Book 206

The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

I liked this book, but I didn't love this book.  At first I was amused by the pervasive metaphors and similes.  I was even quite fond of the one in the middle of chapter eight:  Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.  But after a while, I found myself wading through them, and then swimming in them, and finally drowning from them.  (See?  I can do it, too.)  They made the narration feel like it was escaping through the side of the mouth, past a gasper. 

I've never practiced legerdemain, but I do know misdirection when I see it.  If you take away the picturesque phrases and the gritty narration, you are left with an adequate, maybe even a good, but not a brilliant story.