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| The Big Sleep (Penguin fiction) | 
 enlarge | Author: Raymond Chandler
Creator: Ian Rankin
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 6182
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 4.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0140108920
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140108927
ASIN: 0140108920
Publication Date: July 7, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 An Immortal Murder Mystery November 16, 2008
The combination of prose that is both sparse and flowing, a dense plot and a tragic yet oddly subtle denoument would be enough to make The Big Sleep one of the greatest, and most timeless of detective stories. But Chandler took the genre in this and subsequent novels to a literary level by an incisive, critical but above all, informed, portrayl of personal motivation and social setting. In doing so he not only wrote novels which had the greatest reality and integrity, but consequently broke the mould of inspector-calls-murder-at-the-vicarage stuff. Indeed the real tragedy for me is that his influence is not more keenly felt in crime writing, for unrealistic and repressed Christiesque dross is to this day being produced and eagerly consumed in quantity.
An essential and unforgettable author.
And please Google his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" when you've logged out of here!
 Maybe I missed the point?? October 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved the way that this book was written. The first person narrative made me feel as though I was in the middle of the action and this book is all action, described in immense detail.
The conversations are very snappy, although I began very quickly to think that Marlowe was just too smart for his own good.
About half way through the book the plot lost my interest, I began to not stop bothering about what he was investigating.
From that point onwards I struggled to get to the end of the book but the last couple of chapters were OK when the strands were pulled together to a conclusion.
I clearly wasn't as impressed as most people but will maybe read other books by Raymond Chandler as I did enjoy his style.
Iconic Roman Noir October 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Very few characters fill a space in our collective imagination in the way that Marlowe does. From the 1946 Humphrey Bogart to Calvin & Hobbes's character 'Tracer Bullet', and Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit he is the epitome of the hard-boiled detective, recording his experiences in a cryptic, sardonic and world-weary style which is instantly recognised, and navigating his way through a world of triple-crosses with a mixture of mercenary self-preservation and unselfish honour.
The Big Sleep was the first true Philip Marlowe story -- although earlier short-stories were republished later with the lead characters renamed Marlowe. It is full of Chandler's delightful, elliptical prose, which sets out the look, feel and smell of every scene in less words than one would believe possible, and demand maximum attention if one is to understand the storyline, or even make sense of the dialogue. Surprisingly, we learn far more about the character than we might expect: his home is sacrosanct, he doesn't see himself as a Sherlock Holmes, he cares more about his professional honour than he does about money. Even in this first novel, Marlowe is already a deeper character than most of the later imitations ever became.
This is art, of an extraordinarily stylish and detailed kind. And it's also a fantastic story, flawless and gripping from start to finish.
Crime writing genius March 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The first Philip Marlowe book and one of the best. There's only so many different ways one can talk about Chandler being one of the greatest crime writers ever but this book also has a very good plot, which some of the others fall down on.
An undeniable classic of the genre.
As Hard-boiled as it gets...... October 18, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars."
- Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep
And thus began the criteria for what a private eye would look like and what his moral code would be. Raymond Chandler, author of the Philip Marlowe series of crime novels, set the bar high and generations would follow in his writing footsteps.
Raymond Chandler is considered to be one of the most influential writers of crime fiction and his phenomenal creation of the detective Philip Marlowe has survived decades.
Every time a modern reader discovers a new private eye who is facing some interesting and very tough times but is able to do it with integrity and a strict moral code alongwith a "soldier's eye"; you are meeting Raymond Chandler the writer all over again. And Philip Marlowe his creation is playing a pivotal role in the background.
Raymond Chandler wrote seven detective novels but THE BIG SLEEP is probably his best out of the three in this edition. He was in his fifties when he wrote these novels; yet the first novel cited: THE BIG SLEEP would become an international landmark in the hard-boiled detective genre and would really launch Chandler into the icon that he is today.
The reader will discover unified themes with strong and fully developed characters with incredible imagery and metaphors. Chandler's literary style is distinctive and very crisp. You will love his writing and it brings back nostalgia for a time long past. If you are new to hard-boiled detective stories, this is the series that I would start with
In the first novel THE BIG SLEEP you will be introduced to the Sternwoods: General Sternwood, Vivian and Carmen and all three are interesting studies and all three as General Sternwood notes hasn't "any more moral sense than a cat." General Sternwood is on his deathbed and hired Philip Marlowe to check out why he was being blackmailed by one Arthur Gwynn Geiger. His two daughters, Vivian and Carmen, are quite a handful but General Sternwood feels in part responsible for his plight. As he tells Marlow, "I need not add that a man who indulges in parenthood for the first time at the age of fifty-four deserves all he gets." He describes his two daughters as being "spoiled, exacting, smart and ruthless with the younger girl as being the type who likes to pull wings off flies".
Chandler's novels do highlight crooks and morally-corrupt characters and derelicts, but they are counter-balanced by Marlowe, Bernie Ohls, and General Sternwood--all of whom possess a strong sense of honor, a consideration of what is proper and are for the most part trying to live a life above board.
There are numerous murders that take place in all three of these detective Marlowe novels and a tight interwoven plot which will keep you on the edge of your seat until you get to the last page.
Just as an interesting sideline, when THE BIG SLEEP (the first of Chandler's novels) was published in 1939 there was only an advance of 5,000 copies by Alfred A. Knopf. However, Knopf knew the power and the contribution that this novel would make. They actually took out an advertisement for this book on the front cover of the Publisher's Weekly which was most unusual for a novelist's first book.
The dust jacket flaps read:
"Not since Dashiell Hammett appeared has there been a murder mystery story with the power, pace, and terrifying atmosphere of this one. And like Hammett's this is more than a "murder mystery": it is a novel of crime and character, written with uncommon skill in a tight, tense style which is irresistible."
And so it was. I would highly recommend reading these crime novels and being introduced to Philip Marlowe. THE BIG SLEEP was made into a movie starring Bogart and Bacall with the screen play being written by William Faulkner no less.
Don't miss these novels. I almost did.
Rating: A
Bentley/2007
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