The Big Sleep

Some of the most famous film noirs were adapted from novels written between the 1920s and '30s, most particularly books written by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The books are usually about a detective, they often have complicated plots, a femme fatale, their heroes are manly men (who are often sexist and homophobes) who take the law into their own hands and are not afraid to throw a punch. These novels often have first person point of views and their narrators, the detective, are usually quick-witted and ironic and use contemporary slang. Usually, with the noir crime stories, the mystery is only part of the point of the story. The main part is seeing the detective at work.

To start off w/ The Big Sleep, you might talk about the many ways that this novel is different from And Then There Were None. An obvious different is point of view. How does a first person narrator change a mystery?

Also, what does Marlowe tell us about Geiger? What is stated and what is only implied? When he returns to the murder scene after taking home Carmen, what do you make of the fact that the body is gone? What do you make of Geiger's house, the descriptions of the different rooms, the totem pole? What do you make of the following quote?

"I looked at the totem pole. At it foot, beyond the margin of the Chinese rug, on the bare floor another rug had been spread. It hadn't been there before. Geiger's body had. Geiger's body was gone." (41)

The most important information in this passage is that the dead body is missing and yet it's the last sentence. Why?

What do we know about Marlowe at this point in the novel? What questions do you have?

Who is the femme fatale? How do you know?