The Big Sleep

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Summary: Shop-Soiled Galahad
Review: A work so complex that even the author didn't know exactly who did what to whom and why may sound confusing to your average reader of mystery stories--especially one who wants the plot resolved neatly and tidily. Yet Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep pulls it off remarkably. A lesser writer never would have succeeded, however, Chandler's prose is so captivating, and Philip Marlowe is such a an endearing scoundrel, that it is easy to over-look such trivialities as plot. Although he was an obsessive, Chandler never was one for neat and tidy plots. In fact, as he even admitted, he wasn't much for plots at all. In this book, considered by many to be his finest, he achieves his highest unity of dialogue, plot and characterization. Philip Marlowe seems to skulk across the page in a glancing fashion (and if that makes sense to you, you HAVE been reading too much Chandler). Wry, self-depracating, witty, and unfathomably intelligent, he becomes the shop worn galahad, the original noir detective. If at times the lines seem a bit cliched, the film noir quality painted on a bit thick, the reader must keep in mind, this is where it came from first. Without Raymond Chandler, there would have been no Blade Runner. As both a linguist and a writer, I am infinitely in love with both Chandler's work and Philip Marlowe. There is an intelligence in this prose that is rarely found anywhere, let alone detective fiction. And his similes and metaphors are simply the best anyone has ever written. I read my first Chandler while working on an honors research project as an undergrad and was so captivated I read all of his stuff straight through. If you only have time to read one or two of his works, start here and then read Farewell My lovely, but I gaurantee, anyone who loves words and the American Language won't be able to stop there.

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Summary: The quintessential hard-boiled detective novel.
Review: In "The Big Sleep," Raymond Chandler has given fans of pulp detective fiction a near-perfect example of the genre. The 1939 novel follows Chandler's hangdog detective, Phillip Marlowe, as he enters a winding maze of sinister characters, beautiful women, and dead bodies that turn up in all the wrong places. What begins as a simple blackmail case becomes a web of deceit and murder, as the nigh-unflappable Marlowe becomes mixed up with an elderly millionaire, his missing son-in-law, his two dangerous daughters, and a vicious killer in a brown suit. Marlowe is one of the great characters of twentieth century popular fiction, possessed of a surprising wit, world-weary persistence, and an unbending code of honor. His dreamlike Los Angeles is populated with characters who seem to have stepped out of a Edward Hopper painting: isolated, hardbitten souls who speak in rough-hewn poetry. Chandler plays fast and loose with the truth, keeping the reader guessing at every turn. Like Shakespeare, he has a knack for creating oddly simple metaphors whose beauty is startling: "The light hit pencils of rain and made silver wires of them." "The Big Sleep" is a supremely entertaining read, a mystery that plumbs the dark and lonely corners of the human soul and emerges with no easy answers.

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Summary: Genre Defining Classic
Review: The first book of Chandler's Philip Marlowe series is an especially interesting read for those who've seen the classic film with Bogey and Bacall. The film is actually a fairly faithful adaptation of the book, with all references to pornography removed. This is odd, because the story is about blackmail and pornography. Cinemaphiles will read the book and at key points think "oh, that's what it was about."

Be warned: when you start reading Chandler, you're going to read two or three in a row.

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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.

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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.

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Summary: What is the point?
Review: Review of the book The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
What was the point, January 14, 2004
Reviewer: Sleepy-head, from Nowhere
I know that the setting of this book was set way back in the 1920s, but why was this book so boring? Even literature back then was even at least somewhat interesting. I know that this book is a classic mystery novel, but there was really no riveting mystery involved. At least there was a little mystery involved, though. To give it some credit, Chandler's uses of similes were great in some areas, but he used them way to often. This book was very boring in my opinion. There is nothing exciting about it. It really was a 'Big Sleep.'

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Summary: father of noir
Review: This is the place to start if you like noir writing. If you like Parker, MacDonald, Connelly, or Burke, this is the book will be for you. Warning that it is a little hard to read, and may take awhile to get into it. The story will confuse and befuddle, but it is ultimately rewarding. The great thing about it is not only do you enjoy reading a great story, but you get a glimpse into a Los Angles of the past and a different cultural era. The darkside of the glamour city. Must read and the place to start for a study of noir mystery.