Desert Solitaire

Rating:
Summary: The book is as rare and precious as water in the desert...
Review: I've been there, the vast, silent desert. I thought no book could transport me back there, such an unworldly experience as it was. But I underestimated the power of Abbey's language. His muscular style, vivid descriptions, left me with pictures in my head, smells under my nose, sounds ringing in my ears. While some books make you feel like you're tackling a mountain, or headed towards a destination, Desert Solitaire successfully echoes the meditative, yet ruthless quality of the desert. His views about the protection of natural beauty are passionate and infectious. It can make you think twice or thrice about the fruitlessness of our petty, material lives. I plan to enjoy this one over and over, as I would a favorite song

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but uneven...
Review: Edward Abbey's collection of essays about his work at the then Arches National Monument(which he calls National Moneymint to mock the villains who wish to pave over everything). Abbey does have some good points, like we should stop trying to pave over things to make it more convineat to see nature. The whole Glen Canyon tragedy is told, foreshadowing the novel "Monkey Wrench Gang". I did like his wide knowledge of philosophy and the desert fauna and flora, and I relate to his love of the desert, but his prose is a bit(forgive the pun) too arid, and I had to slog through parts of the book. On the whole, I recommend it.

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Summary: Uncompromising Environmental Advocacy
Review: Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, is an autobiographical account of Abbey's stint working as a park ranger at Arches National Monument in Utah. At once this book is philosophical and poetic, yet at the same time, sardonic and polemical. Although the author would probably scowl at such pigeonholing, this book is also a significant environmental statement, as well as being a great piece of literature. In Desert Solitaire, Abbey identifies and adeptly defines a common frustration shared by many writers; the annoyance of not being able to adequately express one's self through the medium of words. He states, "You cannot get the desert into a book any more than a fisherman can haul up the sea with his nets. Not imitation but evocation has been the goal." However, even through his self-styled "evocation", he successfully and intimately enfolds his readers within his unique experience. A reluctant naturalist, Abbey blames the human inability to discern the true meaning of nature, on a tendency to always project our own expectations on the natural world. These are tendencies that exasperate him, and yet when he does achieve a near-true communion, as he describes in his experiences in isolation in Havasu Creek, he finds the encounter more disturbing than ecstatic. He describes losing the power to distinguish between himself and the natural world, creating in him a fear that his sense of self was "ebbing away." In addition, throughout his career as a writer, Abbey refused the label "environmentalist." Nevertheless, his books are useful instruments with which to measure our progress, or lack of progress as the case may be, in our relationship to our natural environment. In this book's chapter entitled, "Industrial Tourism and the National Parks", he lays out his philosophy that "growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell." Looking today at the corruption of the wilderness areas that he warned readers about three and four decades ago, it is plain to see how correct he was in his estimation and condemnation of policies pertaining to our National Parks. Whether he admitted it or not, Abbey set a tone of uncompromising environmental advocacy. In looking at Edward Abbey, the reader is also confronted by contradiction. He passionately argues for the importance of untamed wilderness and against the danger of industrial tourism. He declares he would rather kill a human than a snake, and then casually bops a rabbit on the head with a rock, just to see what his own reaction will be. He beguiles us with his description of Arches, and then chides us for wanting to go there. These passionate paradoxes are the tools he uses most effectively to lure us away from our complacency. Most importantly, Abbey's work his work serves as an inspiration to new generations of Western writers and historians, making us realize that wilderness really is a necessary ingredient of civilization.

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Summary: Get taken to a different world
Review: There is something great about reading a book about being in the middle of no where while you are sitting wedged in between two fat people in a crowded Department of Motor Vehicle office waiting to renew your license. So instead of being number 76 (they had just called 35) I got to be out in the red desert of Moab, Utah with Edward Abbey's nature classic Desert Solitaire.

I have always been more of a water person- give me a mountain lake over a desert canyon anyway! There is just something about water, you cast your spirit out over it and it is returned to you tenfold. But I guess that is not the only way to do things-the starkness and rough edges of the desert can also be used to temper your spirit on.

Abbey's greatest strength is in providing brilliant snapshots of life in the desert weather it be a rafting trip or a desert hike Abbey takes his reader along with him not only in terms of visual imagery but also with regard to the indefinable spirit of the desert to which Abbey is so finely attuned to.

This ability to so encapsulate experience also in some ways leads to the greatest weakness of this book- its structure. Rather than being a guide journey through the desert is more a collection of disjointed photographs. This is why ultimately I must prefer nature writing like Pilgrim at Tinker Creek which not only has the brilliance imagery of Abbey's writing but which also has the organizational structure and purposeful direction to lend additional meaning and understanding to those snapshots, which in the end makes it the superior book.

Also, unlike Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Abbey's book seeks to straddle both the natural and the human worlds. In edition to his desert experiences he also speaks to those issues tangentially related to the wilderness such as the policy decisions of the Park's Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other such issues. While defiantly always extreme in his views this extremeness becomes disturbingly apparent when Abbey muses on the possible need to overthrow the government someday (and the need to preserve the wilderness as a place to launch such an assault from). But as long as you can get past talk of blowing up the president along with a new dam it is a worth read... but maybe not your first book in the area of nature writing.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but uneven...
Review: Edward Abbey's collection of essays about his work at the then Arches National Monument(which he calls National Moneymint to mock the villains who wish to pave over everything). Abbey does have some good points, like we should stop trying to pave over things to make it more convineat to see nature. The whole Glen Canyon tragedy is told, foreshadowing the novel "Monkey Wrench Gang". I did like his wide knowledge of philosophy and the desert fauna and flora, and I relate to his love of the desert, but his prose is a bit(forgive the pun) too arid, and I had to slog through parts of the book. On the whole, I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Desert Solitaire
Review: This book is awsome. It is hard to believe that 30 years later some of the same problems exist for the NPS. Abbey definitely was a visionary. This book is the best account of real life in a fabulous place. It takes you back to those National Park visits when life was simple and people didn't mind getting out of their car and walking. Today everyone thinks they can "experience" a park from their car, Abbey understood this was coming and didn't mind giving his idea's on the subject. The descriptions of wildlife, flora and fauna are fantastic. You can almost smell the wild flowers. If you really want to experience the canyonlands of Utah, read this book!

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Summary: Enjoyable and entertaining but not much Natural History
Review: You've got to admire a man known as the quintessential evironmentalist who writes so gleefully about trashing nearly everyplace he goes. This book is above all humorous and that by itself would make this book enjoyable. Abbey is also a good story-teller. And Abbey is a good naturalist also.

The book chronicles a few seasons Abbey spends as a seasonal ranger in Arches National Monument (now a Park). Abbey describes the environs adequately but in no great depth. What is fascinating is how Abbey relates to the environment and how he interacts with it. Also included are a few other excursions like his float trip down Glen Canyon prior to its flooding by the dam.

My favorite parts are the dumb things Abbey does in the environment. Maybe Abbey is saying that is why we need wilderness. We need someplace to lay naked in the sun, burn down, carve initials into trees, or to get away from tourists. My favorite story is when Abbey lights a wildfire in Glen Canyon with his careless bumbling and runs and jumps on his raft just as the flames roar up to the beach. And Abbey seems to enjoy trashing the environment whenever possible doing stunts like rolling old tires into the Grand Canyon (through a mule train) and continually laying naked out in the boondocks somewhere. He also likes carving his initials in various places. His antics with the tourists who seem to bother him in spite of his job being to help them are priceless. There is also a humorous account of being a part of a search for a missing (and dead and bloated) tourist.

All in all, an amusing read more for the insight into Abbey than into the places he visited. And let me also throw in a quote from Abbey's intro. "The time passed extremely slowly, as time should pass, with the days lingering and long, spacious and free as the summers of childhood. There was time enough for once to do nothing...". Anyone who can think and write like that deserves to be read.

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Summary: An Inspirational Call to Action!
Review: I first read this book while spending a solitary winter in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. I cannot imagine a better companion.

Abbey had a spiritual connection to landscape that is both intoxicating and addictive, and his plainspoken narrative connects the reader to the depth of his desert experience in an uncommon way. But perhaps the most moving aspect of Desert Solitaire (indeed, all of Abbey's writing) is that the reader, by associating himself with the book, is called to action. This is not a book, nor is this an author, for the passive observer. Someone who wants a nice tale of living in the desert ought to look elsewhere. For anyone who's restless and ready to confront his or her spirit in a purposeful way, inspiration awaits!

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Summary: Environmentalism from a better time
Review: Today, in order to be a true progressive or environmentalist, one has to always be thinking about how whatever one may be doing, it is invariably negatively affecting something else. Abbey takes his season in the desert with less seriousness than most environmentalists can at the grocery store. Abbey's philosophy reflects a time when one did not have to worry about the chemicals or the genetics or the people behind his meal, and reading his book, I cannot help but feel an extreme jealousy.

Abbey's philosophy is far from extreme, making this book perfect for a wide range of people. Once in the book he kills a rabbit for the sake of a personal "experiment," he makes a case for people to carry firearms, and he eats meat and a lot of eggs. Today, any of those actions would make a progressive seem contradictory in their philosophy. When did things get so serious? Abbey has written a great book for the cause of conservative environmentalism. Conservative not in the way of the political spectrum, but rather in the way of taking things slower: He says the rise in industrial tourism will destroy the wilderness, that the automobile, while opening up nature to many more people, has cheapened its effect, and that spending a week in one spot in nature is better and spending a week in a thousand different places. The book is beautiful, and regardless of what one believes outside of the realm of environmentalism, readers will enjoy this book with the lack of seriousness that I think Abbey intended time in the wilderness should be spent.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint of heart (or stomach)
Review: This book is the author's memoir of the time he was a park ranger at Arches National Monument in Utah. Edward Abbey was a true believer in maintaining the pristine, natural beauty of the desert area under his guardianship. Abbey was extraordinarily hostile to what he called "Industrial Tourism": the construction of a system of roads through this desert wonderland which would brings thousands of tourists, their automobiles, and eventual ruination to the environment. He mentions the many pressure groups who threaten to turn Arches National Monument, and other national parks, into picnic grounds. Abbey admits that he would be happy if no tourists ever visited his park.

Abbey describes desert scenery of great natural beauty and wonder. He often hiked in the desert area on unmarked trails, carrying with him the barest provisions, often risking his life on the possibility he may never get back. Abbey concerned himself with getting to his destination first, then worry about getting back afterwards. Tourists would never even consider taking such journeys. _Desert Solitaire_ is written in a style nearing poetry--blank verse--and was a total joy to read.