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Title: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Elliott Gould ISBN: 1-59007-089-5 Publisher: New Millennium Audio Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 5 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.45 (69 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Shop-Soiled Galahad
Comment: A work so complex that even the author didn't know exactly who did what to whom and why may sound confusing to your average reader of mystery stories--especially one who wants the plot resolved neatly and tidily. Yet Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep pulls it off remarkably. A lesser writer never would have succeeded, however, Chandler's prose is so captivating, and Philip Marlowe is such a an endearing scoundrel, that it is easy to over-look such trivialities as plot. Although he was an obsessive, Chandler never was one for neat and tidy plots. In fact, as he even admitted, he wasn't much for plots at all. In this book, considered by many to be his finest, he achieves his highest unity of dialogue, plot and characterization. Philip Marlowe seems to skulk across the page in a glancing fashion (and if that makes sense to you, you HAVE been reading too much Chandler). Wry, self-depracating, witty, and unfathomably intelligent, he becomes the shop worn galahad, the original noir detective. If at times the lines seem a bit cliched, the film noir quality painted on a bit thick, the reader must keep in mind, this is where it came from first. Without Raymond Chandler, there would have been no Blade Runner. As both a linguist and a writer, I am infinitely in love with both Chandler's work and Philip Marlowe. There is an intelligence in this prose that is rarely found anywhere, let alone detective fiction. And his similes and metaphors are simply the best anyone has ever written. I read my first Chandler while working on an honors research project as an undergrad and was so captivated I read all of his stuff straight through. If you only have time to read one or two of his works, start here and then read Farewell My lovely, but I gaurantee, anyone who loves words and the American Language won't be able to stop there.
Rating: 5
Summary: Creating A Template
Comment: It's often been said that Raymond Chandler is the quintessential writer about Los Angeles in the 1940's in the way that Faulkner fictionalized the American South. The Big Sleep is the best example of Chandler's affinity for the city, particularly in the light of it's unique blend of pre-fabricated history associated with the film industry and the pre-Hollywood era. That being said, it's a bit ironic that we tend to think of Philip Marlowe as personified by Humphrey Bogart, even though he's been played by several actors over the years and the film of The Big Sleep is markedly different from the book.
"Chandleresque" suggests a certain style of writing and of using metaphors and language that can't really be described to anyone unfamiliar with his work without lapsing into stereotype. For any other mystery writer, that would be a negative, but since Chandler is the man who, with The Big Sleep, more or less invented the detective novel as we know it today it's astonishing to read and realize what kind of impact it might have had on those who read the first printing.
The Big Sleep introduces Philip Marlowe as the private eye who is both uncorruptable and one step ahead of his antagonists. His characterization is what drives the story, which as mysteries go is not the most suspensful or even all that mysterious. Indeed, the "mystery" such as it is is barely given notice by Chandler, short of the necessities. While there are some good plot twists, they seem to come together in a generally haphazard manner. None of that matters, because the main interest is in what Marlowe will do next and how he will react. Chandler creates some interesting supporting characters as well, but they float in and out of the story overwhelmed by the protagonist.
The Big Sleep is an excellent starting point for getting re-acquainted with classic detective fiction and exploring the development of the genre. It's a relatively quick read as well, which helps the suspense build and leaves you wanting more. It's also a classic vessel for channeling the aura of Los Angeles as it was in what we consider to be its heyday, and what Chandler considered to be something else altogether.
Rating: 5
Summary: perfect writing, massive wit, and philosophical, too!
Comment: Chandler is, bar none, the best writer of the so-called "hard boiled detective" genre, and this is his greatest work.
In a labyrinthine plot featuring corrupt, orchid-growing millionaires, beautiful blondes, gray men with guns and the cynical, deeply romantic narrator-protagonsit Marlowe, we see Los Angeles of the 1940s as Marlowe looks for the truth about murder, pornography and, ultimately, loss.
The sheer genius of Chandler's writing-- aside from the accompished plot twists-- is his deceptively simple language, which sparkles, and his narrator's deadpan wit. From the descriptions of women ("Inside was a blonde. A blonde! A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.") to the caustic remarks in the face of death ("She would either shoot me, or she wouldn't.") to his existential comments ("I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun"), Marlowe is as entertainign to lsiten to as he is to watch.
Chandler's achievement here goes beyond the action sequences, or the wit of his narrator, or the complexity of his plots. His narrator, the tough-as-nails Marlowe, appeals because he is profoundly romantic at heart, but doomed, like Hamlet, to be disappointed. Like Hamlet-- who writes a play to discover the origins of his misery-- Marlowe too is a storyteller, whose stories lead to one kind of understanding, where actions and sequences finally cohere. But Marlowe's dilemmas are Hamlet's, in that although he can tell the story, his sense of what it all means at the end is far from complete.
Chandler's stories are really about people who are lost. Marlowe's quest to find the body and re-tell the story-- although always successful-- is always undermined by his elliptical and understated awareness that, for all our ingenuity and striving, it all ultimately comes down, as it does for Hamlet and for all of us, to the big sleep.
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Title: Farewell, My Lovely (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394758277 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Long Goodbye (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394757688 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Maltese Falcon (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by DASHIELL HAMMETT ISBN: 0679722645 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 17 July, 1989 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The High Window (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394758269 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Trouble Is My Business (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Raymond Chandler ISBN: 0394757645 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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