The Big Sleep | Literary Precedents
The question of whether Chandler's fiction properly belongs to the detective story genre is still debated, and at present no answer is in sight, partly because throughout his career Chandler tried to dissociate himself from his fellow mystery writers. It is clear, however, that his works do not descend from the tradition of Poe's ratiocinative tales, regarded as the first detective stories, for Chandler's characters do not concern themselves with the processes of deductive reasoning in solving the crime. They work on hunches and instincts instead. Chandler did derive some of his material...
[The entire page is 277 words long]
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