A review by punchingpilots
The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
4.0
They say this is the novel that planted the seed for the detective genre.
This felt pretty far ahead of its time with the socio-political musings on capitalism in America and its enablement of corruption of government -which is a well trodden subject by now. The dialogue was witty and many of the one liners garnered a laugh from me.
This was more of a quick dose of comedy and snappy writing than a dose of mystery. I never found myself very invested in unravelling the conspiracy but was instead committed to the characters and general vibe of the world. If anything I wish this novel was 30% longer and dug a bit deeper into characters such as Vivian, Camino, Rusty, Mars and Mona. Such a compelling cast of characters that felt a little underexplored - but maybe that's the nature of this genre.
This felt pretty far ahead of its time with the socio-political musings on capitalism in America and its enablement of corruption of government -which is a well trodden subject by now. The dialogue was witty and many of the one liners garnered a laugh from me.
This was more of a quick dose of comedy and snappy writing than a dose of mystery. I never found myself very invested in unravelling the conspiracy but was instead committed to the characters and general vibe of the world. If anything I wish this novel was 30% longer and dug a bit deeper into characters such as Vivian, Camino, Rusty, Mars and Mona. Such a compelling cast of characters that felt a little underexplored - but maybe that's the nature of this genre.