I
read The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler recently to try and immerse
myself in a good example of hard-boiled detective fiction so I'd be able
to write some myself, and found that Chandler, rather than just being
an example of a good detective writer, actually defined the genre, and
any offbeat noirish detective yarn that's been imagined in the past
seventy-five years has his fingerprints all over it. It's wicked stuff,
with the main character, Philip Marlowe, careering from one sun and
booze soaked scene to another, often with little idea of what he's
doing, but always managing to come away with another clue to solve his
case.I really enjoyed it, and I'm now looking forward to reading some of
the other Marlowe novels.
The
Big Sleep is a very cinematic story, and those qualities make it
completely recognisable when you live in a world in which tv channels
are stuffed wall to wall with detective dramas of varying quality.
Marlowe seems to be the blueprint for many a sozzled tv detective, and
his slightly surreal adventures are the perfect base for a million
different stories. It was only halfway through The Big Sleep that I
noticed the similarities to The Big Lebowski, one of my favourite films,
and looking it up I found that the Coen Brothers had loosely based
their story on Chandler's novel. And just like all of the thousands of
screenwriters and authors that have taken inspiration from Marlowe, The
Big Sleep has given me a lot of help in continuing my own series of
surreal detective stories. Just a pesky horror story to finish off and I
can carry on with it.
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