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You could, I suppose, find the language of Raymond Chandler in The Big Sleep comical — it tries so hard to be gritty, cynical, and tough. And, yes, I find myself giggle at a sentence here and there, but that’s just because I wallow so joyfully in the dark poetic renderings of what detective protagonist Philip Marlowe uncovers under the thin veneer of 1930’s Los Angeles glamour. Chandler’s metaphors are fun and seductive.

A case in point is the allegory of the orchids, which we encounter in one of the first chapters of The Big Sleep. I suspect most people would find orchids stunning and beautiful, and therefore this exchange gives pause:

  “Do you like orchids?”
  “Not particularly,” I said.
  The General half-closed his eyes. “They are nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. And their perfume has the rotten sweetness of a prostitute.”

The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler)

There is also this one, from a few pages earlier:

The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish color, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.

I love these scenes, but that’s not how I see orchids. I prefer (except when I read Chandler) to leave behind the allegory of decadence and depravity and sleazy degeneration, and rather reflect on these botanical wonders as straightforward and naturally beautiful, wonderfully graceful and alluring.

I believe the one we have in our kitchen windowsill, the one on the photo, is an orchid which is called moon orchid or moth orchid (Phalaenopsis amabilis). It's a relatively easy one to grow as a houseplant … which is why it has survived us. This orchid is epiphytic (which means that it grows on the surface of another plant or plant-like organism) or lithophytic (it grows on rock surfaces or in rock cracks and crevices), and it’s native to Maritime Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Australia.

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