The Big Sleep: the beginnings of Philip Marlowe

The Big Sleep: the beginnings of Philip Marlowe

Reviewed by Verónica Hernández Landa Valencia
October 17^th, 2013

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) is an icon between the fans of crime novels. He contributed to the renovation of the genre born in the nineteenth century with a new and unexpected focus. In Chandler’s novels, the rational process followed by the main character to solve a mystery is not so developed than in nineteenth century novels, as those of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Instead of that, the mystery is created by the atmosphere: strange characters that belong to a dark world inhabited by persons with mental disturbances, lawless men and woman —not only those who came from the underworld, but also those who use checkbooks and cover their shady business under the appearance of legality.

        The Big Sleep (1939), ranked by the Time’s, in 2005, in the list of the 100 best novels of the twentieth century novels, is the first Chandler’s hardboiled crime novel starred by Philip Marlowe, the character that made Chandler famous. In this first work of Chandler, Marlowe is already represented with all the attributes that have made him emblematic: a tough and self-sufficient middle-age man, with a great intelligence and an acute sense of humor, who lives in the borders if the dark world where he constantly have to get into to solve mysteries, hired by the most enigmatic and exotic people.

          In this novel the reader can also recognize some characteristics of the second characters that will be exploded in other novels, such as The High Window: a rich, willful and mysterious person ―in this case a man, Mr. Sternwood―, who cannot be easily interpreted, and is surrounded by the strangest people the reader can imagine. Commonly, this character hires Marlowe to solve a case without telling him the entire story. Therefore, the investigation takes Marlowe to unexpected paths.

It is also possible to find the exotic Chandler’s female characters that made him famous: women almost subnormal that only act in extreme situations, and hers actions usually results in big troubles; powerful and arrogant women that will be dominated by Marlowe. Here, it becomes necessary to recognize that, for the reader who is accustomed to this kind of character representation and understands the time when Chandler wrote his novels, these characters wouldn’t represent a problem, even can be really attractive, but they can be irritating for those who don’t like a misogynistic treatment of the characters. 

         The story starts with general Sternwood, an old man about to die, hiring Marlowe because he wanted to stop being blackmailed, without paying anything to the blackmailer. The problem started because Mr. Sternwood had two rebels and uninhibited daughters that always got in troubles; somebody called Geiger founds out a dark secret ―gambling debts of Carmen, the youngest Sternwood’s daughter―, and tried to use it to earn easy money. Nevertheless, the Sternwood family had more secrets to hide, and this turned more complicated Marlowe’s work.  

          What it seemed to be a simple arrangement ―once Marlowe’s knew about Geiger’s dark secrets and had information to pay Geiger’s blackmail with the same coin―, become an investigation about a chain of blackmails and murders that, apparently, started with Geiger’s, but Marlowe will discover that the murders started some years ago, by the hand of the most unexpected person.

         From the start, the investigation Mr. Sternwood commissioned Marlowe seemed to have a little fold that was mysterious: the name of Rusty Reagan ―the husband of Vivian, Mr. Sternwood oldest daughter, who disappeared suddenly years ago―, appeared since the first conversation with Mr. Sternwood. The general never told Marlowe two investigate the fate of Reagan; however Marlowe knew that the general expected to, not because he wanted back Vivian’s husband, but because Regan was a friend of him. In contrast, Vivian seemed more worried because she believed that Mr. Sternwood asked Marlowe to find Regan. Meanwhile, Carmen was creating more problems.

Once the blackmail situation was solved, finding this mysterious character, Reagan, becomes the center of Marlowe’s investigation. It leads him not only to meet more blackmailers, but also bookmakers, an owner of a gambling house, dangerous blonds,  desirable women ―and others not so desirable―, a hired murderer that almost put in danger Marlowe’s life, and let him a little beaten. That is the strange way that guides Marlowe to the past of the Sternwood family.    

For lovers and experts of twentieth century crime novel, to read Chandler’s books is considered almost an obligation. In the case of The Big Sleep, to the well known author’s technique to create singular characters and environments, is added the freshness of the first Chandler's novel in this literary genre.