Chandler’s novel is another work (in addition to Agatha Christie’s Poirot series and a Neil Gaiman story) that has convinced me that I must write a detective story. I have been analyzing what draws me to the detective story, and I believe it is the detective’s personal endeavor to connect seeming unrelated details into a bigger picture that appeals to me as a writer. Chandler gives us the detective Marlowe, who gravitates toward the big picture in a stoic yet compassionate manner.
Marlowe is the classic, hardboiled detective for whom smoking and drinking is part of the investigative process. However, he doesn’t subject us to bland philosophizing on dangerous dames or mention his special .38 revolver every other page. Yes, Marlowe uses guns occasionally, but they usually find their way to his reluctant hands from acquaintances who didn’t use them as wisely. And yes, he meets dangerous dames, but the sexual tension is frequently ridiculed as a flimsy filter between Marlowe and the bigger picture.
The Big Sleep is written in first person past tense. There are some limitations to this approach since the reader is privy to Marlowe’s musing on the case at certain junctures but then shut off from his conclusions that could spoil the surprise. Chandler limited this isolation from Marlowe’s intentions at very specific points, so the reader felt as if they were solving the case alongside Marlowe for the most part. That being said, I’ll still try writing my first detective story in third person to avoid those difficult contradictions.
Chandler throws temptations of the flesh and of the bank at Marlowe but always in a way that contributes to the detective’s search for truth. There is no shortage of murders in this book, but many of them reveal Marlowe’s own mortality, giving a believable edge of danger to every step of the case. I won’t spoil the ending, but when Marlowe finds his truth, he keeps it noble but not self righteous.
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