The Big Sleep

This is a classic detective novel, by Raymond Chandler, the first of those he wrote featuring the detective Philip Marlow. Marlow is engaged by the elderly General Sternwood to look into attempts by several men to blackmail him based on potential impropriety on the part of his younger daughter. At the same time, it appears that the General wants to find the husband of his other daughter, a man whose company he had enjoyed in his seriously infirm condition, who appears to have left for another woman, but has also disappeared entirely.

Crystal's post made me think of this because it involves many scenes of the same empty decadence. The General is very rich from oil and his daughters are able to behave as they please, with their indiscretions covered up by Marlow and their butler. Their carelessness and the machinations of the criminal world are ultimately juxtaposed against the simple need of the old General for companionship as he is slowly dying, after numerous people have been killed out of greed and for revenge. The novel is stark, but not entirely bleak, if that makes any sense, and the genesis of the conflict is revealed to be a spitefulness on the part of one of the daughters that qualifies as mental illness. This makes it ambiguous as to whether their lifestyle caused the conflict or an inborn trait which caused the mental illness, with strong hints towards the latter.

Given that my brother was assigned this book for school I was surprised by its content, though Chandler does an excellent job of portraying extreme vice without being graphic. I would recommend this book highly, even though detective novels are not usually my cup of tea.