Philip Marlowe, Cowboy

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I got excited after finishing The Big Sleep, and decided to look up hard-boiled detective fiction in the library's "Academic Search Complete" database. There, I learned that some critics have compared characters like Marlowe to the cowboys or frontiersmen of western fiction. The detectives are described as "carving civilization out of the wilderness," even if they contend with an urban landscape instead of a natural one -- "a world in which [the detective] is constantly under siege." Like a cowboy, the hard-boiled detective is a loner who solves problems with action and adventuring.


Does this comparison work for The Big Sleep? Is Marlowe like a frontiersman or the hero of a Western? How might Chandler be creating a wilderness landscape for his detective?


Also: Did you think there was an awful lot of talk about thumbs and fingers and teeth in The Big Sleep? You're not alone... 


(The links above will ask you to log in with your library card number and pin).

Portrait with Cat

How awesome is this picture?

Our book for September 14, Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, was the author's first novel and a breakout hit. In The Big Sleep, he combined two earlier stories he had written for pulp fiction magazines. The Big Sleep is also the first appearance of Chandler's famous character, detective Philip Marlowe. Chandler, who had been struggling financially, found work in Hollywood soon after the publication of his first novels. He went from earning a penny a word for his first pulp stories to making thousands as a screenwriter for Paramount Studios.

[Biographical information taken from the EBSCO database "Biography Collection Complete," available through the Library Web site.)

Our Next Books

Hello mystery readers!


Here are our next six book selections. All meetings start at 7 pm. We hope to see you there!


Tuesday, September 14
The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler


Tuesday, October 12
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon


Tuesday, November 9
Belshazzar's Daughter, by Barbara Nadel


Tuesday, December 14
Maisie Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear


Tuesday, January 11
Wednesday's Child, by Peter Robinson


Tuesday, February 8
The Brass Verdict, by Michael Connelly


We have more copies on the way for many of these titles. And if a book is unavailable from Sunnyvale Library, try the Link+ catalog. Link+ is a free service that lets you order books from other libraries, to be delivered to Sunnyvale.

Up Close and Personal with Tony Hillerman

"[A lot of people] began the autographing chat with a disclaimer. They'd assure me they were not mystery readers. They read my books because of the tribal cultural material intermixed with the plot line. They wanted to learn a bit about American Indians. It occurred to me that I had tapped into a mass of American readers who suffer from the same workaholic problem that besets me. Reading for idle amusement left them feeling guilty. My books, like a sausage sandwich spiced with antiacid tablets, give absolution along with the sin." -- Seldom Disappointed, p. 300.


Tony Hillerman's long and distinguished life included Army combat during World War II that earned him a Purple Heart, a stint as a newspaper reporter and editor, and a childhood among the Pottawatomie and Seminole Indians. If you'd like to learn more about the author of our August book, Skinwalkers, check out these resources from the library:


Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir, by Tony Hillerman
The Tony Hillerman Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to His Life and Work, edited by Martin Greenberg


These two books are full of fun facts. For instance:


In a 1993 interview published in the Companion, Hillerman says that when he started writing Skinwalkers, he hadn't planned to bring together his two main heroes, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. But he needed "a superior for [Chee] to deal with. And there was gold old Joe Leaphorn on the shelf, whom I knew very well, so I just started using him."  (p.61).


What would you like to know about Tony Hillerman? Does reading Skinwalkers make you wonder about his life or his writing process?

More books on the way!

Hello mystery lovers! Some of you may have noticed that it's getting hard to find a library copy of July's selection, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. But we've ordered six more copies, and they should be here soon. You can place a hold by clicking "request" on this page.


Let us know if you're having trouble getting your hands on the book. See you July 13th at 7 pm! We'll be meeting upstairs, in one of the library conference rooms.

Last Night's Discussion

Thanks to all who came to our inaugural meeting last night!

Below is the list of books that everyone suggested, to the best of our memory and notes. Please tell us in the comments if we left something out or if there are additional great titles that need a mention.

Thanks again, and we hope to see you July 13, for a discussion of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

Mysteries

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

Rolling Thunder by Chris Grabenstein

Monkeewrench by P. J. Tracy

Tao Yun Shan series by Eliot Pattison

C.I. Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny

Inspector Salvo Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri

Commissioner Guido Brunetti series by Donna Leon

The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid

Bloodhounds by Peter Lovesey

Cooper and Fry series by Stephen Booth

Science Fiction

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Novels and Short Stories

Housekeeping and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Raymond Carver

Neal Stephenson

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Mystery v. Thriller

Is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a mystery, or a thriller? And what's the difference?


The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction points out that every mystery is a puzzle, in which the author must hide certain key elements. "[T]he author provides clues to the solution but attempts to obscure some information so that the puzzle cannot be solved too easily."


But for a thriller to function, the reader must be more aware of what is going on behind the scenes. "The role of the readers of thrillers is to watch, to follow the action step-by-step," Joyce G. Saricks writes in the Guide.


The Web site mysterynet.com has an interesting essay on the subject from novelist Janet L. Smith. She notes that according to master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, suspense is created when the audience is "holding its collective breath," waiting for an event that it expects will happen -- like a bomb under the table that the audience knows is set to explode at a certain time. If the bomb goes off without prior warning, then it is simply a surprise, but not suspenseful, Smith writes.


Readers of thrillers may know about the bomb under the table, but mystery authors often must keep the reader in the dark. "The dilemma created for the writer of traditional mysteries," Smith writes, "is the fact that the villain and the details of the crime must remain unidentified, breaking Hitchcock's rule of keeping the audience informed."


When does The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo act like a thriller and when is it a mystery? Does it go off track and become more about vengeance than solving the crime?  Bring your thoughts to the discussion.