Hardboiled American Crime and Worldwide Noir Fiction discussion

For November our hardboiled classic group read is The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Has everyone obtained their copy?

Have any good films been made of this month's book?

There's a film with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
I haven't watched it, but my husband has seen it a few times and owns a copy of the movie. It's supposed to be good.

Thanks! I just looked it up on IMDB and I see the film you mentioned (1946) gets a 7.9. I then looked up The Maltese Falcon (1941) and was stunned to see it is rated even higher at 8.0! The latter was enjoyable to watch, but I would not have thought it better than 7.0 for reasons I gave in a post in the other topic.

So, are you going to wait until you have read the novel before watching the film version? I plan to read the novel first. Not sure why that order of doing things is so important to me, personally. Yet it is.

Our first two books: two Bogart films. Is this how to make your novel big? Have Bogart be the star in the film version of it?

I read the book last year and thought it was okay but didn't love it. It was certainly hard-boiled!

I just purchased a dead wood copy of the book from Penguin Books. It's brand new, not previously owned, but coming from Britain and thus travelling the ocean blue. Somehow they can afford to sell and ship it to me for a grand total of $4.59, including tax (none, sweet!). Hard to believe a new book can be priced so low, but I can be patient awaiting the book's arrival. I have an 830-page fantasy book I want to read (just begun) for my local book group before I can get to The Big Sleep. I'll be joining in on this one in the second half of November then, but no need to wait for me.

The UK company that sells the book so inexpensively is called Blackwell. What an odd name to my ear for a bookseller. They sound more like they'd be selling top secret surveillance equipment for a defense industries contractor, or something like that. But I don't hold it against them. For $4.59, I don't hold anything against them.

That is a real bargain, Dan.
I read a library copy, since I really don't need to buy any more books for a while.

I discovered I didn't have to purchase the book at all. It and a surprisingly high number of other Chandler works are available for free here: https://www.ebooks-library.com/author.... That's okay though because I personally prefer to hold a book when reading. I find I retain content better when I do.

One particularly noteworthy Chandler work I found elsewhere (red-wind.pdfdelong.typepad.com › files › red-windPDF) was the short story "Red Wind," originally published in the 1938 issue of Dime Detective. Its protagonist was a P.I. named John Dalmas. But in a later republication of the story, Chandler changed the name to Philip Marlowe. So while the 1939 novel we are reading is supposed to be the debut of Philip Marlowe, apparently this slightly earlier character was the same in Chandler's mind except for the name.

Everything I have read about this novel indicates that while it is short (54,250 words; The Maltese Falcon was 68,295 words for comparison's sake) it is very complicated. I think I will be maintaining a detailed character chart so that I keep all the players straight.