The Big Sleep – Michael A. Kahn

Flipping Edmund Wilson the Bird: When Does a Work of Literature Qualify as–egads!–a Mystery?

Posted on October 1, 2022 by Michael Kahn

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of one of the leading literary critics of his time, Edmund Wilson. While many of his readers, especially in academia, admire him as the author of such influential works as To the Finland Station (1940) and Patriotic Gore (1962), for this humble scribe, whose books are…

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The Magical Lure of the Intimate Voice

Posted on December 18, 2017December 21, 2017 by Michael Kahn

I have written here and elsewhere of the power of a great opening line. If you can imagine a bookstore as a crowded singles bar with each book hoping to get lucky, that first sentence essentially functions as the author’s pick-up line. Sure, a sexy book jacket helps, since it will increase your chances of…

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The Big Lebowski Meets The Big Sleep

Posted on August 15, 2015May 25, 2016 by Michael Kahn

The other night I settled down to watch “The Big Lebowski,” a terrific Coen brothers film that features three of my favorite actors (Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, and Steve Buscemi) playing three of my favorite characters (the Dude, Walter Sobchek, and Donny Kerabatsos). I’d last watched the movie about ten years ago. If you’d asked…

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My 5 Favorite Narrators (Part 3)

Posted on October 23, 2013May 25, 2016 by Michael Kahn

In my last post, I discussed the 2nd of my 5 favorite narrators, Raymond Chandler’s private eye, Philip Marlowe. As I now turn to #3, it’s worth noting his surprising overlap with #2. In several important ways, Chandler’s The Big Sleep, set in the Los Angeles of the 1930s, is similar to Joseph Conrad’s brilliant novella, The…

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Mystery #4 for Literary Snobs: Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Michael Kahn

Faulkner flirted with the mystery genre throughout his career — Knight’s Gambit and Intruder in the Dust, for example, along with the screenplay for The Big Sleep,which he wrote. But his finest mystery also happens to be his finest novel. Absalom Absalom is, quite simply, a superior detective story and a great work of literature. The novel…

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