Loading...
85th out of 280 books
—
132 voters
My rating:
add to my books
Chandler: Stories and Early Novels: Pulp Stories / The Big Sleep /Farewell, My Lovely / The High Window
In Raymond Chandler's hands, the pulp crime story became a haunting mystery of power and corruption, set against a modern cityscape both lyrical and violent. With humor, and an unerring sense of dialogue and the telling detail he created a fictional universe out of the dark side of sunlit Los Angeles. In the process, he transformed both the crime novel and American writi...more
Hardcover, 1199 pages
Published
October 1st 1995
by Library of America
(first published 1979)
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
596)
The Big Sleep
When Shakespeare wrote his plays in blank verse, he wasn't trying to high hat his customers. That's what they bought their tickets to hear. It was the commercial form of the day.
That was OK with WS.
Rejecting the notion that the fate of an artist is to starve, Shakespeare chose themes no less sensational than those which make our own Best Seller lists today -- murder, love, war, swordplay&duels, treachery, romance, double crossing and cross ...more
When Shakespeare wrote his plays in blank verse, he wasn't trying to high hat his customers. That's what they bought their tickets to hear. It was the commercial form of the day.
That was OK with WS.
Rejecting the notion that the fate of an artist is to starve, Shakespeare chose themes no less sensational than those which make our own Best Seller lists today -- murder, love, war, swordplay&duels, treachery, romance, double crossing and cross ...more
This isn't actually the book I read, but it's the closest I could find depicted on Goodreads...Mine is a 1964 omnibus edition that contains The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, The High Window, and The Lady in the Lake.
With that piece of housekeeping out of the way, I will proceed to reviewing...or rather, in this case, to reverential, rhapsodic rejoicing!
I read these stories 15 years ago and was so enamored that I tried to write my own version of a Phillip Marlowe entang...more
With that piece of housekeeping out of the way, I will proceed to reviewing...or rather, in this case, to reverential, rhapsodic rejoicing!
I read these stories 15 years ago and was so enamored that I tried to write my own version of a Phillip Marlowe entang...more
When it comes to gritty crime writing, Raymond Chandler is still the best. You can have the great dialogs of Elmore Leonard or the gritty scenes of James Ellroy's Los Angeles but they sit at the feet of Chandler and Philip Marlowe.
I picked this edition of Chandler collections because it contains 'Red Wind', probably his best short story. I love the beginning"
"Those hot dry winds that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump ...more
I picked this edition of Chandler collections because it contains 'Red Wind', probably his best short story. I love the beginning"
"Those hot dry winds that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump ...more
Chandler's work has much in common with the bigass Story Of America. Not any glossy, optimistic aspect, of course, but the deep and painful themes underneath. And the pageantry overhead is unexceptional, tedious, banal.
In Chandler's period-perfect mid-thirties works, we see a lot of the threadbare and the seedy, last night's makeup, and the smoke & liquor remnants of celebrations long concluded.
An eye for the telling detail sets each sorry tale in motion: the phone-bo...more
In Chandler's period-perfect mid-thirties works, we see a lot of the threadbare and the seedy, last night's makeup, and the smoke & liquor remnants of celebrations long concluded.
An eye for the telling detail sets each sorry tale in motion: the phone-bo...more
Along with a dozen stories, this edition includes The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and The High Window. The stories are quickly familiar--friendless shamus sets off to solve case of either blackmail or stolen pearls (seriously, you’d think he’d at least vary the gems); he gets on by being disarmingly open with all but the key facts, but is too hard boiled for anyone to fully trust him. Story ends in a big shootout in which friendless shamus is miraculously spared. It’s in the novels, though, t...more
The book is a collection of brilliant short stories and his early novels. While all stories in the book were amazing, I personally found "The Big Sleep", one of the most well known his early novels as most interesting one. The book is about the search for the case of murder which had happened under the strange condition. As the story is known as its hardboiledness, the readers are able to see the story which is focused only on solving the case, but not depiction of emotion. Thus, I am ...more
When I read The Long Goodbye last winter a spark was struck, and when I saw the Library of America's collections of Chandler's stories and novels up in the last days of the swap I couldn't resist.
I'll be rating the short stories and each novel separately.
11/10/2011 Pulp Stories: 3 Stars
Collected here, unique to all other collections, is every crime story Chandler had published in the 1930s that he didn't later "cannibalize" (his word) for his novels....more
I'll be rating the short stories and each novel separately.
11/10/2011 Pulp Stories: 3 Stars
Collected here, unique to all other collections, is every crime story Chandler had published in the 1930s that he didn't later "cannibalize" (his word) for his novels....more
view 1 comment
راستش وقتی طرح جلد کتاب و عنوانش را دیدم، با خودم گفتم این کتاب خوبی نیست. کتاب البته ترجمه خیلی خوبی داشت و شروع خوبی هم داشت. ولی کل داستان حکایت کش دار دو روز بود. آدمهای بی ربط و مزخرفی داشت و "راز" قصه هم آنقدرها چیز دندانگیری نبود. البته نقاط قوت زیادی هم داشت، من جمله شهر محل وقوع داستان که نماد یک اشرافیت "قلابی" بود؛ آدمهای تازه به دوران رسیده ای که زور می زدند برای خودشان کسی باشند. و شخصیت اول داستان هم تجسم واقعگرایی تلخی بود که در نهایت پوچی این بند و بساط ها را ...more
Back in the late 1980's I found a copy of Raymond Chandler's "The High Window" in my grandparents collection and read it. "The High Window" is a novel about private detective Philip Marlowe, and I was hooked. I later found that his works were included in the Library of America collection, and bought both volumes.
This volume includes all of Chandlers's pulp stories, and the first three Philip Marlowe novels: The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely (my favorite) and The H...more
This volume includes all of Chandlers's pulp stories, and the first three Philip Marlowe novels: The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely (my favorite) and The H...more
In my first round of reading Chandler (I had read The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, and The Long Goodbye before starting this collection) I was most impressed by the language and the world-weary cynicism. This time, while I still loved those things, I also came to appreciate the nature of Chandler's detectives, especially Marlowe.
Unlike a lot of detectives, especially serialized detectives, Marlowe isn't that smart. He'll tell you so, repeatedly. Instead, Marlowe is a great detec...more
Unlike a lot of detectives, especially serialized detectives, Marlowe isn't that smart. He'll tell you so, repeatedly. Instead, Marlowe is a great detec...more
[D]efinitely [a] classic [piece] of American literature worthy of a second or even first tier position in the pantheon. [...] John commented on some parallels between Chandler and William Gibson (one of my perennial favorites), citing the former as a major and obvious influence on the latter. [...] I agree with John that Chandler’s influence on Gibson is apparent though I think they are going after far different goals as writers: Case is the illegitimate son of the illegitimate son of Philip Mar...more
Thirteen Stories by Raymond Chandler. 1930s. The storeies are examples of pulp fiction - little character development or setting and lots of action. * - 10 guys shot in 50 pages. Pulp fiction grew into and became comic books.
The stories are interesting in that it shows where Chandler came from, but reduces his reputation as a major author for these stories are sub-par. His first story "Blackmaailers Don't Shoot" took five months for Chandler to write. The last two s...more
The stories are interesting in that it shows where Chandler came from, but reduces his reputation as a major author for these stories are sub-par. His first story "Blackmaailers Don't Shoot" took five months for Chandler to write. The last two s...more
"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 ...more
A collection of Chandler's short stories. Atmospheric and dense, I felt like I should be reading them in a dingy bar while drinking scotch. Favorite story was Pearls are a nuisance.
favourite line; it was raining again the next morning. a slanting grey
rain like a swung curtain of crystal beads.
rain like a swung curtain of crystal beads.
This is my second or third time through this classic hardboiled tale. It's Raymond Chandler. Enough said.
I'm re-reading this now. I love Chandler.
The Big Sleep 12/18/1994
Lotta fun.
Hard Boiled Best
This is a collection but if I only read The Big Sleep I would consider it 'read.' Marlowe is an interesting character: a sort of self-aware Don Quixote who understands he inhabits a world were morals are for suckers yet continues to follow them. The following quote is revealing: "I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights."
Everything else just sucks right now.
(Sorry, George Eliot.)
(Sorry, George Eliot.)
This rating is based solely on the 12 shorter stories in this collection. The included novels/novellas (read previously) are even better.
Finger Man is probably my favorite, with Spanish Blood, Guns at Cyrano's, and Red Wind all in competition as well.
"Her face became a blank haggard mask on which rouge burned violently."
Finger Man is probably my favorite, with Spanish Blood, Guns at Cyrano's, and Red Wind all in competition as well.
"Her face became a blank haggard mask on which rouge burned violently."
i only read "the big sleep" in this anthology. partly because my stack of books to read is starting to scare me with its menacing height, and partly because...well, "the big sleep" was just really, really good. suggestive and sly and suspenseful. no wonder this guy's stuff was tapped for cinema adaptation so often.
I love the language of this book, and the wonderfully vivid description of drunk low-lifes in (1930s?) Los Angeles. The book seems to deal more earnestly with subjects like homosexuality and pornography, which is hardly surprising given the Hayes Code of the time.
Detective novels rock!!! I loved this book. . .I guess I will always have a special place in my heart for characters like Phillip Marlowe; the wonderfully detached private detective.
If you're going to read Chandler - and you should - you might as well get it all in one place, so these Library of America volumes are all you really need.
He didn't hit his stride 'til about halfway through the early stories, but once he did, there hasn't been a better writer of hard-boiled fiction.
the slumming angel. profoundly talented author writing stuff people may actually love to read...
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Readers Also Enjoyed
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter who had an immense stylistic influence upon the modern private detective story, especially in the style of the writing and the attitudes now characteristic of the genre. His protagonist, Philip Marlowe, is, along with Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, considered synonymous with "private detective."
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Cha...
More about Raymond Chandler...
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Cha...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
