partly because of his occupational ethics. It develops into another fruitless adventure. At the abrupt ending, Marlowe intuitively discovers what has happened to Regan. From Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, Chandler inherits the tradition of hardboiled detective story, a femme fatale being the one who has done it, which would be inherited to Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury.

General Sternwood is blackmailed by Arthur Gwynn Geiger, who is a tenant of Eddie Mars, whose wife appears to have run away with Rusty Regan, who is a son-in-law of Sternwood. In a small circle everyone tries to take advantage of everyone else, while old General Sternwood is hopelessly dying; it is reminiscent of Shakespeare's King Lear.

While Chandler's already-established signature similes entertain readers (e.g. "... using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show-girl uses her last good pair of stockings," "He had tight brilliant eyes that wanted to look hard, and looked as hard as oysters on the half shell," "The purring voice was now as false as an usherette's eyelashes and as slippery as a watermelon seed," and so on), the writing in general is raw, plain and dry, comparing to the more polished, sophisticated and sentimentalized one in his later works.

Rating:
Summary: Master of simile and cynicism
Review: I picked up The Big Sleep after the author of one of my favorite new authors of last year, Richard K. Morgan, was compared left and right to Raymond Chandler. The comparison was apt, and Morgan should be flattered, because Chandler is a genius.

This book is Chandler's first and it introduces his hero, Philip Marlowe, a smart-mouthed, hard-boiled private dick who is straight as an arrow. The mystery is a wonderful tale, but what makes this book great is the noir writing. The characters are all cynical and full of wonderful 1930's slang. The first person narrative is also laden with delicious similes: "I was as empty of life as a scarecrow's pockets."

Five stars for Chandler and this wonderful book.

Rating:
Summary: Just as incomparable as the movie
Review: If you enjoyed the indispensable Bogey & Bacall classic movie by the same name, you will undoubtedly enjoy this masterfully pinned classic novel. What makes this novel worth reading even after having seen the flick are the both subtle and striking divergences amongst the two art forms.

For starters, the book is infinitely more juicier than the movie in terms of sheer debauchery and scathing wisecracks. Secondly, Carmen is much more central in the book than in the movie -- not to mention the conspicuous absence of Eddie Mars' wife in the movie. As a bonus, you get to hear "You're cute" uttered by the temptress many more times in the book. Moreover, a pivotal scene at the end is omitted at the end of the movie that will irretrievably change your outlook on the movie's conclusion.

Vivian: Why did you have to go on?

Marlowe: Too many people told me to stop.


Rating:
Summary: Noir with capital N
Review: In the world of noir literature Raymond Chandler is the undisputable king. With his novels starred by the private Detective Philip Marlowe he creates an unique world that set the patter for the novels -- and later the movies --called noir.

Written in 1939, `The Big Sleep' is his first novel featuring Marlowe. And it was so successful that became a franchise, but what's more important, it influenced almost every single writer who tackled detective fiction. The plot is not the most important thing in this novel. It is complicated and confusing, so leaving it aside, one can enjoy all the undertones that are part of Chandler's work.

More than a single genre, Noir is a way of life --for a writer, at least. Everything matters in the book, that's why the narrative is so full of a vivid description of places and women mostly. It is hard to follow who is blackmailing who and why. But it is a joy to read the description of a cigarette being lit by a woman, or the way the smoke dissolves. These descriptions are what make the prose so full of texture and brilliant. Not to mention the Californian glamour that surrounds every single page of the book. Those rich people know how to live end have pleasure.

Marlowe is one of the best --if not THE best-- detective created in the literature. Before him, they used to be a little boring and too nice. Marlowe is violent, visceral and he is not worried of being nice and gentle. In his trip into the darker side of the underworld he comes across every kind of criminal --which, by the way, are so alive that one starts wondering how Chandler knew so much.

All in all, Chandler is one of the most important writers of detective thrillers ever, and influenced hundreds of other authors --in positive and negative ways --, but in case of doubt stick to the original.

Rating:
Summary: Not to be missed.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A grim, grimy work that created a new detective genre
Review: 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:
Summary: This is where it all began
Review: Raymond Chandler's very first attempt at a detective novel was a clear winner. The Big Sleep features a complex plot and a fantastic character - Philip Marlowe.

Chandler set his story in the gritty streets of Los Angeles, with a detective who was known for doing the right thing rather than what he was told to do. Philip Marlowe became an instant icon not only amongst mystery and detective fans, but among readers everywhere. When this became a movie in 1945 with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, even though the movie cut out a lot of the plot complexities, the characters affected the lives of millions.

Chandler's writing style is simply phenomonal. He describes the ins and outs of the city and its suburbs, giving you vivid impressions of that world. He moves from lush mansions to dingy bars, with each character having strong motivations, backgrounds, reasons for being.

In a time when minorities were discounted as meaningless and women were considered the "lesser sex", Marlowe plows right in with a fair eye for all. He takes on work with blacks that others disdain. He treats women as being intelligent while others discount them. The stories talk about homosexuality and porn and other topics as a "part of life". It's interesting how much of the books had to be 'white washed' to be made into movies.

If you read this story and then read many of today's detective stories, you can see clear traces of what Chandler began in the works of others. His style, his incredible humor, his honor and justice. His desire to do what was right even when others around him pushed him to do the "easy thing". A Big Sleep is a must read for any mystery fan, to see where it all began.