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Welcome to the October group read of...

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Enjoy!

Re-read it for about the 4th or 5th time. I love how the weather seems to play a role - I can't say any major plot points bear on it (well, maybe one near the end), but he does such a great job of using it to express the passing of time.

I love the book but oh brother, is it confusing.....or at least it is as far as I'm concerned. Have read the book twice and seen the films more times than I can count and still am not sure who killed one of the characters (don't want a "spoiler" here). But that aside, it is pure Chandler and you can't beat that!!!

I had never read the actual book. Now I see why the screenwriters were so famously confused. They tried to patch together what is a "broken-backed" plot -- two stories having some common characters. I suppose they already had Lauren Bacall for Vivian and she needed a bigger, more sympathetic character to play. If any of you know Calvin and Hobbes there are three great strips featuring Tracer Bullet who is a dead parody of Marlowe. (And also, it rains all the time.) They're hard to find because Waterston is so prickly about reproduction rights.

It's easy to see what Chandler and Hammett were on about when they complained that the detective stories of their day were silly and unrealistic. The Big Sleep is also sort of unrealistic in ways -- it's complicated, there's all this noir posing -- but it's not Miss Marple. One style quirk I hadn't twigged to before. Marlowe enters a room or something, and we get this long catalog of its features and contents. "There was this. There was that." sort of thing, very consciously not literary. Hammett didn't write that way. He was inclined to ignore features that weren't revealed in the course of action.

Some questions...

What has Chandler done to give this book it's dark brooding tone?

What does this book have to say about the great depression? and how people 'were' at that time?

Is this book a moral critique?

How does Chandler write women?

Dark and brooding. Well, there's the rain. The sour humor and the low expectations of people's behavior and intentions. There is the tendency of things to turn out badly. There are the unnecessary deaths. There is the lunatic Carmen. There is the sleaziness of so much that goes on. There is the slow and painful decline, more like an evaporation, of one of the book's few decent characters, General Sternwood. There are the looming threats from Canino, Mars's goons, Brody, Jones, Carmen, Vivian -- that's a long list. Even the female rare book dealer is vaguely menacing (she who is a bright spot in the movie). There are the cops, two decent but all hard men who can't be counted on to do the right thing. Women the same, Silver Wig excepted. And Marlowe gets no help from anybody. He's on his own. There are no sympathetic or co-operative witnesses or people with knowledge -- everything has to be extracted by force of threats, and it's not just Marlowe who faces this obstacle, so do the bad guys. The hostile interview with Vivian at the beginning sets the tone. Maybe the only straight and blameless character in the book is the butler, who most emphatically did not do it.

As for the second question, I think it's backwards. Stories like The Grapes of Wrath describe or explain our condition. A genre is a collective enterprise that works by practices and conventions -- it is these and not the individual stories which are explanatory. Genres do social work. It's not accidental that the English Classic appeared after the unexpected transforming madness of WWI. We needed to think that the world was a controllable, rational place and that when there was a disturbance of the social fabric someone would appear to point out the trouble and fix it. Noir works oppositely. The world as we find it is corrupt, and the noir detective can't fix it, only preserve the status quo. The Classic detective collects evidence and reasons from it. The noir detective collects testimony and the criminal is revealed either by confession or the course of events. The Classic was a retrospective response to experience; noir was anticipation: it spoke to what the world might become. Noir did not survive the war when anticipation became reality. The equivalent postwar genre practice to the Classic was hard-boiled. Spenser is nothing like Marlowe.

Marlowe himself is a standing rebuke. His fastidious response to his fee at the end marks him. But he is also powerless to effect change, which is itself a moral commentary. The most that anyone in the book can do to make a difference is to kill someone, and that is only a local phenomenon. The plot grinds on. Society is frozen. People are only little things who can at best be principled but can't in all humanity be blamed for failing. This has got to be one of the bleakest world-views to be found in literature.

About women, noir is not the place to look for sympathetic portrayals of anyone. Noir women obey the conventions of the dame or the lush; other options are closed just as they are for men.

Charles wrote: "About women, noir is not the place to look for sympathetic portrayals of anyone. Noir women obey the conventions of the dame or the lush; other options are closed just as they are for men."

Oh dear, aren't there any powerful or strong women in Noir?

Nora Charles in Hammett's The Thin Man (I'm on the phone and can't link) is the only one that I can think pf who steps outside the assigned roles.

Nothing at all prohibits strong women, including the Nora Charleses. Carmen is of the lush type -- determined but ineffective, a pawn or patsy of other forces. The dame is the Vivian sort (or less neurotic, Nora) -- pert, able to hold her own, not deferential. Silver Wig would fall here, Agnes in the lush class. The fact that the woman may lose the power struggle with the man is irrelevant -- how many noir detectives are left lonely and yearning at the end of the story by a woman who has better things to do? Vivian-Marlowe I read as a draw. It's true there are no female detectives in noir (that had to wait until late hard-boiled in the 80s) but also there are no fakes who defer in the end to the (male) official detective. (Nora Charles is also a sidekick like Watson, a rare type until the presently dominant Neo-Classic formula -- Morse's Lewis, Foyle's Sam.)

I must apologize for lecturing. However, a genre is a formula and one of the most wonderful things about Chandler is how no one ever improved or even fine-tuned his mastery from his very first novel of the formula he defined. My enthusiasm for talking about the formula stems from my belief that this is where Chandler's real achievement and importance lies. He muffed the plot structure in this book, I think, but otherwise it's pitch-perfect.

Yes - Chandler himself wrote an essay (probably more than one) about the resounding tendency for society and individuals to revert to a status quo.

Charles wrote: "Marlowe himself is a standing rebuke. His fastidious response to his fee at the end marks him. But he is also powerless to effect change, which is itself a moral commentary. The most that anyone in..."

Charles, don't apologise for 'lecturing' I love learning about our books and you have some interesting knowledge and perspectives! keep them coming!

I agree with Ally, Charles. I have never read noir and have no knowledge on its characteristics. I really enjoyed the book and will be reading more in the series. I found the old slang a bit confusing at first but then I got into the groove of it and feel that it helped contribute to my experience with the book in that it helped submerge me back into the book and time period more quickly. How did everyone else find the language? Helped or hindered?

One thing I can say is that some of it was original with Chandler, who defined it as le Carre did with spy terminology. "Shamus" appears to be one such word.

I love the slang found in this book and others that followed. It then began to pop up in noir films and became part of the noir language. The slang used in British books/films is much different than that used by Americans

I'm still reading, although I have read it before. I've never had any problem with the language. Neither from Chandler or Hammett.

Well, I've read chapter One. It's quirky, which I like. I liked the tongue in cheek first person 'chatty' style and his descriptions of what he's wearing are great. It's all a bit Brash, and wonderfully American. All in all, its a good start to a novel.

Style: The chatty asides and descriptions of rooms, clothes, weather, etc. all add to the atmosphere of the book. The feel is very dark. I'm not sure whether it is more realistic than other crime writing or not; I have always thought of noir cinema as very stylised and this has that same feel.

Slang: There are a lot of words I didn't know, but none where I couldn't make a reasonable guess at the meaning. There were also a couple of words which I thought were not used in US English: bungalow and pavement.

Plot: Charles called it 'broken-backed'. Do you think the book started as two short stories, which he then spliced together?

Val wrote: "Charles called it 'broken-backed'. Do you think the book started as two short stories, which he then spliced together?"

I think it took some time for Chandler to work out how to tell a long story. The two halves are more intimately connected than just spliced, but they're not causally related; it's just the same characters in both. First Marlowe takes care of one business and then he looks into this Regan thing everyone has been yammering about.

I don't have a historical dictionary of American English available but "pavement" has in personal memory been in used at least since WWII. "Bungalow" is an important word here -- being Hindi in origin it was surely brought into the language by the English. However, during the great expansion of LA in the 20s as the water problem began to be resolved, the bungalow was a very important style of house because it was cheap to build and within the means of the people migrating in. Bungalow is a very period word and strongly redolent of Marlowe's Los Angeles.

There are many bungalows in Chicago, too. It is a style of house. There has recently (past few years) been a campaign to rehab the bungalows.

Thank you for that reply Charles.

I had not some across either word in American usage before, although both are commonly used in Britain. That is very interesting about bungalows being built in Los Angeles at that time and a bit of period detail which I would have missed.

So what do American's call one story houses without stairs?

Ally wrote: "So what do American's call one story houses without stairs?"

First of all, I don't think I've been in a one story house with stairs. Unless it had a basement, but basements and their stairs don't really count, do they?

To your question: there are various styles which connote single story design, of which the most common by far is the "ranch" house, which is typically one long unadorned rectangular axis. It's the kind of thing you'd build if you had a lot of land and very little architectural curiosity.

The "bungalow" of Chandler's L.A. is specifically the California bungalow, which pops up in almost every American family movie or TV show. These are usually single homes on small lots, with a square base, peaked roof, and generous front porch (verandah, in the colonial vernacular). This was a dominant style for middle class housing during the time of southern California's railroad-fueled expansion, and their abundant use of ancient growth timber from California live oak and Redwood has made them robust, rot-resistant, and especially popular for refurbishment by later generations.

Also, they usually have stairs: from the front yard up to the porch, and also to a second story. As I mentioned above, the lot sizes in California were small by the standards of eastern and midwestern American cities, so there was some pressure to build up. Contrary to its image, Los Angeles is a densely populated metropolis by American standards, though its conurbation is so vast, regular, and well-framed by geography that it kind of blows you away. Also, god help you without a car. You'll notice Marlowe drives everywhere.

The other type of one story house (although it can be a two-up/two-down) that is prevalent in certain parts of the US is the "cottage". Although usually associated with the UK, the term cottage is often used to describe those houses built by coal companies for their employees near a working mine. That type of cottage is certainly not as picturesque as the name implies

I was the one who Suggested this. I read it, I found it good, not as good as Hammett, but still good. But now that I am reading some of the comments, and think about it, this sure was confusing. I do like the speech at the very end, right before the last paragraph. I do think this is less dark, because Marlowe sees it as less dark.

Jill wrote: "The other type of one story house (although it can be a two-up/two-down) that is prevalent in certain parts of the US is the "cottage". Although usually associated with the UK, the term cottage is ..."

Unless the "cottage" you are talking about is in Newport, RI - then it is a mansion.

"The Breakers" comes to mind......what a cottage!!!

Joe wrote: "I was the one who Suggested this. I read it, I found it good, not as good as Hammett, but still good. But now that I am reading some of the comments, and think about it, this sure was confusing. I ..."

It is less dark than the rest of the book, but is just saying that nothing matters once you are dead, which is not that uplifting. British crime fiction of that era had a much stronger sense of justice; we now call it 'cosy'.

I think calling your mansion a cottage is ridiculously pretentious whichever side of the Atlantic you live!
British cottages can be one or two stories, but most of them were tiny and very basic. They were for rural workers and their families (although now a lot of them are for city-dwellers' holidays). Mine workers and factory workers accommodation was usually terraced houses or tenements.

Val wrote: "British crime fiction of that era had a much stronger sense of justice; we now call it 'cosy'."

The English Classic was invented there exactly because some antidote to the war was needed. This need to believe in justice helped to blot out the evident injustice and inhumanity of the war. Americans never went through that. Here, the reaction to what was then still a foreign genre was that it was a fun puzzle. Then the Depression came, terrible rural poverty, the dust bowl years, Prohibition and the violence of organized crime, the looming threat of WWII, and Americans were much more prepared to believe in a world organized by the rules of noir, and without "justice". Noir is an American invention. It speaks truth to a part of the American mind. There is much justice in the book, actually, but in the form of anger at its absence and an obsessive concern to know how one could possibly act morally under these circumstances. Graham Greene came to the same conclusions.

I believe "cozy" ought to be applied only to the modern essentially nostalgic revival of the English Classic. The word implies a certain twee armchair retreat from the cold outside world, whereas the Classic was engaged, actively reconstructing the world.

Val wrote: "I think calling your mansion a cottage is ridiculously pretentious whichever side of the Atlantic you live! British cottages can be one or two stories, but most of them were tiny and very basic. They were for rural workers and their families (although now a lot of them are for city-dwellers' holidays). Mine workers and factory workers accommodation was usually terraced houses or tenements. "

19th C American "cottages" such as those in Newport are handsome little ship-shape dwellings, or built intentionally as second homes for the well-off. Workers, as you say, lived in "tenements" or "hovels". In this sense a cottage is a (comparative) mansion. Also, Newport is a somewhat squashed, space-limited town in which the cottage is actually a biggish house. (Jan, have I got that right?) The bungalow is an architectural variant of a cottage, but in its LA context it was positioned socially more like that of the English cottage.

I like film noir but have never read any of the source material � I don’t think I’ve read much in the mystery genre aside from a couple of Sherlock Holmes shorts and The Moonstone. I’m most of the way through The Big Sleep, quite enjoying it so far. I dig the dialogue and snappy descriptions and the overall mood and flow.

Anyone have an opinion on how Raymond Chandler compares with Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane?

D wrote: "Anyone have an opinion on how Raymond Chandler compares with Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane? "

Chandler always gave credit to Hammett for being the originator of the the style in which he wrote. But except for The Maltese Falcon Hammett stuck closer to the Black Mask magazine's pulp hard-nosed style from which both of them emerged, so I would have to rank Chandler as the better. I'm reluctant to include Spillane here. I make a distinction between noir and hardboiled which I explained earlier (post #8) so this makes an apples and oranges thing, though Spillane's Farewell My Lovely is noirish, if silly about atomic energy. I'd put other purely noir writers like Kenneth Fearing on the list after Hammett. Fearing's The Big Clock is very good.

I like The Big Clock by Fearing.....the hunted and the hunter being one in the same.
I also would put Cornell Woolrich and James Cain on my list of favorite noir writers, although Woolrich's stories are so dark and the protagonists so desperate, that they are almost unpleasant to read.
I think you meant Kiss Me Deadly by Spillane about the "box" of atomic energy. Farewell My Lovely is a Phillip Marlow tale by Chandler. It was filmed as Murder My Sweet since the studio thought the original title sounded like a love story.

When I was a young woman, I resented the way writers of this kind of fiction were so cynical about women. I thought it might have changed, but I gave the audio version of this one a whirl over the past few days - and no, my resentment hasn't changed.

I don't know why it's necessary for writers of crime fiction, of this nature, have to put each woman down as being:

* Old and ugly
* On the make/dishonest
* Good for viewing legs is about all.

They put their protag up as being just too noble to take advantage - ha ha!

Jill wrote: "I like The Big Clock by Fearing.....the hunted and the hunter being one in the same.
I also would put Cornell Woolrich and James Cain on my list of favorite noir writers, although Woolrich's stori..."

Oops. Kiss Me Deadly it is. Chandler on the mind.

Carly wrote: "When I was a young woman, I resented the way writers of this kind of fiction were so cynical about women. I thought it might have changed, but I gave the audio version of this one a whirl over the ..."

I'm sure it would be unwise of me to say much about this, especially as the complaint is not about a specific portrayal. But I would ask, do the men fare any better? Who among them is not old, ugly, corrupt, venal, repulsive, on the make, dishonest, dangerous, immoral? If we were privileged to learn the story from one of the female characters how would the men fare? Your complaint is surely just, but its force derives from a world view, not a particular misogyny.

As regards Marlowe being too noble to take advantage, he would if he safely could, and the same could be said about Vivian. No one is noble here. A very few of them wish they were, or try and fail. The Big Sleep is no more a simple statement about men and women than Lord Of the Flies is about boys.

I think that Otto Penzler, familiar to most mystery readers as the editor of mystery fiction and owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in NYC, describes noir fiction about as well as anyone. See his article at the link below. Quite interesting.

Jill wrote: "I think that Otto Penzler, familiar to most mystery readers as the editor of mystery fiction and owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in NYC, describes noir fiction about as well as anyone. See his art..."

Quite right. What Penzler says distinguishes the sub-genre, as he calls it, of noir from the P.I novel which I take to be the formula, also derived from the Black Mask stories, which became the post-war hardboiled. Carly's objection applies more properly to hardboiled, I think. It's not our period and it would be a distraction, but it would be interesting to consider the gender issues with contemporary hardboiled women like VI Warshwski and Jane Tennant.

I found this in the imdb trivia:
While working on the script, writers William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett couldn't figure out from the novel who murdered a particular character. So they phoned Raymond Chandler, who angrily told them the answer was right there in the book. They shrugged and returned to their work. Chandler soon phoned to say that he looked at the book himself and couldn't figure out who killed the character, so he left it up to them to decide. In the original cut, shown to the armed services, this question is resolved; in the film as released, it isn't.

Did the character happen to be Sean Reagan?.....because I can't remember who killed him.

The character they were talking about was Owen Taylor, the chauffeur, although they changed who killed Regan for the film.
Does Marlowe's musing about death at the end of the book suggest that it doesn't matter?

Finally finished this afternoon. Enjoyed it, as usual. I think it was probably at least the third time I read it.

I've always liked how Chandler paints the picture and his use of language. Very descriptive.

This thread has reminded me that it's been too long since I read any Chandler. I love his writing.

The last one I read was "Farewell, My Lovely" back in January 2011, and at the time I made a note of a few quotes...

"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun."

"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window."

"The voice got as cool as a cafeteria dinner."

Classic.

I wonder if we shouldn't have a dedicated Chandler thread? Anyway, for now, this will do.

Fellow Chandler aficionados might also be delighted to learn of BBC Radio 4's Classic Chandler season...

This series brings all the Philip Marlowe novels to Radio 4's Saturday Play. The Big Sleep 1939, Farewell My Lovely 1940, The High Window 1942, The Lady in the Lake 1943, The Little Sister 1949 and The Long Goodbye 1953, and two lesser known novels, Playback 1958 and Poodle Springs, unfinished at the time of his death in 1959.