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Dan Schwent's Reviews > The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1)
by Raymond Chandler
by Raymond Chandler
Dan Schwent's review
bookshelves: pulp, crime-and-mystery, reread-in-2011, 2012, favorites
Jan 04, 12
bookshelves: pulp, crime-and-mystery, reread-in-2011, 2012, favorites
Read from December 26, 2011 to January 03, 2012
The 2011-2012 re-read...
A paralyzed millionaire, General Sternwood, hires Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe to have a talk with a blackmailer with his hooks in his daughter. But what does his daughter's missing husband, Rusty Regan, have to do with it? Marlowe's case will get him entangled in a web of pornography and gambling from which he may never escape...
For the last few years, me and noir detective fiction have gone together as well as strippers and c-section scars. When the Pulp Fiction group announced this as it's January group read, I figured it was time to get reacquainted with one of the books that started the genre.
I'd forgotten most of the book in the past ten years so it was like a completely new one. One of the things that grabbed me right away was how poetic Raymond Chandler's prose seems at times. I'd intended on writing down some of the more clever bits but I quickly dropped that idea in favor of letting myself get taken along for the ride.
For a lot of today's readers, the plot and Philip Marlowe himself might not seem that original. That's because people have been ripping off Raymond Chandler for decades! Marlowe is the real deal. Now that I've read a few hundred more detective books since my original reading, I can appreciate how influential Marlowe is as a character.
The plot is a lot more complex than it originally seemed. I almost wish I didn't know the plot of the Big Leibowski was partly lifted from the Big Sleep. I kept picturing characters from the movie while I was reading. Hell, the plot is almost inconsequential. The atmosphere and language are the real stars of the show.
Five stars. If you're a fan of noir and haven't read this, drop what you're doing and get started!
A paralyzed millionaire, General Sternwood, hires Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe to have a talk with a blackmailer with his hooks in his daughter. But what does his daughter's missing husband, Rusty Regan, have to do with it? Marlowe's case will get him entangled in a web of pornography and gambling from which he may never escape...
For the last few years, me and noir detective fiction have gone together as well as strippers and c-section scars. When the Pulp Fiction group announced this as it's January group read, I figured it was time to get reacquainted with one of the books that started the genre.
I'd forgotten most of the book in the past ten years so it was like a completely new one. One of the things that grabbed me right away was how poetic Raymond Chandler's prose seems at times. I'd intended on writing down some of the more clever bits but I quickly dropped that idea in favor of letting myself get taken along for the ride.
For a lot of today's readers, the plot and Philip Marlowe himself might not seem that original. That's because people have been ripping off Raymond Chandler for decades! Marlowe is the real deal. Now that I've read a few hundred more detective books since my original reading, I can appreciate how influential Marlowe is as a character.
The plot is a lot more complex than it originally seemed. I almost wish I didn't know the plot of the Big Leibowski was partly lifted from the Big Sleep. I kept picturing characters from the movie while I was reading. Hell, the plot is almost inconsequential. The atmosphere and language are the real stars of the show.
Five stars. If you're a fan of noir and haven't read this, drop what you're doing and get started!
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Quotes Dan Liked
“As honest as you can expect a man to be in a world where its going out of style.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
“Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
Reading Progress
| 01/01/2012 | page 22 |
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10.0% |
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Richard
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rated it 4 stars
Dec 26, 2011 06:56pm
*pats foot in eager impatience awaiting the Schwentification of Raymond Chandler's best book*
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Richard wrote: "*pats foot in eager impatience awaiting the Schwentification of Raymond Chandler's best book*"Should be in the next couple days. I haven't actually started my re-read yet.
For the last few years, me and noir detective fiction have gone together as well as strippers and c-section scars....
...
What goes on in that newly bearded head of yours?
Richard wrote: "What goes on in that newly bearded head of yours? "I've been wanting to work that line into a review for a couple weeks now. Plus I knew a few people would get a kick out of it.
Now I've got this bizarro book swirling around my brain: A noir set in a seedy Vegas backstreet, the sleuth a bartender in a strip club for a select market: MILFs with c-section scars.I'm gonna need therapy.
"For the last few years, me and noir detective fiction have gone together as well as strippers and c-section scars."There it is!
Elijah wrote: "This book has my favorite quote ever: "I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider.""There are so many quote-worthy lines in this one. I'm anxious to see how the other Chandler books I have on deck stack up to this one.
Well, I remember liking Farewell, My Lovely more (barring the racism, sigh), because I could actually follow its plot.There's an old story about the screenwriters of the Big Sleep movie calling up Chandler to ask who exactly had killed a certain character. His answer was essentially "fuck if I know."
