The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep is intensely evocative of a time that never existed. In Raymond Chandler's book, Los Angeles is full of hustlers, racketeers, mobsters, angels and slightly tarnished good guys all bouncing off each other in a grimy tough-guy world.
Chandler favors short, direct descriptions that vividly describe the scene. His cynical portrayal of people and his intense descriptions of LA create an atmosphere that is both fictional and competely convincing. Chandler's writing drew me into the story despite its sometimes objectionable content. The author is homophobic, deeply uncomfortable with powerful women, and presents hyper-masculinity as the male ideal.
Balanced against the more objectionable content is the protagonist, Philip Marlowe. The author none-too-subtly makes the point that he does the right thing even though there's no money in it and precious little gratitude. He acts like an idealized knight from a medieval romance dropped into a dirty, dangerous modern world. This idea appeals to me because sometimes people seem to be out for all they can grab, in the real world as well as in Chandler's book.
While the narrative heavily implies that Marlowe is a modern-day knight, I don't think it quite works as a metaphor. Knights in romances didn't usually defend the weak out of a moral imperative; the games they played were typically elaborate courtship games. Marlowe, though, does stick up for the little guy, and doesn't get much for it.
He's too grubby and tarnished to be considered a hero in the Superman sense. The movie version of Superman is the classic modern day hero; he's squeaky clean and always does the right thing. But I find Superman sickeningly one dimensional and completely unconvincing. Chandler tried to create a hero that was part of the world he belonged to, warts and all.
I wouldn't recommend The Big Sleep for its social commentary. The kindest description would be that it's old fashioned. As a story, though, it's gripping and the author ultimately has some faith in people, even when they're in terrible situations.
A favorite line (and probably one of the most quoted): "My God, you big dark handsome brute! I ought to throw a Buick at you."
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