I was first introduced to Raymond Chandler via a used bookstore in Paris while I was studying abroad for a semester. I was so taken that I went out and read everything Raymond Chandler wrote, short stories, novels, essays.
During the pandemic, I thought it was time to revisit the top three highlights of his oeuvre, The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, and the Long Goodbye.
This book was his first novel, however I read it relatively late in that project – I didn’t find a copy of it until after I moved back to the States. I remember enjoying it quite a lot, an impressive first novel that was an explosion of energy, dramatically announcing a new author into the scene.
Unfortunately, the book did not hold up under a second reading. There were a few cringeworthy moments in the novel which I had overlooked in a less politically charged time. The conversation around toxic masculinity certainly affected my read on Marlowe’s character, deflated the sense of pure energy that I experienced in the first reading.
It didn’t help that I was concurrently reading Frederick Frank’s Zen of Seeing, which included multiple critiques of “artifice”. Hardboiled detective fiction is doubly such, layering the mystery genre with an overtly self conscious writing style. I still enjoyed Chandler’s use of wild metaphors, but this bit of bad timing also took some of the fun out of the ride.
Thirteen years is a long time, so I’m curious how the other two novels will hold up. My memory of this book being a easy quick read still held true, so I don’t think it will be a major time investment. It will be interesting to see what my current self thinks of the literary indulgences of me, a quarter of my life ago.
PS: I did not notice this fact in my first read, but The Big Sleep was published right before World War 2. It was an interesting exercise to read it with the awareness that the story was written before the full horrors of the mid-century era had become apparent.