Elements of Los Angeles: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire by D.J. Waldie offers a thoughtful and often poetic exploration of Los Angeles through the lens of the four classical elements. He uses these as a framework to delve into the complex and often contradictory nature of the city, examining its foundations, history, and cultural fabric with his trademark elegance and incisiveness.
Los Angeles as a place of contradictions: Waldie portrays Los Angeles as a place of dreams and disillusionment, civic memory and strategic forgetting, natural beauty and environmental fragility.
The classical elements as lenses: Each element provides a distinct way of exploring the city's multifaceted identity. Earth focuses on the city's physical and historical grounding. Water examines the critical role of water in the city's development. Air considers the city's atmosphere, culture, and shared experiences. Fire addresses the destructive and transformative power of fire in the Los Angeles landscape, particularly relevant in light of recent wildfires.
An interweaving history, memory, and observation: Waldie blends historical facts, personal reflections, and deeply felt observations to create an evocative portrait of Los Angeles. He explores moments like the forgotten legacy of the Hass avocado, the devastation of the St. Francis Dam collapse, and the peculiar endurance contest that left a woman buried alive.
A guide to seeing the city anew: For those who have lived in Los Angeles or simply wondered about its underlying essence, the book offers a fresh perspective and deeper understanding of the city beyond its glittering surface.
D.J. Waldie is an essayist and cultural historian known for his insightful explorations of Southern California life. His other works include Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir and Becoming Los Angeles: Myth, Memory, and a Sense of Place. Called “one of the most respected contemporary voices on life in Southern California,” by the New Yorker and “one of the most artful authors writing about Los Angeles today” by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, Waldie elegantly blends history, memoir, and contemplative observation, providing a portrait of the elements that illuminates the city as a whole.
No one realizes Los Angeles better than D.J. Waldie, the prose-poet laureate of the land and the air and the light. - Lawrence Weschler, author of A Wanderer in the Perfect City
Los Angeles’ elegant observer - Jim Newton, LMU magazine
No more keen observer of life in Los Angeles - Ken Bernstein, The Planning Report