Raymond Chandler’s

How an American detective woke the world and critiqued the American Dream.

Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep: Presentation outline.

• 1: Chandler’s background and literary output.• 2: The Big Sleep, what makes it

pulp fiction.• 3:The Big Sleep, Literary

innovations, themes and motifs.• 4:The Big Sleep, Critical

reception.• 5: Conclusions.

1: Chandler’s background and literary output.2: The Big Sleep, what makes it pulp fiction?3:The Big Sleep:Literary innovations, themes and motifs.4:The Big Sleep, Critical reception.5: Conclusions.6. Discussion questions.

Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep: Presentation Outline.

Raymond Chandler: 1888 – 1959 A life.• Born July1888 Chicago, Illinois, United States.• Spent early years in Nebraska surrounded by close family.• 1895: Abandoned by his father, an alcoholic civil engineer employed by the railways, the

Chandler family emigrate to London, England supported by Chandler’s maternal Quaker uncle a successful lawyer based in Waterford Ireland.

• Classically educated at Dulwich College Prep School, whose alumni include authors P.G. Wodehouse and C.S. Forester.

• Chandler spent his childhood summers with his maternal uncle in Waterford.• Spurned university, instead spending time in Paris and Munich, ostensibly to improve his

language skills.• 1907: Became a naturalised British Citizen in order to take the civil service examination. Spent

a year at the Admiralty. • 1912: Returned to U.S. settling in San Francisco, took various menial jobs including stringing

tennis rackets and picking fruit..• 1913: Moved to Los Angeles and began working for The Los Angeles Creamery Corp. across

California.• 1917: Enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, seeing combat in France, experiencing shell

shock and undergoing flight training with the RAF when the war ended.• 1919: Returned to LA beginning an affair with the married Cissy Pascal, 18 years his senior; they

married in 1924.• 1932: Had become a highly paid vice-president of the Dabney Oil Syndicate; a year later his

alcoholism, absenteeism, promiscuity with female employees and threatened suicides contributed to his sacking.

• 1955: Attempted suicide after the 1954 death of his wife Cissy and had numerous affairs, including with George Orwell’s widow and Stephen Spender’s wife.

• 1959: Dies in La Jolla, California of pneumonia, broke but not forgotten.

Raymond Chandler, the writer:

• 1907: Publishes his first romantic poem.• 1908: Becomes a reporter for The Daily Express and the Bristol Western Gazette

newspapers. An unsuccessful journalist.• 1908-1911: Writes poetry and essays for Westminster Gazette and The Academy.• 1933: Blackmailers Don’t Shoot his first Pulp short story published in Black Mask

Magazine.• 1934-1938: Publishes 15 short stories in Black Mask and Dime Detective.• 1939: Publishes debut novel The Big Sleep ,the first of novels• 1944: Co-wrote his first screen play Double indemnity with Billy Wilder.,4 further

screenwriter credits would follow.• 1946: Writes his last Phillip Marlowe novel, Playback in San Diego.• 1957: Writes his final short story, The Pencil..

“Wandering up and down the Pacific Coast in an automobile I began to read pulp magazines, because they were cheap enough to throw away and because I never had at any time any taste for the kind of thing which is known as women’s magazines. This was in the great days of the Black Mask…and it struck me that some of the writing was pretty forceful and honest, even though it had its crude aspect. I decided that this might be a good way to try to learn to write fiction and get paid…I spent five months over an 18,000 word novelette and it sold for $180. After that I never looked back, although I had a good many uneasy periods looking forward.” Raymond Chandler writing to his English publisher, Hamish Hamilton in 1950.

Clip from Howard Hawks seminal 1946 film adaptation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t8H07c30io&feature=related

The Big Sleep: what makes it pulp fiction?

1.Sales volumes.2.Number of Film adaptations etc.3.Chandler’s unashamed

‘Cannibalisation’.4.Content: Sex, drugs, blackmail and

high society.5.The hero: Cynical, hardboiled and

dangerous to know.6.Narrative technique: Plot twists.7.Humour.

The Big Sleep: Literary innovations, themes and motifs.

The Big Sleep: Critical reception.

Conclusions:

Discussion questions:

1. What makes the hard boiled detective such an enduring character in literature and wider culture?

2. Why was the hard boiled detective an American rather than a European creation?

3. How does the hard boiled detective develop the tropes of the Cowboy?

1. In what shape does the American Dream emerge from the end of The Big Sleep?

A

B

Raymond Chandler interview part ¼ from 5:40 onwards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj6cc0T1z7I