A Crime Novel: 2019 Reading Challenge

I think the hardest thing about trying to read 52 books within the year is jumping from one genre to the next with little transition in between. My second book of the year, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, is a hard-boiled detective novel that falls into my organized crime category. In his novel, Chandler introduces us to Philip Marlowe, a thirty-three-year-old smartass, and slightly alcoholic, private detective on a case involving a paralyzed millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail, and murder.

By far one of the most intriguing and surprising books I've read recently. Don't disregard a book for it's age, sometimes, and in my opinion, more often than not they are better quality that some of the books published today.

Marlowe is given a case. His client, General Guy Sternwood, is sent a envelope with a $1,000 demand for his daughter Carmen's gambling debts. During his investigation and while attempting to clear the gambling debts, a greater blackmail scheme arises including nude photos of Sternwood’s youngest daughter. The story reminded me of one of those old black and white detective movies, specifically Double Indemnity, a classic film noir movie released in 1944 that features an insurance salesman who gets roped into a murderous scandal. The Big Sleep was actually turned into a movie after its publication in 1939, and Philip Marlowe later became the star character of a television series called Philip Marlowe, Private Eye.

The very first thing I recognized about the book’s craft was the articulate, yet not overbearing, amount of detail the narrator provides, very Hemingway in nature; just enough to adequately portray the scene without abusing language. As with the description, the dialogue is carefully crafted, perfectly embodying each individual character with their own unique voice. And the action, lulling in its pace, creates a time warp where I felt deeper into the novel than the page numbers suggested.

Chandler’s use of a variety of different literary devices, specifically simile, is magnificent. It’s not often that I find a book with such a heightened sense of diction.This novel was written in the late 1930's, and in my opinion, the evolution of language, both written and spoken, has deteriorated since then; I rarely read something contemporary with this same amount of wit and brilliance. One simile in particular toward the beginning of the novel stood out abruptly. When describing orchids, the General says, "Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of a prostitute" (7). How poetic.

Two-thirds through the book the case is seemingly solved, so I was initially confused as to what the rest of the book may hold. Though Marlowe was not asked to solve a case of a missing person, he continues to pursue it because of its relevance to his case. With many twists and turns, Chandler's 139 page novel tackles the complex mystery in which the most unassuming character sets off a triple murder and double blackmail. In his first novel, Chandler beautifully and cryptically uses language to paint a descriptive story that grips the reader until the last page, where the mystery is finally resolved.

There were definitely parts in the book when I questioned Marlowe's motives and morals, but beneath his hard exterior Marlowe is contemplative, philosophical, and, while he is not afraid to defend himself, leaves violence as a last resort. Morally upright, Marlowe is not fooled by the genre's usual femmes fatales, and everything he does is purely for the benefit of his client. According to Marlowe, he did an unsatisfactory job, and leaves us, as the reader, questioning whether or not he did right by the General. In my opinion, he did, and both he and the General were better off because of it.

In one of his last paragraphs concluding the novel, Chandler explains the book's title, something I am always curious about:

What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty slump in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you are 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. Me, I was a part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Reagan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on a sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as grey as ashes. And in a little while he too... would be sleeping the big sleep (139).

I have to thank Grayson Stone for the recommendation, as I was at a complete loss for something to read for this category. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed this book as much as I did, seeing that I do not typically read mystery fiction. I may look into following Marlowe's journey in another one of Chandler's novels, because I quite enjoyed the character.

~M