Her smile was tentative, but could be persuaded to be nice.
Recently I watched an old interview with Andrew Klavan in which he cited The Big Sleep, the first Philip Marlowe novel (1939), which he admires very much. He mentioned how he adopted Marlowe as a literary hero when he read the first scene of this book, where the detective enters the palatial Sternwood mansion. Above the door he sees a stained glass window depicting a knight attempting to free a maiden tied to a tree. Marlowe doesn’t think the knight is trying as hard as he could, and thinks that if he lived there he’d have to climb up himself and help out.
That, Klavan says (and I agree), is the key to Philip Marlowe’s character. He’s a knight out of romance, plunked down in the 20th Century where he has no place. His adventures involve him in many compromises, but he strives to keep some honor.
Even when the fair maidens don’t really deserve rescuing, as is the case in The Big Sleep. Old General Sternwood, confined to a wheelchair, has summoned Marlowe because he has received blackmail demands related to his daughter Carmen. Carmen is flighty, promiscuous, and not very bright. He also mentions a man named Rusty Regan, ex-husband to his other daughter Vivian. The general liked Rusty, but the man has disappeared. He hopes he’s all right. Marlowe intuits (correctly) that the general isn’t really much concerned over the blackmail; he’s trying to work up to asking Marlowe to locate Rusty.
Soon Marlowe will be a near-witness to a murder, with Carmen Sternwood present (high on drugs). Then the body will disappear. And Marlowe will find himself looking for Rusty Regan after all – not because he cares about the Sternwood daughters, but for the old man’s sake.
The Big Sleep is an intriguing book. Plot-wise it’s confusing and not neatly tied up. The author himself, famously, wasn’t sure who killed the Sternwood chauffeur. And there’s one scene where Marlowe is captured by a notorious murderer, who then conveniently goes away, leaving him to be watched by a suggestible woman whom Marlowe persuades to free him. (A very weak plot device, you can’t deny.)
And yet this book is treasured by readers and critics alike. I treasure it myself. The prose is masterful, the characters are fascinating, the atmosphere draws you in, and the conclusion has been a model for all but the most cynical of hard-boiled writers ever since.
On this reading I was particularly struck by a minor character, the purest hero of this story. His name is Harry Jones. He’s a short, unprepossessing man, a two-bit gambler. Yet he makes the ultimate sacrifice for a woman who doesn’t deserve him. Marlowe pays him the greatest respect – he’s the man Marlowe would like to be, but pure knights of that sort do not survive in our world.
Taken all in all, The Big Sleep is a great novel. If you haven’t read it and like hard-boileds, you should. Cautions for drugs and sexual situations – pretty racy stuff for 1939.