The Big Sleep

, #1

139 pages

English language

Published July 9, 1988 by Alfred A. Knopf.

ISBN:
978-0-394-75828-2
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4 stars (101 reviews)

Philip Marlowe, a private eye who operates in Los Angeles's seamy underside during the 1930s, takes on his first case, which involves a paralyzed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail, and murder

44 editions

reviewed The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe, #1)

Review of 'The Big Sleep' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

I love this book. It's fast paced, tense and exciting. The characters are great. The dialogue is amazing. The plot gets more and more convoluted and nastier and nastier all the way through, and the wry first person monologue is just delightful. 

reviewed The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe, #1)

Review of 'The Big Sleep' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

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.

Going into this book, I had a very surface level knowledge of "noir" as a genre, mostly gleamed from pop cultural osmosis. I liked the idea of what I thought this era of crime fiction was, and this particular title came up often as a strong example of the genre so I decided to give it a shot.

This is the first time in a long while I've picked up an "old" book outside of the …

reviewed The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe, #1)

Review of 'The Big Sleep' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I picked this up because it’s a classic, but I’m mildly disappointed in the form. There are some beautiful scenes and compelling turns of phrase, but the plot felt like it had never been stretched out and examined entirely from end to end. I know it’s over 80 years old, but the racism, homophobia and misogyny still make it a series I’m not motivated to continue or to recommend.

reviewed The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe, #1)

Review of 'The Big Sleep' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This was my intro to one of The Greats of the hardboiled genre. As with all older books, I read it with a contemporaneous mindset, but still I'd hardly call it a masterpiece.

Raymond Chandler certainly had a thing for eye colour. I do not.

And while I read it with a 1939 Brain, it was hard not to notice as he breaks every rule espoused by modern writers with more consistency than a five-dollar milkshake. But he's "the master" so please disregard that 90% of the text is adverbs and similes. This is not a swipe at Chandler. I like similes (but not adverbs).

reviewed The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe, #1)

Review of 'The big sleep' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I wasn't enjoying the first quarter or so of this; the ridiculous similes and tough-guy banter. I had always assumed Chandler would be indistinguishable from Hammett but the latter's characters were much more interesting and sympathetic.

What saved this novel from being a wreck for me was the epiphany (probably entirely within my own imagination) that the over-the-top embarrassing metaphors might serve as a mnemonic device for Marlowe; describing a shag rug that a badger could be lost in for days in order to lock the detail into his 'memory palace'. It may have been entirely unintentional, but rationalizing it this way made the clunky parts forgivable.

reviewed The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe, #1)

Review of 'The Big Sleep' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Really hard-boiled and funny, this book is stodgy and still fluffy. The protagonist, Philip Marlowe, is a detective who is hired by an old, decrepit man who has two young, mischievous daughters who are surrounded by mysterious circumstances and a web of lies.

This is extremely well-written, and the dialogue is superb. Marlowe is a sublime character with a lot of jagged edges, constantly under threat but always merely picking up 25 dollars a day, plus expenses (of which most are for whiskey).

A shining, exciting and polished example of detective noir at its best and most simple.

reviewed The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe, #1)

Review of 'The Big Sleep' on 'LibraryThing'

4 stars

Really hard-boiled and funny, this book is stodgy and still fluffy. The protagonist, Philip Marlowe, is a detective who is hired by an old, decrepit man who has two young, mischievous daughters who are surrounded by mysterious circumstances and a web of lies.

This is extremely well-written, and the dialogue is superb. Marlowe is a sublime character with a lot of jagged edges, constantly under threat but always merely picking up 25 dollars a day, plus expenses (of which most are for whiskey).

A shining, exciting and polished example of detective noir at its best and most simple.

reviewed The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe, #1)

Review of 'The Big Sleep' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This was my first date with Raymond Chandler, at long last, and now that I've finished reading The Big Sleep, I look forward to many more. I really like detective Philip Marlowe. I enjoy his demeanour, the way he thinks, and the way he perceives people and his surroundings, but that's not why I rated this book so highly. I also enjoyed the story itself, which was atmospheric and engaging, but that's not the reason either. The reason is Raymond Chandler's masterful writing. It's a strong and confident voice from the get-go, painting a vivid picture of Los Angeles and its denizens in the 1930s. He had me snickering and smiling wryly from the first page. And, most of all, he whet my appetite for sudden turns of phrase so startlingly wonderful and well-composed that I had to stop and reread them multiple times before carrying on with the …

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Subjects

  • Marlowe, Philip (Fictitious character) -- Fiction.
  • Private investigators -- California -- Los Angeles -- Fiction.
  • Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Fiction.
  • Vintage Crime