"I locked up again,choked my car to life, and rode off home to a shower, dry clothes and a late dinner..."

Novel: The Big Sleep
Author: Raymond Chandler
Published: 1939
Genre: Detective, Crime


Reading this novel was well overdue. Ever since I first saw the film version starring Bogart & Bacall, I've been very interested in reading up on the world of pulp fiction that manifested in the '20s and went on well into the '50s. The whole thing flourished with the rise of pulp magazines, the first one dating as far back as 1896. The term "pulp" came from the cheap wood pulp paper that the magazines used. The most prominent of the pulp writers were people like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Cornell Woolrich. Many consider their bodies of work to be the first real examples of "film noir". Many pulp novels were adapted for the big screen, creating timeless classics such as the above-noted title.

The Big Sleep is the first of Chandler's eight novels. All of his novels have the same protagonist, the one and only Philip Marlowe. The novel is not only considered one of Chandler's best, but also a prototype of the crime/detective genre. There were two film versions made: the B+B film I already mentioned which was released in 1946 and a 1978 version starring actor Robert Mitchum. I never got a chance to see the latter, but as one can tell from the title of my blog, I absolutely love the '46 film. It gets more enjoyable every time I watch it, and only certain films have that great everlasting quality. It's one of my personal favorites.

As my first official Chandler read, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It's a great piece of work to put out as a first novel, and immediately proves that the author is not fooling around. Chandler really knows how to create characters. You can't help but absolutely love Marlowe and the way he presents himself to everybody he meets. Robert B. Parker from The New York Times Book Review puts it well when he states, "Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious."

I love the crazy lines that Chandler comes up with. His metaphors are off the charts. He uses very abstract ideas that any normal, average person would find great. "The purring voice was now as false as an usherette's eyelashes and as slippery as a watermelon seed." A watermelon seed! I'm in love with that! That's the type of play on words that I fall in love with at first sight. Reminds me of the time I was completely blown away by Faulkner's Light in August and his creation of the word "bugswirled" on page two (I think).

I'm not going to go through a detailed breakdown of the book. I'm just going to recommend it to any of you who are looking for some really fun summer reading. Go for it! You won't be disappointed, I promise.

Last night I started reading Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man (1934) and had a load of trouble putting it down. I'm looking forward to tonight's session.




Peace, Love, and Novels.