Review from Badelynge
The Big Sleep is Raymond Chandler's debut novel published in 1939 and it's a corker featuring Chandler's now iconic hard boiled private detective Philip Marlowe. It's filled with memorable characters; tough guys, wise guys, grifters and chancers all playing their roles in the tangled web of a plot. Although complex I really like how much of the detail in the book actually turns out to be connected with everything else. There is no hiding the answers behind piles of irrelevant and unconnected red herrings, which seems to be the the current template for quite a lot of contemporary paint by numbers crime fiction. As more details are discovered and things start to move, stirred by the relentless Marlowe, the picture starts to come together until all eventually becomes clear. Yes I admit, I have seen both film versions many times, though mostly I kept getting flashbacks from the more lurid and inferior 1970s Robert Mitchum version rather than the superior 1940s Humphrey Bogart version. Probably because that version, although set in the wrong country, had more license to depict the more brash and striking elements from the book. And I still haven't mentioned Chandler's colourful and witty similes which are rightly famous and endlessly imitated. Chandler's writing is so much better than the pulp genre it inhabits; there is real heart and emotion here if you persevere to the last page. So if you are stuck for a new detective novel why not give one of the old masters a try. Worked for me. ( )

Interesting, especially for Marlowe's voice and the view of prohibition-era LA, but I think I like Dashiell Hammett better. So far. ( )

I really love these hard-boiled detective stories. This one is right up there with Red Harvest. Phillip Marlowe does the job he is paid to do and you get a little extra if it suits him. I'm fascinated by characters like these that have the ability to bluff, outwit, and outsmart their opponents. It's the classic superhero detective. The last straight arrow in a crooked world. Marlowe is hired to shake down the person who is blackmailing General Sherwood. His daughters are running wild and get mixed up with the wrong sort of people. They are used regularly to extort money from the rich General. Marlowe is hired to put a stop to it, but Marlowe gets more than her bargained for and so does the General. The story seems solved about a quarter of the way through, but it's just a smaller piece in the bigger story. Surprise ending too, great stuff!Jealousy is a bad motive for his type. Top-flight racketeers have business brains. They learn to do things that are good policy and let their personal feelings take care of themselves. p. 64I went upstairs again and sat in my chair thinking about Harry Jones and his story. It seemed a little too pat. It had the austere simplicity of fiction rather than the tangled woof of fact. p. 107Quotes p. 110"I'm a copper," he said. "Just a plain ordinary copper. Reasonably honest. As honest as you could expect a man to be in a world where it's out of style. That's mainly why I asked you to come in this morning. I'd like you to believe that. Being a copper I like to see the law win. I'd like to see the flashy well-dressed mugs like Eddie Mars spoiling their manicures in the rock quarry at Folsom, alongside of the poor little slum-bred hard guys that got knocked over on their first caper and never had a break since. That's what I'd like. You and me both lived too long to think I'm likely to see it happen. Not in this town, not in any town half this size, in any part of this wide, green and beautiful U.S.A. We just don't run our country that way."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. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep.125 ( )

Being the first pulp novel I have ever read, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler is astonishing and instantly classic. I loved the style of writing. Though there is a lot of description, it does not distract from the story. Marlowe epitomizes the hard-boiled detective and the femme fatales are far from dull and one-dimensional. I do believe it is impossible to hate this book, at least entirely. ( )

Chandler's first novel and I have to say that I like his no frills fast paced approach. At times it seems as though he ties his knots a little too conveniently but even so all in all it's intriguing and entertaining enough and a good way to spend a couple or three days. ( )

“Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”

Raymond Chandler was great at inventing one-liners. When he thought them up, he would write them in a notebook to be used at a later date in one of his books. He was also great at inventing the vernacular associated with the hard-boiled detective story.

This book is a study in the seedy side of the human condition that permits a person to commit crimes of murder and black mail. It is seen through the eyes of a misanthrope detective whose moral compass guides the reader through the tangled web that is the story of Los Angeles in the 1930s and 40s.

I did not enjoy the plot but plot was not that important to Chandler. I did like the dialogue of the characters though it reads a little short and choppy. It seems the book could have been better with a little more work on the story. It was definitely style over story.

It was fun watching the movie after reading the book. It made the movie that much more enjoyable. Bogart was great as Philip Marlowe. I think the book would have worked better as a movie script. ( )

Chandler only wrote seven novels, but his Phillip Marlowe character surely caught on in his day's reading public. Myself, I see the language used as fictitious and subhuman, having lived some six and a half decades. I've been through almost all states, and never hearing such a language spoken, I have no choice to believe writer Chandler to be precocious and self-occupied. ( )

Our first attempt at a noir mystery. The plot was confusing, but the setting and characters were outstanding. We were glad we read it. ( )

I picked this up after a semester in a film noir class. Though it wasn't required reading, it certainly should have been, because Chandler is the master of the hard-boiled detective genre. Film noir takes so much from his writing, clear in classics like Chandler's own Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, or Strangers on a Train (which he also wrote the script for) - through to neo-noir revival flicks like Chinatown, and even Hollywood Confidential. If you like tough dames, slick suits, monsterous thugs and clever dialouge, then take this book out for a spin. ( )

Another classic hardboiled detective story. I like Philip Marlowe almost as much as I like Sam Spade -- and there are a few things about him I like a little more, actually -- but I almost never like first-person narration as much as I like third. Surprises are less surprising, somehow; the POV character can't get away with anything, and when he does, it feels a little cheap. Although, really, I might have given this one five stars if I hadn't read it immediately after The Maltese Falcon, which is a pretty hard act to follow. The plot was twisty and interesting, but there were definitely places where I did some skimming, and I'm still kind of chewing on the ending. ( )

The prose is lively and original - very spare, and yet full of vivid and unusual metaphors and description, and Chandler has a fantastic turn of phrase - the plot was very entertaining, and Philip Marlowe is an intriguing and sympathetic character. I was rather bothered by the depiction of women, and by the apparent homophobia, but I'm certainly going to be reading more of these. ( )

One of Chandler's best - in my opinion - along with The Long Goodbye. The ending is right up there with The Great Gatsby for some of the most memorable writing ever. ( )

A crippled military man hires Marlowe to see if he can untangle the disappearance of a potential son in law, and whatever two extremely dodgy dame daughters might have got themselves up to in relation.

This, of course, will involve some boozing, some gambling, some gunplay, and a fair helping of wisecracks directed at either sharp or sloshed slatternly sheilas into the process tongue

http://freesf.blogspot.com/2010/01/big-sleep-raymond-chandler.html ( )

Philip Marlowe is an alcoholic. However he hasn't yet succombed enough for this to interfere with his mental prowess, which is lucky because he is also a PI in late 1930s LA.

He is summoned to the home of the reclusive General Sternwood and asked to investigate three blackmail notes the old and ill man has recieved. As he does so his paths cross firstly with the general's flighty daughters and then with various thugs and criminal's the inhabit LA's darker side streets. The case is solved some 2/3rds of the way through the book, but Philip hangs around a bit to wrap up the remaining plot points, which is a nice touch that modern authors should take note of.

Although highly recommended for the time and one of the instigators of an entire genre, this doesn't stand up that well to today's harsh spotlights. It is perhaps difficult to look back at the 1930s without having lived through it, but I found myself more curious about the culture than the plot. Descriptions sucg as the running boards on cars, the change in cultural values such as characters casual drinking and continual smoking, and the heavy slang all combine to make this at times difficult to believe or follow. But lend an insight into how the world was only a few decades ago.

In terms of a mystery the plot is well constructed, and while Marloe isn't exactly likable, he retains a basic honesty and sense of humour which comes across in a few great lines.
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I just wish I lived in this world, dodgy cops, PIs, dames with silver-blond hair, and lots and lots of drinking and smoking. What a dream.

The book dragged slightly for me and contained too many characters that just weren't fleshed out enough for me to keep track of. I persisted though, mainly due to the atmosphere and enjoyed it. ( )

This book is a whole lot of fun. Besides the goofy underworld slang, there is a ghastly crew of colorful thugs, pimps, punks, and frails (those are girls in 1930s lingo). You never know what type of creep you're going to run into next, but you can be pretty sure he won't be naked, which is to say he is toting a gat. The plot is as screwy and loopy, but fair for the figuring out; Marlowe doesn't hold back on the necessary clues. Perhaps the best two things about the book are the evocation of Los Angeles in the '30s and the humor, trenchant,even mordant humor. While Marlowe at times seems a cold-blooded SOB, he is at heart a sentimentalist, a compassionate and honest guy trying to live straight in a world that's going to hell.

Two things that do sour this book a bit are the taints of misogyny and homophobia. ( )

The film is an absolute classic. In fact the book made me want to see it again. But the book made the film. Bogart was made for the book too. He even played chess like Philip Marlowe. Despite the plot being hard to follow at points, I thoroughly enjoyed this.

It isn’t that Chandler knows how to write a good detective story with twists and turns and then some more. It’s that he managed to create a complete world of fiction in which to set the story. His cynical humour, the backdrop of urban California and his lightly sketched but heavily complex protagonist Marlowe are all absolute genius.

Faulkner was involved in the screenplay for the film but it must have been money for nothing. Chandler had already done all the work. Throughout, Marlowe uses one-liners that are classics. And when he doesn’t, he finds other characters to play off so that the exchange becomes classic itself. I wish I’d actually had the physical book in front of me to write some down but it isn’t that easy to grab a pen and start writing when you’re chopping a bucket of onions and listening to the audio.

Finally, I appreciated Marlowe’s coolness, seeming luck and stumble-upon method of solving crime. It’s a breath of air after the likes of Holmes and Poirot who are way too cerebral to be part of my universe.

Great book. ( )

http://www.bookgeeks.co.uk/2009/03/26... ( )

Works even better than the short stories, as the cracks are there but kept from becoming weary by the short chapters and incredible pace of the plot. Marlowe does more detecting than Dalmer in 'Trouble is my Business', and the story of blackmail, murder and a missing person was a corker with some great characters. There is a fear that the plots could become slightly repetitive, with the client often implicated in the crime somehow. I have a lot of Chandler to read, and will probably read something else for a while for a change of tone. ( )

This is the book that introduced readers to Private Detective Philip Marlowe, who lives and operates in 1940s Los Angeles.

Marlowe is hired by the elderly and ill General Sternwood, who is being blackmailed, and wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. Marlowe accepts the job but soon finds that nothing is what it seems. Also complicating matters are Sternwood’s two wild daughters, and the missing husband of one of them.

Marlowe delves into a seedy underworld, where he discovers corruption and cover ups, and lots of double crossings. He also finds himself in some dangerous situations in his quest to uncover the truth.

In truth, he is not an altogether likable character, but he does have his own moral code which he abides by. He cares little for other people, or for what they think of him and his occupation, and is something of a loner, unreadable to many of the other characters (and sometimes to the reader).

I enjoyed the novel, although the story - which galloped along at a fair old pace - almost took second place to Chandler’s wonderful turn of phrase. His descriptions sometimes bordered on poetic, despite the subjects he was describing.

The only slight complaint I would make is that the female characters in the book are almost caricature-like, but that did not really detract from my enjoyment. ( )

Being a mere dame myself, this was one male-driven novel. Boy howdy. I bit off more than I could chew. I can get the appeal of it being a good pulp fiction novel, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Still, there were some fine moments in the book that I could appreciate, but none of them involved the women in the story. The women were complete cardboard cut-outs. It seems Chandler only gave souls to the men. ( )

The noir detective, Marlowe, must handle a millionaire's two devilish daughters and the illegal porn industry. ( )

Chandler is a pro. He can turn a pulp phrase like no other. ( )