When I read the book (and it was the first book by Chandler
I'd read)
it confused me at first precisely because it did not follow
the
cliched pattern I was then used to: crime/mystery occurs in
chapter
one, most of novel is spent vamping and padding (I'd read a
lot of
John Dickson Carr by then) -- hopefully in an entertaining
fashion --
and crime/mystery is solved in the final chapter. In TBS the
initial
mystery is solved by chapter four, and the book is just
starting to
pick up steam. I enjoyed the book a great deal and
immediately
sought out more by Chandler. (I've reread his entire opus at
least
twice since then, as I have Hammett's.) Eventually I saw the
movie
(as part of a Bogart Festival, along with maybe thirty
others,
including "The Maltese Falcon," which I'd seen earlier
anyway). What
a letdown! The ending was missing! I didn't think it
"happier," I
thought it an example of directorial confusion. Bogart was a
good
Sam Spade, but he didn't fit my image of Phillip Marlowe. And
while
"The Maltese Falcon" is possibly the most faithful adaptation
of a
book to screen in the history of movies, "The Big Sleep"
surely is
not.
Over the years my admiration for Chandler has been tempered
by such
failures as "Playback" and the "Poodle Springs" fragment (I
refuse to
read Parker's arrogant "collaboration"), while my admiration
for
Hammett has increased. Such perfect lean prose, and such
knowing
characterisations! Hammett's characters came off the streets,
while
Chandler's mostly came from an imaginary demimonde of his
own
devising. But I can't knock one to boost the other: each
had
extraordinary strengths.
And speaking of such things, have you all read Larry Block's
"The
Burglar in the Library"? A delightful sendup of the
British
country-estate drawing room murder mysteries, with some
telling
commentary on both Chandler and Hammett thrown in. Since he
revived
the Burglar series Block has been having fun with
inside
mystery-lovers' jokes, doing some wicked takes on putative
Sue Grafton
book titles, among other things.
--Ted White
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