The Big Sleep

I finished my last Raymond Chandler novel sitting on a bus in Whittier, and the knowledge that I would never again get to read a new Chandler was one of the low moments in my life. Everything that can be said about Philip Marlowe and about his creator has already been said. Other than Dashell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, Chandler has no peers.

I've wanted to read Mr. Chandler for ages now, and his own life story (conveniently included at the beginning of this edition) shows up a fascinating and plucky gentleman. As the virtual inventor of the modern detective novel, his achievement and influence is undeniable. When reading TBS, I could see private dick Philip Marlowe in every 40s film noir ever made, gravelly voice, smoked up sexiness, tipped hat, aggressive banter and slang, hard assed yet sensitive, too cool for school.

Mr. Chandler's writing is razor sharp and vivid when he is recreating the seedy underbelly of LA. I loved his language. The dialogue was so very quick and witty and full of fabulous 30's and 40's slang, and his descriptions border on poetry at times, gunshot grim and gorgeous.

My one complaint: I found TBS a bit of a `boy' book: too much mafia and manly men, women all beautiful and wasted, and a plot so convoluted that I couldn't keep up. This last I found to be the most distracting of all. Marlowe was always a step ahead of the game, in the right place at the right time, knew what to say and when not to say it, page after damned page. Halfway through, I gave up trying to understand what was going on and just read for the mayhem and fun of it (and this wasn't difficult at all).

Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep is a great example of a seminal novel that is not actually a very good one. It helped establish numerous tropes of the hardboiled mystery subgenre, but the plot is a stitched-together, unsatisfying mess and the psychology is risible. About halfway though the novel, the plot--never very mentally stimulating--runs out of steam. Chandler throws in a naked girl in the hero's bed, some beatings and some shootings before reaching his finish, which predictably turns on the hardboiled keystone credo, "dames are bad news."

Chandler's main purpose in this book seems to be to convey his conception of masculine dignity and honor withstanding the temptations offered by rich, decadent, beautiful young women. This is a valid enough idea for a novel and the opening image of the knight in stained glass in a truly arresting one, but Chandler's "psychology" is blundering and heavyhanded. He was quite daring for his day in his presentation of blatantly loose women and "degenerate" homosexuals, but these depictions are not only insulting and offputting now but I would argue quite shallow (thumb-sucking, loose-bladdered, nymphomaniac Carmen has to be one of the most cartoonish and misogynistic creations in the genre by a serious writer). The characters with whom Chandler sympathizes are his ego-projection detective, Philip Marlowe, and Marlowe's original client, old, dying General Sternwood; tellingly, these are the only characters in the book who get anything beyond surface treatment.

In The Big Sleep Chandler achieves some of his patented, pithy bon mots, but his writing would get better in his next book, Farewell, My Lovely, as would his plotting. Chandler is a great figure in the genre and he produced some great detective novels, but The Big Sleep is not one of them.

This book arrived, and it isn't the same edition that was pictured on Amazon. It's a Vintage Crime paperback, with a yellow cover, 139 pages. The type is so tiny it's difficult to read. It's about 6 point type. You need a magnifying glass. Very aggravating. I don't think I'll go to the trouble of reading it.

This is my all-time favorite book. You can read it a 1,000 times and still be spellbound by Chandler's humor, his original scenes and his feel for all things dark but human. I loved this book the first time I read it, and whenever I need a good laugh and an adventure into dark psychology, I always go for The Big Sleep.

There is a modern version that features a female Philip Marlowe called TROUBLE IS HER BUSINESS. It doesn't incorporate all of Chandler's gifts, but does a better job of living up to The Big Sleep than any work since.