Saturday, February 25, 2006
The Big Sleep: Raymond Chandler
Since I've gotten so interested in mystery stories again, Mandar recommended Raymond Chandler. I'd always been planning to read Chandler's stories but I never got around to it. Finally I went to the library and got The Big Sleep. Set in the Los Angeles of 1930s, it is a short, fast-paced crime novel with an attitude. I got an edition that is a photographic novel, so there are about 40 photographs accompanying the story which definitely makes the book more interesting.
The book itself is fun, especially since it's set in SoCal and has a very colorful cast of villains. I didn't quite enjoy the writing style as much - the sentences were terse and abrupt, as if written by a laconic cop or dock-worker. The joy of reading a mystery is that you can stop from time to time and use the data you have to try and figure out whodunnit. In this book, you feel like you have no data at all. So why bother...
Link
The book itself is fun, especially since it's set in SoCal and has a very colorful cast of villains. I didn't quite enjoy the writing style as much - the sentences were terse and abrupt, as if written by a laconic cop or dock-worker. The joy of reading a mystery is that you can stop from time to time and use the data you have to try and figure out whodunnit. In this book, you feel like you have no data at all. So why bother...
Link
