The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler

The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler – 1939

Posted by guillermo maynez on 3/9/2014, 11:30:02

I took a break from WWI / Vietnam to read Raymond Chandler’s “The Big Sleep”. I still think “Farewell My Lovely” is better (TBS is the first of Marlowe’s appearances), but Chandler’s books are very enjoyable. Plot is the least important element, I think. Marlowe and his cool, as well as the other characters’ whims and quirknesses, are what count. Language is just wonderfully farcical and bitter. I laughed when Joe Brody, a small-time blackmailer describes being short of money: “I’ve been shaking two nickels for a month, to see if they mate”.

Political correctness, of course, would have made impossible most of the characters’ remarks.

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Posted by Sterling on 3/9/2014, 21:05:16, in reply to “The Big Sleep”

The Big Sleep is a wonderful novel, and probably remains Chandler’s best known and most popular. I do prefer Farewell, My Lovely, which I think is more polished, but all Chandler’s novels have the wonderful dialogue and extravagant similes and metaphors. If you feel like trying another one sometime, I would recommend The Long Goodbye, his last real novel. Chandler thought it his best, and it probably cuts the deepest. It is self-laceratingly autobiographical in part, spread across two contrasting characters.

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Posted by guillermo maynez on 4/9/2014, 12:41:12, in reply to “Re: The Big Sleep”

Of course! One of my next breaks will consist of “The Long Good-Bye”. Thanks.

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Posted by Steven on 10/9/2014, 9:40:35, in reply to “Re: The Big Sleep”

I definitely need to read The Long Goodbye, if for no other reason than that I never can remember without looking it up whether it’s The Long Goodbye or Farewell, My Lovely that I read–obviously because of the similar titles. I enjoyed The Big Sleep, too.