Rating: 
Summary: The Classic
Review: You may have wondered where the booming mystery book market in the USA started. There were a few key writers who got it off the ground in the 1930s and 1940s. Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain are two of the writers everyone remembers. Chandler's detective was Phillip Marlowe and rather than the mystery's taking center stage, Marlowe took it with his observations of the human condition and how the best and worst of people could be brought out. There's always murder, greed, money and sex and this novel is steeped in all of those ingredients. There are two sisters, daughters of a wealthy man in the heyday of Los Angeles, back when it was small. It is this family who Marlowe will investigate and penetrate. Humphrey Bogart played Marlowe on the screen very well and Robert Mitchum, later in life, also did a heck of a job. I like reading about (novel) and seeing (movies) in its authentic setting of 1940s LA. It doesn't seem dated to me at all. It seems like a historical piece and totally works. The Big Sleep itself is death, what else?
Rating: 
Summary: A classic writer cutting corners
Review: Long on atmosphere and equally long on confusion. At his best Chandler is great, but the Big Sleep owes its fame more to the Humphrey Bogart movie than the writing. The book was cobbled together from several short stories, and once you know this it is fairly obvious--the books cuts from scene to scene and it is hard pressed to make a connection between them. While some consider this a sign of a daring new lack of convention and or a mirror of the confusion of modern society, in truth it is really more a case of laziness. Nonetheless the book has classic scenes and gives us Marlowe, which alone makes it worthy of reading. And that Noir atmosphere is delicious.
Rating:
Summary: Avoid Imitations!
Review: I was living in a seedier part of Hollywood when I first started reading Chandler, in an apartment on Hobart between Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset, close to where Philip Marlowe's office would have been, if Marlowe had been a real person...Chandler wrote beautifully; his books were filled with intriguing characters, rude wit and, of course, death. This is the first Marlowe novel, and maybe the best, so it's a good place to start with Big Ray. Sadly, once he showed everyone how it was done with the Marlowe character, a cottage industry of weak imitations sprung up, including female Philip Marlowes, black Philip Marlowes, gay Philip Marlowes, etc. The detective genre became a literary backwater akin to science fiction, where writers who can't create interesting plots, characters or dialogue go to publish their work, once they've mixed in a few murders or robots. Avoid imitations! Get the real thing and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy...
Rating:
Summary: The Big Sleep kept me awake.
Review: I thought I knew what detective fiction was like before I had even heard of Chandler. Having browsed most of Christies, Doyles and the what-nots, I was magnanimous enough to believe that I ,a minor scribe, could WRITE a whodunnit very well. The epistemological hurricane that redefined 'well' came with the Big Sleep. Chandler is slick, and I have just made the understatement of the century. I am writing this review twenty days after having turned the last page, enabling me to say so much. Of course, when I had turned that last page, only a four-letter expression of dumbfoundedness had escaped my lips. One of the sentences that kept reverberating in my mind - " Dead men wigh heavier than broken hearts." This is not detective fiction. This is the kind of fiction whose description is beyond the scope of the English language.
Rating:
Summary: Ramond Chandler's finest dectective novel
Review: This is the best of the best when it comes to Raymond Chandler. I am a long time fan of the detective novel and this one ranks top on my list. I read The Big Sleep along with David Lehman's reissue of "The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection" and found the two books perfect companions for anyone who loves the classic WHODUNIT.
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: An American Classic
Review: Witty, poetic and and superbly paced, The Big Sleep is the best book I have ever come across in the crime-fiction genre. Chandlers use of rhythm in a peculiarly American way, and his portrayal of a society steeped in "bottom-line" values, along with his use of metaphorical language should have guaranteed his place on every American literature course. In time perhaps...
Rating:
Summary: Raymond Chandler's works is timeless
Review: "I smashed the window, and jumped in. There where two people sitting in the room, but none of them noticed my crude entrance, and I found that very weird since only one of the where dead." Writing like that you'll only find from the hands of Raymond Chandler. He is without doubt THE crime writter of american fiction. He has many equals, but none of them surpass him in clever writing. I had seen classic "The Big Sleep", many many times, and beleived that this was one of the films that was actually better than the book, but was I wrong. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler is one of the best fictional book of modern time, whether you like crime fiction or not. And over 60 years after it's first publication, it's still a masterpiece of writting. Raymond Chandler's work is truely timeless.
Rating:
Summary: Creating A Template
Review: It's often been said that Raymond Chandler is the quintessential writer about Los Angeles in the 1940's in the way that Faulkner fictionalized the American South. The Big Sleep is the best example of Chandler's affinity for the city, particularly in the light of it's unique blend of pre-fabricated history associated with the film industry and the pre-Hollywood era. That being said, it's a bit ironic that we tend to think of Philip Marlowe as personified by Humphrey Bogart, even though he's been played by several actors over the years and the film of The Big Sleep is markedly different from the book. "Chandleresque" suggests a certain style of writing and of using metaphors and language that can't really be described to anyone unfamiliar with his work without lapsing into stereotype. For any other mystery writer, that would be a negative, but since Chandler is the man who, with The Big Sleep, more or less invented the detective novel as we know it today it's astonishing to read and realize what kind of impact it might have had on those who read the first printing. The Big Sleep introduces Philip Marlowe as the private eye who is both uncorruptable and one step ahead of his antagonists. His characterization is what drives the story, which as mysteries go is not the most suspensful or even all that mysterious. Indeed, the "mystery" such as it is is barely given notice by Chandler, short of the necessities. While there are some good plot twists, they seem to come together in a generally haphazard manner. None of that matters, because the main interest is in what Marlowe will do next and how he will react. Chandler creates some interesting supporting characters as well, but they float in and out of the story overwhelmed by the protagonist. The Big Sleep is an excellent starting point for getting re-acquainted with classic detective fiction and exploring the development of the genre. It's a relatively quick read as well, which helps the suspense build and leaves you wanting more. It's also a classic vessel for channeling the aura of Los Angeles as it was in what we consider to be its heyday, and what Chandler considered to be something else altogether.
Rating: 
Summary: The tree is dead, but the ornaments are fantastic...
Review: Most people pick up this book knowing its prominent place in the lineage of crime fiction. I fell into this group, so I was expecting great things. Let me just say out front that I had a difficult time finishing it, despite the fact that it is relatively short. I found the story to be lacking, the mystery all but solved halfway through, and not much impetus from the plot to keep me reading. As an originator and trailblazer, Chandler deserves ample credit for what came out of The Big Sleep, but I would be lying if I said it was anywhere near the engrossing and deftly-plotted read I was expecting. One caveat to this, however: there are certain passages in this book where Chandler will simply blow your mind with the way he can conjure up scenes and reveal things about a character with his almost hypnotically sultry prose. On these occassions, which are dropped in here and there throughout, Chandler makes you a believer, and shows in a way few have before or since how sublimely evocative words can be in the hands of a master. I know that it seems like I'm writing about two completely different novels here, but the distinction rings very true (for me, anyway). The story would rate 2 stars from me, but the filaments of magic woven throughout doubles its rating. Whether this is enough to warrant a reading is completely a matter of personal taste, but I would offer my tacit recommendation on the grounds that you've been warned what to expect.
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