I read 'The Big Sleep' in record time even for me, as a favour for my little sister. I'd found her old copy at home for her and have to send it up to Manchester so she can read it for a university project, she asked that I read it quickly so I could give her some ideas about the themes etc. (she's a graphics student). I was reading it over my lunch break and found one page fully covered in pencil annotations. I read through the page getting more and more annoyed at the willful misunderstanding and apparent lack of intellect or understanding of literature displayed by the annotator, feeling fully het up and scathing by the end of the page only to realize it was my little sisters handwriting...
That blip aside I enjoyed 'The Big Sleep' mainly as an explanatory introduction to noir - not a genre I've ever really explored in written or filmic style. As it is the hard bitten detective, femme fatales, suave and scary gangsters and knuckleheaded meat men are instantly recognisable as a style and as the source material for endless parodies and straight faced references. Pulp Fiction and Tarantino films in general suddenly popped into focus as pure homage. It was much like the feeling of having watched Spaced as a child and still now occasionally finding moments in classic sci-fi films that have been faithfully and lovingly reproduced.
In itself I really enjoyed 'The Big Sleep', the characters were great fun, the storyline suitably complex and deathly. Thematically its almost hard to believe it was first published back in 1939, the antics of the Sternwood sisters seem straight out of 90210 (or even Homeland).
It almost seems a shame I couldn't have come to the novel 'fresher' and with less preconceptions. Rather than having a clear idea about themes/characters/writing style what I really found I brought away from the novel was a sense of jigsaw puzzle completeness where lots of little bits of cultural knowledge found themselves new birthright. Overall it was an idea absorbed rather than a story read.
Classic-ness: 9/10
Body count: 7/10
Cultural knowledge filling: 9/10
Overall: 8/10
That blip aside I enjoyed 'The Big Sleep' mainly as an explanatory introduction to noir - not a genre I've ever really explored in written or filmic style. As it is the hard bitten detective, femme fatales, suave and scary gangsters and knuckleheaded meat men are instantly recognisable as a style and as the source material for endless parodies and straight faced references. Pulp Fiction and Tarantino films in general suddenly popped into focus as pure homage. It was much like the feeling of having watched Spaced as a child and still now occasionally finding moments in classic sci-fi films that have been faithfully and lovingly reproduced.
In itself I really enjoyed 'The Big Sleep', the characters were great fun, the storyline suitably complex and deathly. Thematically its almost hard to believe it was first published back in 1939, the antics of the Sternwood sisters seem straight out of 90210 (or even Homeland).
It almost seems a shame I couldn't have come to the novel 'fresher' and with less preconceptions. Rather than having a clear idea about themes/characters/writing style what I really found I brought away from the novel was a sense of jigsaw puzzle completeness where lots of little bits of cultural knowledge found themselves new birthright. Overall it was an idea absorbed rather than a story read.
Classic-ness: 9/10
Body count: 7/10
Cultural knowledge filling: 9/10
Overall: 8/10
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