Book Reviews of The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, Bk 1)

Good vintage/ classic detective novel. I haven't read any of Chandler's books before, so I started with this one, his first. I never read the classic detective novels because I knew that they took place in the forties and I thought that they would be really dated and old fashioned. Yet again, I was wrong. I don't know why I thought that it would be more innocent than it was. People are people and they murdered and gambled and drank and slept around just as well, if not better, than we do now. If you are a fan of mystery and detective novels you should give this a try.

This is a classic detective novel. What most stands out to me is the voice. It makes you feel like you're in an old movie. Fun to read.

I had trouble staying interested. At least I know who Michael Connelly and Robert Crais (and many others) have to thank for their style. I didn't like the "voice" as much as another reviewer did. This is the 3rd Chandler novel I've tried, and in all of them the voice seemed disconnected from reality.

Amazon.com
"His thin, claw-like hands were folded loosely on the rug, purple-nailed. A few locks of dry white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock." Published in 1939, when Raymond Chandler was 50, this is the first of the Philip Marlowe novels. Its bursts of sex, violence, and explosively direct prose changed detective fiction forever. "She was trouble. She was tall and rangy and strong-looking. Her hair was black and wiry and parted in the middle. She had a good mouth and a good chin. There was a sulky droop to her lips and the lower lip was full."

good pulp...much better than the movie, especially the crappy 70's version.

I have to be careful not the conflate my feelings about the hardboiled genre and this example of it. Raymond Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep, is undoubtedly a classic hardboiled detective story. Chandler introduces Philip Marlowe, the protagonist of several more novels, as a more fleshed-out and likable character than those in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, another recent read in this genre. Chandler's prose, while still succinct and edgy in a masculine manner, has more attitude. Although a new plot twist at the end of every chapter is standard, I felt there was a place in the middle where the plot could have resolved, and subsequent developments were merely to prolong the story. Nonetheless, I'm glad the list of 1001 books you must read before you die led me to The Big Sleep.

Excellent book. If you enjoy detective stories you will love it.

I had a false expectation of what the story was before reading it because I love the Bogart and Bacall movie version of the story. That said I did enjoy the book once I realized the story had been altered for the movie. I started reading as if it were a different story all together. Once I did that I began to enjoy the book a lot more. It was well written and concise like most of the books in its genre. It gets a 4 out of 5.

No one writes noir better than Chandler and this book is perhaps his finest effort. As an LA resident, its also interesting to see how much has changed, but also how much remains the same.

Classic Chandler.

The beginning of Phillip Marlowe. Great to read of the mores of the 1930's.

I had trouble getting into it. I guess I don't care for crime mystery as much as cozy mysteries.