"The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler

I discovered Raymond Chandler when I was reading a review of Lovecraft, on of my favorite authors, and the review writer mentioned that 'what Lovecraft was for horror, Chandler was for detective fiction'. This tickled my imagination, and I got all the Chandler's novels and started to read them in their chronological order (just like I read the complete works of Lovecraft). The first novel, which was later made in a great movie with Humphrey Bogart, and even later into yet another great film with Robert Mitchum, this time, being 1979, the movie could be much more explicitly, as the novel has quite a few shocking parts (for the 1940s when it was released). The novel is complex, with many plots and subplots, characters with many layers, which change sides and opinions and allegiances often. Philip Marlowe is the stereotypical 'hard-boiled' detective, somewhat of an ideal for every private eye. The novel is devoid of positive characters, as everybody Marlowe encounters, no matter how likable at first, eventually show their rotten side. Marlowe, for his part, never pretends to be of high morals or ideals, but usually comes on top when compared to the rest of the menagerie.

The book starts with what looks like a pretty simple plot, a blackmail note for rich, old and paralyzed army general who has accrued great riches from oil and two young an beautiful daughters rotten beyond repair. However things evolve pretty fast, and soon we have powerful crime bosses, corrupt police officials, big money protectionism, hitmen and large swaths of areas in LA and the surroundings in the late 1930s. Marlowe is the proverbial tough guy with morals: cynical but with a soft spot, dark humored but going out of his way to help, womanizer but not sleeping around, street-talking but upholding the law more than the police. You can almost see black-and-white images while reading the book. It is told from first person point of view, Marlowe is the narrator and this gives us insight into his thoughts and motivations and makes him very real and almost likable, but definitely admirable.

The women in the book are (almost) all gorgeous, and always rotten, whether by their own choice or by destiny. The more innocent the look at the beginning, the more corrupted and sick they turn at the end, as is the case with Carmen, the general's 20 year old daughter. The style of the book is easy to follow, although the plots and characters might be numerous and complicated. Chandler was one of the first writers to use real, street-level, tough language which spares no insults, both social, moral and racial which is refreshing in today's PC-obsessed world. The plot is intriguing, there are twists and turns which keep you on the edge as a good mystery novel should, pretty much to the last page, but don't expect 'clues' as in Christie's novels that would help you 'find the murderer' itself. This is not that type of detective novel. This is gritty, realistic, down-in-the-gutter novel which is remarkable for its realistic appeal, 'telling it as it is', no english or belgian detectives who play the violin and hang out with the 'high class' here.

Marlowe is a seminal character, better developed than Spade and in much greater length, with more depth and believability. The other characters in the book are only jotted with some well chosen lines, but still ring true, though this mostly goes for the male characters. The female characters are less well drawn, and are mostly there to further the story and to emphasize the 'hard-boiledness'. It is amazing, for someone not familiar with the LA underground and related police business, to hear the words, the sentences, the bullying, the fear mind-games, to see how tough guys evaluate each other, what motivates them, how they relate to each other and other people. Chandler is a master in presenting this, dark but realistic, picture of everyday life in LA.

I am looking forward to reading the rest of the Marlowe novels, and watching the movies (each novel has at least one movie made according to it, some as much as three) and enjoying the no-fluff, spare-me-the-PC, gritty, rough around the edges but with more morals than the police chief, style of Phillip Marlowe.