tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10779294.post1457023179737009888..comments2024-01-08T14:21:37.465-08:00Comments on Infinite Art Tournament: The Reading List: "The Big Sleep"Michael5000http://www.blogger.com/profile/10148584819327475239noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10779294.post-81745259039324943932008-12-05T21:17:00.000-08:002008-12-05T21:17:00.000-08:00Long time, no comment! Not for lack of admiring o...Long time, no comment! Not for lack of admiring of your blog though. I cannot believe I've never put this one on my reading list. I am a voracious consumer of All Things Bogart, and I loves me some detective novels. Am off to find it...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03788226514286019607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10779294.post-27365775417136403132008-12-05T07:10:00.000-08:002008-12-05T07:10:00.000-08:00I have no critical distance when it comes to Chand...I have no critical distance when it comes to Chandler. My favorite writer. Ever. "The Long Goodbye" is like a secular bible to me. I'm teaching it right now and I am having trouble preventing myself from rhapsodizing about virtually every damned phrase. No better stylist in the history of crime fiction. He's the reason people confuse hard-boiled and noir - it's an astonishing synthesis of these two important American story-telling trends. If you think "Big Sleep" is good (and it is), you should see "TLG." Imagine Chandler with 15 more years of practice, setting out to write what is tantamount to the epitaph of the P.I. genre. <BR/><BR/>It's practically holy, that book. I read aloud from it for two entire pages yesterday (famous passage about blondes). I never read aloud in class for more than a paragraph, at most. But his writing has the hold-your-attention lyrical quality of the KJV. Only it's funnier. (No offense, God)<BR/><BR/>Carry on.<BR/><BR/>RPRex Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16145707733877505087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10779294.post-22853515289012336142008-12-05T05:15:00.000-08:002008-12-05T05:15:00.000-08:00I read The Big Sleep in my Hard-Boiled Detective N...I read <I>The Big Sleep</I> in my Hard-Boiled Detective Novel class (let's hear it for grad school!), and it was one of my favorites. This means both that I thought it did some pretty interesting things and that he wasn't Dashell Hammett (I'm afraid that if I rashly say, "I'm never reading <I>Red Harvest</I> again!" somebody's going to talk me into it, though). Other than that, I distinctly did <I>not</I> grow up reading hard-boiled detective novels, which (a) tend to have a lot of violence in them, and (b) would've seriously cut into my romance-readin' time. And even though I liked Chandler in the context of the class, I do notice that I haven't picked up one of his books again, though when I saw <I>The Big Sleep</I> on your list, I considered re-reading it in case we could have a conversation about it.<BR/><BR/>Anyhow, I actually was just going to say that I remember reading that line about the "fag party" in a totally different light which reflects, as readings do, my own prejudice: I (actually, feel free to call this a misreading if you like) read the British "cigarette" definition into it, thinking, well, <I>yeah</I>, if you went to a party for smoking cigarettes, that <I>would</I> have a stealthy nastiness to it! I hadn't heard of such parties before, but I'm perhaps not <I>very</I> worldly, and I had heard of cigar bars, which would be the same sort of thing, right? But, um, looking at it again, especially given the fact that Marlowe himself lights up in the next paragraph (and, yes, I know, Chandler's not British), I think you're right.Jenniferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09075041892999096779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10779294.post-36963434482714380352008-12-05T04:13:00.000-08:002008-12-05T04:13:00.000-08:00Many years ago, while working in the public librar...Many years ago, while working in the public library, I had a young man approach the desk and ask for the detective novels that feature the character, "Dixon Hill."<BR/><BR/>If you aren't already laughing, it is because you were not a Star Trek: Next Generation fan. <BR/><BR/>Dixon Hill is the fictional fictional character that Captain Jean Luc Picard would play during his leisure time on the Holo Deck. A hardboiled detective in the Marlowe style, without the royalties.<BR/><BR/>My colleagues were stumped, but I stifled a laugh and gently broke the news to him, and steered him to the works of Hammett and Chandler.Cartophiliachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15474715424129283330noreply@blogger.com