BOOKS READ 12: THE BIG SLEEP BY RAYMOND CHANDLER.
I wanted to like this book. Really. It inspired Jason Schwartzman’s character in the awesome show, “Bored to Death” to become a private detective. Chandler is called a classic, defining and to some, still leading the detective/noir genre. Lots of people like him. Lots of people think he’s cool. I THOUGHT HE WAS COOL TOO, especially for the first 10 pages of this book. There were so many lines that absolutely killed me, but I don’t know, something happened and it just started to get…boring. Really hard to get through, and there’s not really even that many characters, but I couldn’t really keep the details straight (and I think it was because it just wasn’t that interesting to me).
Maybe it’s from growing up watching (and shamelessly loving) Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (hands down the best out of all the Law and Orders) and CSI Miami (Horatio!). You know? Where you can see where the story is heading, but they get to the point in an interesting (or, rather, entertaining) way.
The conclusion of this novel, it was something that I didn’t really see coming and when told, it was interesting, but jeeze it was so boring getting there. Another reason for maybe my inability to easily get through this book was that I always read it before going to bed. But then again I read all the books that I talk about on this site before going to bed, so this isn’t really an excuse.
I am so sorry Mr. Chandler, but if it’s any consolation, millions of other people still like this book…a lot.
