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A review by wetsmoke
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
3.0
2.5 stars.
This book was just never meant for me. I’m sure that it’s good for what it is, which is a classic hard-boiled detective novel. But I couldn’t stand the main character. He’s so arrogant. He thinks that everyone around him is an idiot (and the author writes the book so that he’s right), and that he’s the most brilliant, the most clever, and the most tough. It’s incredibly annoying.
That’s all to say nothing about how horribly the women are written. And it’s not that I’m holding this book to modern PC standards - it’s that I really think the women characters are terribly written. And the protagonist has an absolute contempt for women because of the fact that he’s attracted to them. That irritating attitude permeates literally every interaction he has with a woman.
The end was kinda good, though, so if you can endure all the stuff I take issue with, it might be worth reading.
This book was just never meant for me. I’m sure that it’s good for what it is, which is a classic hard-boiled detective novel. But I couldn’t stand the main character. He’s so arrogant. He thinks that everyone around him is an idiot (and the author writes the book so that he’s right), and that he’s the most brilliant, the most clever, and the most tough. It’s incredibly annoying.
That’s all to say nothing about how horribly the women are written. And it’s not that I’m holding this book to modern PC standards - it’s that I really think the women characters are terribly written. And the protagonist has an absolute contempt for women because of the fact that he’s attracted to them. That irritating attitude permeates literally every interaction he has with a woman.
The end was kinda good, though, so if you can endure all the stuff I take issue with, it might be worth reading.