#22 in Progress.  I recently finished The Big Sleep, one of Time Magazine’s top 100 novels of all time, but can’t say that I was blown away.  It was certainly well written and had all of the twists and turns of a Greek tragedy, but in the end I found the main character, Philip Marlowe, a bit too cold to root for. Lonely drunken P.I.s usually have me at hello, but a little more incite into why he was lonely, drunk and/or a P.I. would’ve have gone a long way to reel me in, especially given that the supporting characters were unlikeable at best.  I was also thrown a bit by the writing style.  Published in 1939, it reads like a 1930s Humphry Bogart noir, invoking that sort of clever, sarcastic and choppy cadence he was so well known for.  While probably innovative and engaging in the 30s, 40s and 50s, it felt dated and ultimately distracted me from the story.  I didn’t hate it, but it wouldn’t make my top 100.