Raymond Chandler’s ‘The Big Sleep’

Lately I have been tearing through multiple detective novels, and one of my favorites has been Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. Written in 1939, The Big Sleep follows private investigator Philip Marlowe, a man who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty on the job, and who is becoming increasingly tired with the persistence of American crime. Marlowe is summoned by General Sternwood, an elderly, wealthy man who needs help dealing with a blackmailing attempt against his young daughter, who gives people plenty of material to blackmail with. What starts out as a routine job turns into a dive into the twisted psyche of the American crime scene, and Marlowe is wading in a sea of lies and motives where nobody can be trusted.

After reading the classical detectives like Poirot or Holmes, Marlowe is a refreshing change of pace. The plot is dark and includes just about everything people have come to expect from hardboiled detective novels or noir films: drugs, violence, betrayal, lies, and sex. Chandler’s writing almost comically fits this tone, with Marlowe taking on the attitude of “it’s just another day on the job,” that we all love from our favorite loose-canon cops on TV. To be fair, Chandler somewhat pioneered this tone in pop-culture, so that isn’t a huge surprise. The book is technically masterful, with there being very precise clues that the reader can use to stay one step ahead of the plot’s reveal. True to his style, Chandler doesn’t drag on in his descriptions, but makes the reader conjure up images of back alleys and shady meeting rooms with absolute ease. Since Marlowe is your archetypal hardboiled investigator, his personality might be one of the novels only real aggravates: sometimes the reader will see a more delicate logical solution, and Marlowe simply decides to pull out a gun and complicate matters, so to speak. While this is really a pitfall of the archetype, it is no less annoying here. Also, this novel suffers from the same thing The Great Gatsby suffered from (though this novel is actually good), in that almost nobody besides the main character is likable. If you like detective novels, dark mystery, or noir films, then Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep is a founding gem of the hardboiled genre that you simply can’t miss. If you prefer your heroes to be knights in shining armor, then you may want to look other places. But let’s be honest, we all need to see someone tackle just how messed up our world can be every now and then.