I am currently going through the books that I read in 2022, as it marks the end of the year for me. One book that I reread was "The Big Sleep," which is truly a noir masterpiece. Raymond Chandler's writing style is distinct, being direct and lonely, and there is a palpable sexual tension that runs high between the characters. The decadent Hollywood mansions serve as the perfect backdrop for this murder mystery, where the characters find themselves深陷于各种问题之中 and expect others to extricate them. Chandler's unique writing style, along with the steamy and tension-filled plot, makes this book a quick and engaging read. The setting of the luxurious Hollywood mansions of yesteryear further adds to the overall intrigue. If you haven't yet read this book, I highly recommend that you put it on your shelf for 2023. It's a must-read for any fan of noir literature.

This is Chandler's book (1939), in which he presents for the first time the mythical 'Philip Marlowe' and which is considered one of the most important detective novels with a 'noir' atmosphere.

I agree with Ian Rankin's prologue that the first paragraph is an unforgettable example of 'noir' writing, as is the end of the book (I add), which is amazing and perhaps 'chilling' due to the cynicism it exudes.

The first half of the book moves in a gothic atmosphere that features (especially with the description of the desolate and elemental Sternwood mansion) with fateful characters and mysterious women with dark motives trying to trap Marlowe.

The second half has a slower pace, at first, with exaggerated descriptions of the houses, the spaces, and the weather that create a bit of a lull in the plot. However, the last part that leads to the 'purification' compensates in a surprising way and 'closes the eye' of the reader.

Chandler manages to effectively describe the 'tough' face of America after the 'dark' period of Prohibition and the economic crash and to depict the perfect 'hypocritical' personality of the 'American Dream'. Perhaps he is ironically暗示 that, at that time, America was in a period of 'great sleep'.

Note: The descriptions of sensory photographs, the use of drugs, and the illegal trade of erotic and sensory materials are impressive themes - taboos for the era in which the book was written.

Overall Rating: 3.8/5 or 7.6/10.

Rating for the innovative elements of the case and for the particularly interesting plot: 4.5/5 or 9/10.

No matter how often I peruse Chandler's Big Sleep - and I'd rather not tally the number - I'm always astounded by the masterful boldness of the opening lines. Just four sentences are all it takes to give us the time, the weather, and our location; we know who's addressing us, what he's wearing down to the pattern on his socks, and there's no doubt at all about the cocky mood Marlowe's in - all because he's visiting for four million dollars. Now, I ask you, who else would begin like that?

But how does one read The Annotated Big Sleep? That's a good question. Generally, its left-hand pages contain the text of Chandler's full-length novel. The right-hand pages feature the editors' notes and illustrations. Both sides are captivating. You might decide, I suppose, to read the text through first and then return later to the glosses and commentary. But I lack that kind of willpower.

Those right-hand pages are addictive. And since it's Chandler who's under scrutiny, the delivery has the appropriate verve. The Romantic Tradition and Literary Modernism? Philip Marlowe's debts are noted. Los Angeles' geography and history? Those right-hand notations enlighten as they should. There are unexpected asides. One of them recalls that the city once had a world-class streetcar system, hence the scenes in The Big Sleep where we hear them passing by. And of course, we gain clarity on countless details.

Chandleresque? I can't say I ever defined it myself. I'd simply read and reread the Marlowe novels since I was a teenager - not long after they were written, as I like to think - until they felt like an element I immersed myself in. But step by step, page by page, The Annotated Big Sleep does define the meaning of Chandleresque and makes a case that intrigues as much as it persuades.

There are the familiar devices, of course, that orient the reader. Can't envision Chandler without the private eye, the femme fatale, the blondes? Well, you're off and running. Add blackmail, hard liquor, and the camera eye, and you're still hardly scratching the surface of the accessories. Really, you're not. But never mind, The Annotated Big Sleep has them all covered. It examines the hard-boiled conventions, before and after Chandler. Along the way, it determines that he's rarely an innovator - not even when he thinks he might be. And it establishes - without a doubt - that he had a genius nonetheless, for transforming those familiar devices into art.

Then again, there are the fault lines. The Annotated Big Sleep spells those out too, because Chandler is complex. A Victorian by birth and temperament, apprenticed to the pulps during the Depression era, he liberated the hard-boiled form through talent and technique, while at the same time consorting with its casual prejudices. The editors' analysis of class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity places The Big Sleep squarely in the mainstream of the hard-boiled perspective. Simply put, if you're seeking a fair chance as a developed character in a Chandler story, it helps enormously to be straight, white, and male. Which can not only make for some uncomfortable 21st-century reading; if you're thinking of writing something Chandleresque nowadays, there's a problem to solve.

The Annotated Big Sleep is magnificent. Editors Owen Hill, Pamela Jackson, and Anthony Dean Rizzuto have provided an excellent guide that reveals how much we didn't know we were lacking.

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This was truly an interesting experience. I must admit that I found the Bogart & Bacall movie to be much more enjoyable than the book. After all, it was fine-tuned by the greats like William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett. The early chapters of the book were a bit stilted and forced, with dialogue that was almost too snappy, just like in the movie. However, as I continued reading, around 20%, Chandler seemed to loosen up a bit and began to shine. It was great stuff from then on. Wow, I was witnessing Chandler find his true voice. What an amazing feeling!

24%... The prose had changed for the better, and it was now even better than the movie. The descriptions flowed beautifully, and the pacing was very good. 26%... Hard Boiled wooohoooooo! In my mind, as I read, Bogart was indelibly Marlowe, and Bacall was forever Vivian. However, I pictured her as a light brunette or blonde, not raven as Chandler had written.

Trivia: In both this movie and To Have and Have Not, Bacall did all her own singing. Chandler wrote The Big Sleep in 1938 or so, but before the ending of the filming of the movie in 1945, Bogart and Bacall were married. They had fallen in love during the filming of To Have and Have Not, which was released in 1944, and remained deeply in love until Bogart's death in 1957.

Oh, and the famous scene about racing horses, to evade the Hays Code (about sex on the screen), was the fabrication of screenwriters William Faulkner, Jules Furthman, and Leigh Brackett. It was added almost a year after filming was otherwise complete, in an attempt to inject the film with the kind of risqué innuendos that had made To Have and Have Not, and Bacall, so popular two years earlier.

Especially in the last half of the book, Chandler’s descriptive passages had a wonderful noir rhythm to them, which I truly appreciated. 84%... Hard. Boiled. Delicious...

Unfortunately, the final pages became more confused, almost like a dissertation, with some small gems thrown in. The ending was very different from the movie, darker and with less clarity and resolution. Perhaps it was more true to life? You be the judge. On the last page, though, I did very much like the final paragraph: A surprising and poignant glimpse into Marlowe’s hidden heart... (in bold below).

More trivia here

“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.” This line from Raymond Chandler sets the tone for his classic detective fiction.

On 9/1/24, I reread this for a Detective Fiction class. It was even better than before. Raymond Chandler, after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression, decided to become a detective fiction writer. He published short stories in places like The Black Mask, honing his craft and being inspired by Dashiell Hammett. His debut, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939, ten years after The Maltese Falcon, and made him famous.

The novel has many great aspects. There's clever dialogue, wonderful noir "poetic" description and philosophizing, a great hard-boiled detective in Philip Marlowe, and the way Chandler both reinforces and subverts noir tropes. The plot is convoluted, but that's almost beside the point. The real focus is on Marlowe, who is tough, blunt, a wisecracker, and a good shamus.

The book also has great characters, like the femme fatale tropes of Carmen and Vivian Sternwood. The film version with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall is also very popular, although its plot is criticized for being incoherent. But both the book and the film are the real deal and worth experiencing.

Chandler's 1939 classic crime novel holds a significant place in the literary world.

It was the very first to introduce Phillip Marlowe, the renowned private detective who would grace the pages of 7 of Chandler's novels.

Humphrey Bogart's portrayal of Marlowe in the 1946 production of The Big Sleep brought the character to vivid life on the silver screen.

What's truly remarkable is that despite being written nearly 80 years ago, this novel has not aged.

It still manages to have an almost modern feel, captivating readers with its engaging plot and well-developed characters.

As the saying goes, good writing almost always equals a good novel, and Chandler's work is a prime example of this.

His masterful storytelling and unique writing style continue to attract readers and inspire generations of writers to this day.

The enduring popularity of Chandler's classic crime novel is a testament to its timeless appeal and literary excellence.

Written in 1939, this book is delightfully offensive, yet it is also a fun read. It is truly very impressive for Chandler's first full-length story.

There are many excellent quotes that abound in this old murder mystery. For example, the exchange "

\\n  “You're broke, eh?”

“I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.”\\n

" is both humorous and revealing. Another great quote is "

\\n  “As honest as you can expect a man to be in a world where it’s going out of style.” \\n

" which offers a cynical view of the state of honesty in society. These quotes add depth and character to the story, making it a truly engaging read.

Overall, this book is a must-read for fans of mystery and crime fiction, as well as those who appreciate well-written dialogue and engaging characters.

It was truly a delight to come across a crime fiction that I could easily review on GR without any hesitation or awkwardness. Most of the mysteries I've read since joining the site have been recent Scandi noir. It was always a challenge as I had to address two different sets of readers in the same post, having different things to say to each of them. I might want to tell those who read that kind of genre crime at least occasionally that "this is well-written" in the context of contemporary police procedurals. Then there are friends who read only high-literary and experimental works. I would never recommend such a book to them personally. If I ever mentioned it, I'd say, "This is fairly decent writing by the low bar of this subgenre, but you'd probably hate it."

Chandler's writing, on the other hand, is undeniably stylish and witty. It's well-known, so no one would need a plethora of examples to be convinced. Yet, it's simple enough not to put off those who might find a contemporary "literary thriller" pretentious. The few instances of obvious exposition feel like a natural part of the story. Seventy years after the publication of The Big Sleep, it still serves as a platonic ideal of how to phrase thriller writing. Chandler is also distinct enough that it would be unwise to imitate him too closely.

I used to have a problem with classic noir sounding generic or absurd. I would hear it in my head in Steve Martin's narrative voiceover from Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. I eventually learned to appreciate the classic films, but when I tried to read noir as text, the echoes of Steve Martin returned. However, while reading The Big Sleep recently, it didn't take long for the Steve Martin voice to change to Humphrey Bogart's, which was a great sign. By the second half of the book, I wasn't hearing every sentence in any actor's voice, and the novel and book-Marlowe became their own entity.

I think Chandler's elaborate metaphors read even better now than they would have at the time of publication. Full of details of place and time, they enhance the setting and sense of history, and have become exotically vintage. Although I'm not usually interested in the WASP USA and novels about it, I found Marlowe's LA compelling, partly through the book and partly through the frisson of classic noir films. To fully appreciate the references and slang, I would have loved to read an annotated edition.

Unfortunately, there are old homophobic-stereotype characters and other characters being homophobic about them. Also, the plot structure is almost like two novellas and a short story. But otherwise, it's still nearly perfect, with writing and story that are neither too simple nor too complicated. I won't criticize the femmes fatales as it's rare in modern literature for there to be scenes where a woman's sexual advances are unwelcome to a straight man. A great deal has already been said about The Big Sleep, so I'll just link to what I think is the best GR review of it I've read.

(read & reviewed January 2020)

My first Chandler and it definitely won't be my last.

This book is an absolute cracker of a read. The dialogue is dynamite, sharp and engaging, pulling you right into the story.

When I think of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, I can't help but picture Humphrey Bogart. It's as if the role was made specifically for him.

The storyline is great, filled with twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat. The characters are rich and complex, each with their own unique personalities and motives.

After reading this, I am truly inspired and intend to read more of Chandler's works. I can't wait to see what other literary gems he has in store for us.

Read in 2012.

It is the first novel that I have read of the famous detective Philip Marlowe.

Although I am not a great enthusiast of the noir novel, I have liked the author's narrative technique. I still prefer Bevilaqua de Silva, but I recognize that Marlowe has great appeal as a character.

The story unfolds with Marlowe's sharp wit and keen观察力 as he delves into a complex mystery. The descriptions of the seedy underworld and the morally ambiguous characters add to the atmosphere of the novel.

Despite my initial hesitation towards the noir genre, this novel has managed to capture my interest and make me look forward to reading more about Marlowe's adventures.

Overall, it has been a satisfying reading experience that has introduced me to a new and engaging detective.

My 99th book of 2019. This book had been sitting on my TBR (To Be Read) list for such a long time that the cover had actually begun to irritate me. In fact, even now that it's finished, the cover still manages to irritate me. I had developed an aversion to reading it simply because I hadn't gotten around to it for so long. Anyway,

LA, a wise-cracking private investigator, cruises around in American cars armed with a gun. Sometimes, if women get a little hysterical, he slaps them. He has a penchant for drink and money, and yes, he can be a bastard at times. But he throws himself into the case and will likely solve it, because if he doesn't, it wouldn't make much of a story. This was exactly what I had expected it to be, a decent, fast-paced noir read. Here are some quotes, because I have to give it to Chandler, there are some really good ones.

'Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.'

'Brody took a gun out of the cigar box and pointed it at my nose. I looked at the gun. It was a black Police.38. I had no argument against it at the moment.'

And a cheer for when the book title appears in the book:

'What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? 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.'

Will someone please purge Peter Falk's voice from my head? I swear the man learned how to speak by having this book read to him as a child.

Again, shame on me for not having read yet another American classic. I've always been a fan of noir in movies or on television, but had not read much at all, until recently. So I set out to make up for my un-American pinko commie ways and read a red-blooded American mystery. Now I honestly can't tell whether Raymond Chandler loved or hated America.

I can tell you that he's a great writer. His prose in The Big Sleep is sparse, almost blunt. But Chandler occasionally turns a phrase that grabs the reader by the throat. In that way he's like Wodehouse, but a dark, serious Wodehouse with only a glimmer of a grim sense of humor.

I went the emotional rounds with Philip Marlowe, admiring him, then hating him, then admiring him again. He's clever, forthright, honest (except when he needs to be dishonest), witty, warm-hearted, then cold-blooded. He's a classic male chauvinist, bordering on a misogynist. Frankly, I really hated him when he interacted with women in such a condescending way. Yeah, I know, he's a product of his time, I get that. But it just got old. Outside of that glaring character flaw, I was fascinated with Marlowe. I think a good deal of my admiration of the detective had to do with watching Chandler's handling of his main character. It's almost as if the author let Marlowe run around and do what he liked, only to pull back on his leash when he was about to give away too much to the reader. I sometimes wondered if Chandler or Marlowe was "in control," which is a testament to the underlying liveliness of the text.

The plot itself was as convoluted as a klein bottle. I often found myself re-reading certain sections to keep the "who's who" straight in my head. The apparent insanity of most of the characters kept things confusing, but also immersed me in the slightly paranoid world in which Marlowe lived. And that's what this book is really about: immersion in an atmosphere. It's a trip. A dark trip, but a fun trip. Just be careful. You never know who's waiting in the dark. Oh, there's always someone there. You might even get to know one of them. And just when you think you know that person in the dark, you just might not. Watch out. This book is a captivating journey into a world of mystery and intrigue, filled with complex characters and a plot that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Chandler's writing style is both engaging and unique, making The Big Sleep a must-read for any fan of noir or mystery novels.