“You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that, oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell”--Raymond Chandler

9/1/24: Reread this time for a Detective Fiction class (see my post on my Goodreads blog for the reading list), and it was better than ever, but still, I would say The Lady of the Lake and The Long Goodbye might even be better.

Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. He published some short stories in The Black Mask, among other places, honing his craft, paying particular attention to the work of his main inspiration, Dashiell Hammett, and finally made his debut; The Big Sleep was published in 1939, ten years after The Maltese Falcon, and made a huge international and justifiable name for himself. The real accomplishments include 1) clever dialogue, 2) some kinda ridiculous but wonderful noir “poetic” description and philosophizing, 3) ) a great hard-boiled detective, Philip Marlowe, and 4) what I particularly noticed in this 2024 reading with the help--again--of The Annotated Big Sleep, the way Chandler both entertainingly reinforces noir tropes, and also subverts them.

The novel is deservedly renowned, but it may best be known for a film version with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall that is almost universally loved in spite of the critical claim that its plot is (pretty much) incoherent. Almost everybody knows that Chandler disdains plot, clues, evidence, all that jazz, even disdains the need for coherence; fans are looking at and listening to Bogart and Bacall:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjJlB...

But in the book the Bacall character, Vivian Sternwood, doesn't play as much a role as in the film. Chandler creates great characters, great scenes, and great patter. So then, I won’t say much about the plot, which to my mind is not that remarkable here, except to say it is "layered"/convoluted, and sort of beside the point. Things are tight-lipped and mean and lean and fast and a lot of people die in this one, but the point is really Marlowe. I would describe him as tough and blunt, and also a wisecracker, though he is also much more, including a good shamus:

“I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.”

One guy he describes as “hatchet-faced.”

Gangster lingo: "You big handsome brute! I oughtta throw a Buick at you."

"I leered at her politely."

“Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.”

“I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it.”

"Not being bulletproof was the idea I had to get used to" (a reference to Superman, who was popular just then).

And Marlowe gets entangled with and/or fights off a few women: “She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air.”

Dames, huh? Here Chandler acknowledges the femme fatale trope but also pokes fun at (subverts) it.

“You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women.”

Two central women Marlowe deals with are Carmen and Vivian (played by Bacall), the rich Sternwood sisters: "Neither of them has any more sense of morals than a cat."

Vivian is also Mrs. Regan, whose husband has left her and also is missing: “I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs. Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble.”

One possible alternative title the Annotated Big Sleep suggests is "Not Looking for Rusty Regan, cuz Marlowe consistently insists he is not looking for Regan, this story's McGuffin.

This is one great scene from the Bogart film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t8H0...

And another:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t8H0...

But it’s not just detective Philip Marlow that is caustically clever; the women get their jabs in, too, as one says:

“Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten—when Larry Cobb was sober”--Vivian

Some of the more “literary” writing that would more inform his writing later is already here from Chandler, who began as a kind of romantic poet:

“Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness.”

So see the film, but don’t ignore the book, both are the real deal. And it may not even be in the top three books he wrote! Oh, it probably is, I just like so many of them.

The 2011-2012 re-read...
A paralyzed millionaire, General Sternwood, hires Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe to have a talk with a blackmailer with his hooks in his daughter. But what does his daughter's missing husband, Rusty Regan, have to do with it? Marlowe's case will get him entangled in a web of pornography and gambling from which he may never escape...

For the last few years, me and noir detective fiction have gone together as well as strippers and c-section scars. When the Pulp Fiction group announced this as it's January group read, I figured it was time to get reacquainted with one of the books that started the genre.

I'd forgotten most of the book in the past ten years so it was like a completely new one. One of the things that grabbed me right away was how poetic Raymond Chandler's prose seems at times. I'd intended on writing down some of the more clever bits but I quickly dropped that idea in favor of letting myself get taken along for the ride.

For a lot of today's readers, the plot and Philip Marlowe himself might not seem that original. That's because people have been ripping off Raymond Chandler for decades! Marlowe is the real deal. Now that I've read a few hundred more detective books since my original reading, I can appreciate how influential Marlowe is as a character.

The plot is a lot more complex than it originally seemed. I almost wish I didn't know the plot of the Big Leibowski was partly lifted from the Big Sleep. I kept picturing characters from the movie while I was reading. Hell, the plot is almost inconsequential. The atmosphere and language are the real stars of the show.

Five stars. If you're a fan of noir and haven't read this, drop what you're doing and get started!

When Private Investigator Philip Marlowe received a call to visit General Sternwood, he didn’t expect him to be seated in his wheelchair in the hothouse. But the General was dying and the heat was something he needed. When he hired Marlowe to discover who was blackmailing him, Marlowe had no idea that there would be much, much more involved than mere extortion.

Sternwood had two daughters, Carmen and Vivian. Vivian was married to a man named Regan, who General Sternwood had taken a liking to – but Regan had gone missing. The General mentioned him as missing, but didn’t ask him to look for him – instead he commented that he wished he knew where he was, and that he was well. The rumour was that Regan and Eddie Mars’ wife had run off together – but no-one had seen either of them in some time.

As Marlowe became more deeply involved in the investigation, he found himself coming up against the dregs of society – the criminals of the underworld were involved, but there were strange things happening. Then murder touched him – he was in grave danger; but so were others around him. What was going on? What had General Sternwood and his family got him involved with?

This is my second Chandler book, and given that it was written so long ago, it’s a great detective story. But it seemed confusing, lacked substance at times and just didn’t grab me as I would have liked. But that said, I would still recommend this author’s work as I know a lot enjoy his style of writing.