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Desert Solitaire. By Edward Abbey. "The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chainsaws. It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.". Introduction.
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Desert Solitaire By Edward Abbey "The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chainsaws. It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."
Introduction • Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. • His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental groups, and the non-fiction work Desert Solitaire. • Environmental group sparked by his book TheMonkey Wrench Gang is Earth First. • “Thoreau of the American West.”
Earth First! Eco-Terrorism • Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. • There are Earth First! groups in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Belgium, Philippines, Czech Republic, India, Mexico, France, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, Nigeria, Slovakia, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. • Their symbol is a monkey wrench and stone hammer. • Actions: destroy billboards, maim construction machinery, blowup bridges, stop “progress” without injuring humans. • Edward Abbey often spoke at early gatherings, and his writings were an inspiration that led him to be revered by the early movement.
Early Life • Abbey was born in Indiana, PA on Jan. 29, 1927. • Graduated high school in 1945 • Eight months before his 18th birthday, when he would have been drafted, he explored the southwest by hitchhiking and train hopping. During this trip he fell in love with the desert country of the four corners region (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona). • He wrote, “…crags and pinnacles of naked rock, the dark cores of ancient volcanoes, a vast and silent emptiness smoldering with heat, color, and indecipherable significance, above which floated a small number of pure, clear hard-edged clouds. For the first time, I felt I was getting close to the West of my deepest imaginings, the place where the tangible and the mythical became the same.”
Life & Education • When he returned he was drafted and served two years as a military police officer in Italy, after which he was honorably discharged. • When he returned, he used the GI Bill to attend the University of New Mexico, where he received a BA in Philosophy and English in 1951. • He continued his education and received a Master’s degree in Philosophy in 1956. • Before receiving his Masters, Abbey spent a year at Edinburgh University as a Fullbright scholar, and spent 1957 at Stanford University on a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship.
Moab, Utah UT CO AZ NM
National Parks Services • In the late 1950s Abbey worked as a seasonal ranger for the United States National Park Service at Arches National Monument (now a national park), near the town of Moab, Utah, which was known for its desolation and uranium mines. • It was there that he penned the journals that would become one of his most famous works, 1968's Desert Solitaire, which Abbey described as "...not a travel guide, but an elegy."
Desert Solitaire • Desert Solitaire is regarded as one of the finest nature narratives in American literature. • Abbey vividly describes the physical landscapes of Southern Utah and delights in his isolation as a backcountry park ranger, recounting adventures in the nearby canyon country and mountains. • He also attacks what he terms the "industrial tourism" and resulting development in the national parks ("national parking lots"), rails against the Glen Canyon Dam, and comments on various other subjects.
Desert Solitaire (cont.) • He deliberately wrote to provoke people to anger, hoping to "wake them up", while also trying to make his writing entertaining and engaging for the reader. • Abbey felt that it was the duty of all authors to "speak the truth--especially unpopular truth. Especially truth that offends the powerful, the rich, the well-established, the traditional, the mythic".
Works – Non-fiction • Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (1968) • Appalachian Wilderness (1970) • Slickrock (1971) • Cactus Country (1973) • The Journey Home (1977) • The Hidden Canyon (1977) • Abbey's Road (1979) • Desert Images (1979) • Down the River (with Henry Thoreau & Other Friends) (1982) • In Praise of Mountain Lions (1984) • Beyond the Wall (1984) • One Life at a Time, Please (1988) • A Voice Crying in the Wilderness: Notes from a Secret Journal (1989) • Confessions of a Barbarian: Selections from the Journals of Edward Abbey, 1951–1989 (1994)
Works - Fiction • Jonathan Troy (1954) • The Brave Cowboy (1956) • Fire on the Mountain (1962) • Black Sun (1971) • The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) • Good News (1980) • The Fool's Progress (1988) • Hayduke Lives (1989) • Earth Apples: The Poetry of Edward Abbey (1994)
End • Abbey died in 1989 at the age of 62 at his home near Oracle, Arizona. He is survived by two daughters, Susie and Becky; and three sons, Joshua, Aaron and Benjamin.
