{"id":85766,"date":"2015-05-14T18:48:41","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T22:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=85766"},"modified":"2015-05-15T18:46:10","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T22:46:10","slug":"from-sand-and-cactus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/","title":{"rendered":"From Sand and Cactus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raymond Chandler the environmentalist.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"chandlerweb_1820756c\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The wise man, as Biblical lore has it, built his house on the rock, his foolish compatriot on the sand\u2014guidance that mankind has ignored for millennia. In the late nineteenth century, the pioneers, or developers, or \u201cboosters\u201d who founded and promoted Los Angeles as a new \u201cinstant city\u201d were among those to lay substantial foundations in what was essentially sand. Not on a desert, exactly\u2014that myth\u2019s been debunked<\/a>\u2014but perilously close to one, and on the shore of an undrinkable ocean.<\/p>\n

Today, it\u2019s not an excess of water\u2014as in the scriptures and children\u2019s song\u2014that threatens Southern California, but a scarcity of it. The state is considering implementing desalination centers. As has been remarked in Europe, the city defines itself against its medieval origins; American metropolises define themselves against the wilderness. In John Fante\u2019s 1939 LA novel,\u00a0Ask the Dust<\/em>, his alter ego, Arturo Bandini, revels in his adopted home\u2019s mastery of nature: \u201cThis great city, these mighty pavements and proud buildings, they were the voice of my America. From sand and cactus we Americans had carved an empire.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"cityscape\"<\/a>

Richard Diebenkorn, Cityscape #1<\/i>, 1963.<\/p><\/div>\n

The landscape of that empire has proven to be a fecund source for artists. Paintings by the Bay Area\u2019s Richard Diebenkorn, whose first UK retrospective is currently showing at the Royal Academy in London, have been described as \u201camong the best visual evocations<\/a> of Los Angeles there are.\u201d Diebenkorn\u2019s work has been compared to the pure abstraction of Piet Mondrian, but his most abstract series, \u201cOcean Park<\/em>,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>employs the same visual language as his figurative paintings\u2014a language that resembles, in the least demeaning way possible, paint-by-number landscapes<\/a>. Large monochrome sections of the canvas pertain to natural elements. The grass is green, the ocean is blue, the sand is yellow. In Cityscape #1<\/em><\/a> (1963) the sand is seeping through.<\/p>\n

The painting calls to mind a passage in another Los Angeles\u2013based work, Raymond Chandler\u2019s Farewell, My Lovely <\/em>(1940), in which his PI, Philip Marlowe, visits a would-be interrogatee:<\/p>\n

\n

1644 West 54th<\/sup> Place was a dried-out house with a dried out brown lawn in front of it. There was a large bare patch around a tough looking palm tree.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For many, Chandler is siloed as a crime writer\u2014a designation he believed to be \u201cslightly below assault.\u201d Few would consider him a writer concerned with the environment or, even more, as a proponent of ecocriticism. But should we?<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

W. H. Auden is often credited for rescuing Chandler from pulp obscurity with his essay \u201cThe Guilty Vicarage.\u201d For Auden, Chandler wrote \u201cserious studies of a criminal milieu, the Great Wrong Place\u201d; his works stood opposed to thrillers set in an \u201cEden like\u201d scenario against which we witness the \u201ccontradiction of murder,\u201d as in any number of Agatha Christie novels.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t Los Angeles something of an earthly Eden, though? Not in Chandler. For all his Romantic leanings, nature, in his work, is seldom a source of solace; instead, nature in his Los Angeles is a source of anxiety, as it must be for any environmentally conscious person. By the time Chandler arrived in the city in 1913, the \u201cbooster myth\u201d of orange groves, sunshine, and tropical foliage was wearing thin. In fact, the opening of The Big Sleep<\/em> goes some way toward puncturing that myth:<\/p>\n

\n

It was about eleven o\u2019clock in the morning, mid-October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills \u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Once you start to look for it, the tension between the area\u2019s beautiful flora and fauna and the sprawl of its urban features is unavoidable in Chandler\u2019s work. It\u2019s even in the title of The Blue Dahlia<\/em>: referring to a sleazy nightclub, the phrase mingles gaudy neon with indigenous flora. No dahlia is naturally blue.<\/p>\n

\"238876-BlueDahlia1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

According to William Howarth, who laid out \u201cSome Principles of Ecocriticism<\/a>,\u201d an effective ecocritic should highlight culture\u2019s impact on nature, with a view to celebrating nature and \u201cberating its despoilers.\u201d It\u2019s not hard to find such ambitions in Chandler. Marlowe\u2019s Los Angeles is one where neon challenges the sun, rubber trees replace natural flora, and the ocean is polluted. When Los Angeles was developed at the end of the nineteenth century, various flora and fauna were imported; eucalyptus trees from Australia, cypress trees from Italy, pepper trees from Peru, and more. In The Long Goodbye<\/em>, Marlowe observes this:<\/p>\n

\n

There were all sorts of ornamental trees in clumps here and there and they didn\u2019t look like Californian trees. Imported stuff. Whoever built the place was trying to drag the Atlantic seaboard over the Rockies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Lord Byron once opined that \u201cman marks the earth with his ruin\u2014his control stops with the shore.\u201d Chandler might say it goes further. In Farewell, My Lovely<\/em>, Marlowe calls Bay City\u2014a fictionalized version of Santa Monica\u2014a \u201cdirty bathtub\u201d; the ocean there hosts two gambling ships and the shore scene is, to say the least, unbeautiful.<\/p>\n

\n

There was a faint smell of ocean. Not very much, but as if they had kept this much just to remind people this had once been a clean open beach where the waves came in and the wind blew and you could smell something besides hot fat and cold sweat \u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In the same book, Marlowe adopts a \u201cshiny black bug with a pink head and pink spots\u201d as his \u201clucky piece\u201d; he rescues it from the Los Angeles Police Headquarters, takes it outside, and places it behind a bush. Later, at the novel\u2019s end, with the case closed, he signs off: \u201cSo long. Did my pink bug ever get back up here?\u201d<\/p>\n

What, then, of Chandler\u2019s doling out of poetic justice, his \u201cberating of the despoilers\u201d? If Los Angeles is a sordid slum amid copious beauty, who is to blame? In The Big Sleep<\/em>, Marlowe\u2019s employer General Sternwood lives in a hilltop mansion. Sternwood is an archetypal booster figure who, with his \u201cthin bloodless hands,\u201d resembles Bram Stoker\u2019s Count. He\u2019s a different sort of vampire though: an oilman. \u201cThe Sternwoods, having moved up the hill, could no longer smell the stale sump of water or the oil,\u201d Marlowe thinks, \u201cbut they could still look out of their front windows and see what had made them rich. If they wanted to. I didn\u2019t suppose they would want to.\u201d Indeed, in Roman Polanski\u2019s Chinatown,<\/em> a film heavily indebted to Chandler, the villains are shown to be exploiting the region\u2019s natural resources for personal gain. In an early scene, the town\u2019s former mayor Sam Bagby delivers an impassioned speech in favor of the proposed and controversial Alto Vallejo Dam and Reservoir: \u201cBeneath this building, beneath every street, there\u2019s a desert. Without water the dust will rise up and cover us as though we\u2019d never existed!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"tumblr_n4b8k9IFCM1qe0lqqo1_1280\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The effect of the desert on Los Angeles has been noted by various writers\u2014Joan Didion found that the Santa Ana winds dry \u201cup the nerves to a flash point,\u201d and Chandler that they \u201ccurl your hair and make your nerves jump,\u201d prompting \u201cmeek little wives [to] feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands\u2019 necks.\u201d The desert prompts dangerous, animal behavior, and Los Angeles, per the earlier description of the parched yard, is a city nourished by its sand. Sternwood\u2019s daughter and (spoiler alert) culprit in The Big Sleep<\/em>, Carmen, has \u201cpredatory teeth, as white a fresh orange pith,\u201d referencing those resilient myths of bountiful orange groves and fertility\u2014but her healthy appearance, too, is a myth. A child of the city, fathered by a booster, Carmen is more like the arid desert on its borders. There\u2019s not the slightest hint of treachery in her appearance, but she is wild and amoral.<\/p>\n

If that reading seems a stretch, consider the climax of The Blue Dahlia<\/em>, where \u201cDad\u201d Newell is revealed as the murderer of returned war veteran Johnny Morrison\u2019s wife. Chandler hadn\u2019t intended this. He originally cast Johnny\u2019s veteran buddy \u201cBuzz\u201d as the murderer, but the studio couldn\u2019t allow a war hero to be a criminal. The script, however, reveals Buzz\u2019s motive when, on his return to Los Angeles, he sees Helen Morrison picking apart a flower. \u201cWhat\u2019re you doing that for? Picking at that flower! I don\u2019t like it!\u201d he yells. Later, trying to make sense of Buzz\u2019s attack, another character says, \u201cHe got terribly upset when I began to pull the petals from this flower.\u201d One reviewer of The Blue Dahlia<\/em> warned viewers that the film was in essence \u201chomicidal rather than horticultural\u201d\u2014but, as with all Chandler\u2019s work, that isn\u2019t, strictly speaking, the case.<\/p>\n

One of the few missteps in John Banville\u2019s recent Chandler continuation novel, The Black-Eyed Blonde<\/em>, comes when his Marlowe shrugs at nature: \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019d have recognized a daffodil if I saw one.\u201d Chandler\u2019s Marlowe would\u2019ve done more than recognize it; he would\u2019ve stopped to smell it, too.<\/p>\n

Rhys Griffiths is a London-based writer and editor. He works at <\/em>History Today and occasionally tweets @nobeetles<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raymond Chandler the environmentalist. The wise man, as Biblical lore has it, built his house on the rock, his foolish compatriot on the sand\u2014guidance that mankind has ignored for millennia. In the late nineteenth century, the pioneers, or developers, or \u201cboosters\u201d who founded and promoted Los Angeles as a new \u201cinstant city\u201d were among those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":832,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[9651,14073,18119,18120,18117,16066,18124,4468,217,8378,4769,18121,12179,18118,11443,18123,2160,18122],"class_list":["post-85766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-chinatown","tag-crime-fiction","tag-detectives","tag-drought","tag-ecocriticism","tag-environmentalism","tag-farewell-my-lovely","tag-john-banville","tag-los-angeles","tag-philip-marlowe","tag-raymond-chandler","tag-richard-diebenkorn","tag-roman-polanski","tag-southern-california","tag-the-big-sleep","tag-the-blue-dahlia","tag-w-h-auden","tag-william-howarth"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRaymond Chandler, Environmentalist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Latent in Chandler\u2019s exquisite crime fiction is a kind of ecocriticism, Rhys Griffiths says\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Sand and Cactus by Rhys Griffiths\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 14, 2015 \u2013 Raymond Chandler the environmentalist. The wise man, as Biblical lore has it, built his house on the rock, his foolish compatriot on the sand\u2014guidance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-14T22:48:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-05-15T22:46:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"460\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"288\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rhys Griffiths\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rhys Griffiths\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rhys Griffiths\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6f09e37d93ae8fa2af138864170c1acc\"},\"headline\":\"From Sand and Cactus\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-14T22:48:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-15T22:46:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/\"},\"wordCount\":1544,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Chinatown\",\"crime fiction\",\"detectives\",\"drought\",\"ecocriticism\",\"environmentalism\",\"Farewell My Lovely\",\"John Banville\",\"Los Angeles\",\"Philip Marlowe\",\"Raymond Chandler\",\"Richard Diebenkorn\",\"Roman Polanski\",\"southern California\",\"The Big Sleep\",\"The Blue Dahlia\",\"W. H. Auden\",\"William Howarth\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/\",\"name\":\"Raymond Chandler, Environmentalist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-14T22:48:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-15T22:46:10+00:00\",\"description\":\"Latent in Chandler\u2019s exquisite crime fiction is a kind of ecocriticism, Rhys Griffiths says\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"From Sand and Cactus\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6f09e37d93ae8fa2af138864170c1acc\",\"name\":\"Rhys Griffiths\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eef741d9019c571b06764747ffa0cb02b6a82a20bcbd2bbd870bd54123fe8995?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eef741d9019c571b06764747ffa0cb02b6a82a20bcbd2bbd870bd54123fe8995?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Rhys Griffiths\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/rgriffith\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Raymond Chandler, Environmentalist","description":"Latent in Chandler\u2019s exquisite crime fiction is a kind of ecocriticism, Rhys Griffiths says","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"From Sand and Cactus by Rhys Griffiths","og_description":"May 14, 2015 \u2013 Raymond Chandler the environmentalist. The wise man, as Biblical lore has it, built his house on the rock, his foolish compatriot on the sand\u2014guidance","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2015-05-14T22:48:41+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-05-15T22:46:10+00:00","og_image":[{"width":460,"height":288,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Rhys Griffiths","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rhys Griffiths","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/"},"author":{"name":"Rhys Griffiths","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6f09e37d93ae8fa2af138864170c1acc"},"headline":"From Sand and Cactus","datePublished":"2015-05-14T22:48:41+00:00","dateModified":"2015-05-15T22:46:10+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/"},"wordCount":1544,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg","keywords":["Chinatown","crime fiction","detectives","drought","ecocriticism","environmentalism","Farewell My Lovely","John Banville","Los Angeles","Philip Marlowe","Raymond Chandler","Richard Diebenkorn","Roman Polanski","southern California","The Big Sleep","The Blue Dahlia","W. H. Auden","William Howarth"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/","name":"Raymond Chandler, Environmentalist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg","datePublished":"2015-05-14T22:48:41+00:00","dateModified":"2015-05-15T22:46:10+00:00","description":"Latent in Chandler\u2019s exquisite crime fiction is a kind of ecocriticism, Rhys Griffiths says","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/chandlerweb_1820756c.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/14\/from-sand-and-cactus\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"From Sand and Cactus"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6f09e37d93ae8fa2af138864170c1acc","name":"Rhys Griffiths","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eef741d9019c571b06764747ffa0cb02b6a82a20bcbd2bbd870bd54123fe8995?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eef741d9019c571b06764747ffa0cb02b6a82a20bcbd2bbd870bd54123fe8995?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Rhys Griffiths"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/rgriffith\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/832"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85766"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85816,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85766\/revisions\/85816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}