Many readers wrongly consider Raymond Chandler’s novels to be mere detective stories. The subtle nuances that mimic harsh reality in the plotlines and characterizations, however, help elevate Chandler’s work beyond the genre. This gritty realism could, in part, be a result of Chandler’s late start in his writing career; he was 45 when he began to publish his work. He produced only one collection of short stories and seven novels. However, Chandler’s first novel, The Big Sleep, established him as a true master of the American detective story.
Initially the plot of The Big Sleep seems simple. An established and wealthy family, the Sternwoods, is being blackmailed and sends for the archetypal hard-boiled private detective, Philip Marlowe. However, if in fact the blackmail situation was the driving force behind the Sternwoods’ hiring of Marlowe, the novel would have been substantially shorter and far less complex than the final product that the readers encounter. The complications come into play when the question of the blackmail becomes secondary to the job of locating a former bootlegger and common ruffian, Rusty Regan, the missing husband of the eldest Sternwood daughter.
Although Regan never actually appears in the novel, he becomes the elusive object of desire for each member of the Sternwood clan, and in light of this, his character can be decoded in various ways. For General Sternwood, Regan represents a connection to the general’s lost youth, rebellion, and sense of adventure. Without Regan, the general is, as Chandler suggests, little more than a decrepit shell of a man, fully separated from a former glorious masculinity. In a similar fashion, Regan provided his wife, Vivian, with admission into the rather masculine and exciting world of crime. Indeed, as the case develops, Chandler often shows the masculine qualities of Vivian’s character in relation to her ability to participate in some illegal, or at least seedy, activity. Unlike the general, Vivian only needed Regan as a key into this criminal world and is fully able to function without him. However, just as a key can open new doors, a key can also formally lock them. Vivian becomes concerned with her husband’s whereabouts because his disappearance makes her position in the underworld unstable. For Carmen, the youngest of the Sternwoods, Regan represents the final object she needs in her quest to achieve some perverse, and ultimately insane, mimicry of Vivian’s life. It is in this role as reluctant accessory to Carmen’s fantasy that Regan ultimately meets his death. With Regan’s absence, Carmen’s psychosis remains invisible to others.
Although Chandler deals with archetypal figures such as the hard-boiled private dick, the aging patriarch, the flirtatious girl, and the sophisticated and sexually charged woman, the notable feature of these characters is that they always appear strikingly real. Unlike other writers in this genre at the time, Chandler’s characterizations exceed predictability and do not rely on conventional portrayals of good and evil. He destabilizes the traditionally held notion that the good guys always win in the end. Chandler is even able to disrupt the ghoulishness of the noir genre by creating characters that have bizarre psychological dysfunctions rather than focusing on ironic or dark crimes. In Chandler’s work the reader finds benevolent mobsters, moral petty thieves, virtually mute stool pigeons, fanged Kewpie-doll girls, and wildly progressive Victorian elders. Even with this seemingly oxymoronic collection of characters, the reader struggles to understand fully the various motivations that link each character to his or her actions.
In The Big Sleep, the reader can understand the Sternwoods’ actions based on each family member’s connection to Regan; however, with characters not directly related to Regan, the question of motivation becomes much more complex and unique to the character’s independent personality. Most pointedly, Marlowe is not motivated to solve this case because he feels a need to correct a social injustice, but instead for the satisfaction of a job well done. Similar motivations of personal gain and integrity are mirrored in many of the other characters in the novel. Emotions have little or no space in a world ruled by the individual and personal achievements. This lack of emotional motivation also helps Chandler to escape the archetypal format of so many detective and mystery novels.
In 1946, The Big Sleep caught the eye of the Warner Brothers executives, and the story was purchased and sent into production. Directed by the well-respected Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Chandler’s novel was adapted to the screen by Nobel laureate William Faulkner with assistance from Leigh Brackett and Jules Furtherman. Although Warner had the mastery of Faulkner, Hawks, Bogart, and Bacall on their side, the final version of the film suffered from strict censorship guidelines that limited the driving plots of the blackmail case and the psychological instability of the youngest Sternwood daughter, so as to only hint at the sexual perversions in play. This created a confusing line of motives for the two main deaths in the story. Warner executives also added a handful of scenes to showcase Bacall with the hope of attracting more male moviegoers. These additional scenes made the plotline even more convoluted than Chandler’s original.
Sources
Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Linder, Daniel. “Chandler’s The Big Sleep,” Explicator 59, no. 3 (Spring 2001): 137–140.
Van Dover, J. K., ed. The Critical Responses to Raymond Chandler. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1995.
Wertheim, Mary. “Philip Marlowe, Knight in Blue Serge,” Columbia Library Columns 37, no. 2 (1988): 13–22.
Categories: Crime Fiction, Detective Novels, Literature, Novel Analysis
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