The Big Sleep by Raymond ChandlerRead about another entry on the list.
Yes, the plot is famously convoluted, and no, I’m not about to explain it in detail. Doing so would turn this list into the noir version of a physics lecture on Einstein’s theory of relativity. Here’s what you need to know: Marlowe is hired to investigate a blackmailer who has the goods on a rich old man’s unpredictable daughter. From there, the whole thing spirals into seedy photographs, corruption, missing people, and a body count that feels suspiciously like Tuesday in L.A.
Chandler was ahead of his time. Marlowe doesn’t solve the case so much as endure it—plunging into a world where money, lust, and vengeance motivate nearly everyone, and moral disintegration is just the price of doing business. Read the book before watching the film, but expect a brilliant performance from Bogart—that 20th-century noir icon born in the 19th.
The Big Sleep also appears on John Banville's list of his six favorite books about cities, a list of four books that changed David Free, Jeff Somers's lists of fifty novels that changed novels and five famous books that contain huge mistakes, John Sweeney's top ten list of books on corruption, the Telegraph's top 23 list of amazing--and short--classic books, Lucy Worsley's ten best list of fictional detectives, Becky Ferreira's list of seven of the best books set in Los Angeles, Ian Rankin's list of five perfect mysteries, Kathryn Williams's reading list on greed, Gigi Levangie Grazer's list of six favorite books that became movies, Megan Wasson's list of five top books on Los Angeles, Greil Marcus's six recommended books list, Barry Forshaw's critic's chart of six American noir masters, David Nicholls' list of favorite film adaptations, and the Guardian's list of ten of the best smokes in literature.
--Marshal Zeringue
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