Raymond Chandler’s book ‘The Big Sleep’ is an excellent mystery novel telling the story of private eye Phillip Marlowe.
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Transcript:
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:22:10
Bennett Tomlin
“Under the thinning fog, the surf curled and creamed almost without sound like a thought, trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness,” is one of the many powerful lines in The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep is the genre defining novel about private eye Philip Marlowe, and is also a story of trying to be good as things around you become bad.
00:00:22:12 - 00:00:46:16
Bennett Tomlin
The book is resplendent with rich prose and a wonderfully complex story, albeit one that leaves a couple of threads dangling at the end. There are even hints that this complexity, with some things left unanswered, is meant to give the book its realistic ambiance, with the main character observing of a story at one point that “it had the austere simplicity of fiction rather than the tangled woof of fact.”
00:00:46:18 - 00:00:56:00
Bennett Tomlin
I recommend this book, but be forewarned. It was published in 1939 and contains racism, homophobia, sexism and other objectionable content.
