Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler, a dazzling stylist and portrayer of American life, holds a unique place in literary history, straddling both pulp fiction and modernism. With 'The Big Sleep', published in 1939, he left an indelible imprint on the detective novel. Fredric Jameson offers an interpretation of Chandler's work based on reconstructing both the context in which it was written and the social world or totality it projects.