I’ve written a few book reviews recently. Here’s one of them:
The Big Sleep (1939)
by Raymond Chandler
This was Raymond Chandler’s first of seven novels, written at the not inconsiderable age of fifty. It introduces the famous PI Philip Marlowe, a character whose virtual twin, Carmady, had appeared previously in a number of Chandler’s short stories.
Chandler has somehow come to embody the genre of hard-boiled detective fiction, although he didn’t (as some people seem to believe) create it. His critical stock, as far as such things are meaningful, has climbed steeply over the years, whereas many of his peers remain in relative obscurity. The Big Sleep is arguably his finest hour, and does much to explain why his work is so highly regarded.
The world of Marlowe is harsh and unsentimental, in large part. Sleaze and corruption is hiding behind every corner, with depressingly few people rising above it. Chandler makes Marlowe one of those few. He strives to do his job with as much integrity as he can muster—which means sometimes fooling the police in favour of his clients’ interests, and finding the strength to resist any seductions or bribes that fall in his path. It’s the old story of a Man of Honour fighting against the odds, simply put; but it’s the packaging and the texture that gives weight to the basic theme.
Marlowe’s dark humour and cynical outlook colour every page, of course, as these tales are always narrated in character. The hard-boiled style has so often been imitated and parodied that it might easily be perceived as inherently ridiculous. But to experience the ‘real thing’ is to find something surprisingly fresh and evocative. From Chandler’s hand, it works. The grime and shadows of the city become real and unsettling.
It is primarily about mood, of course. The plot of The Big Sleep is not especially memorable, culled and patched together as it is from several of Chandler’s earlier short pieces. The seams show a little bit if you look too closely, and it doesn’t exactly make perfect sense. Ironically, the original stories do make perfect sense—but they’re not a patch on this novel. Chandler was refining his wordplays, evocations and characterisations—the things he found more important as his writing matured, and the things that make The Big Sleep a great novel, compared to the merely okay short stories that came before. If he slips on consistency here and there, it doesn’t matter; the ride is worth it and much more.