Nature Literature discussion

Please add your comments about Desert Solitaire here. I'm trying something new this month and have added Ray as the "Discussion Leader" since he is the one who nominated the book.

Hello Everyone:
I'll be listening to Desert Solitaire through Audible on my ipod. I'm just finishing up another book, so will begin Desert Solitaire this week. Is anyone else, besides Ray, planning/hoping to read or listen?

Sher

I live in the West Desert of Utah 2 days every week, year round. My job duties require this. When I first accepted this job, after living near lush Glacier National Park in NW Montana, I wasn't looking forward to going in to this bleak and barren landscape. However, what I have found has amazed me. I've since come to find great tranquility in the desert's endless vistas (even bigger than in Big Sky country), amazing sunrises and sunsets, and a peace and solitude equal to that of any rugged mountain range. The howl of coyotes puts me gently to sleep in the desert just as it did in GNP.

Abbey does a fantastic job in Desert Solitaire of capturing the beauty, the simplicity, and the soul-restoring majesty of the desert. He puts into words what I feel each and every time I sit on a rock escarpment overlooking this vast landscape. My favorite parts of the books were his adventures in to the "Maze" and his river adventure down the Colorado before it was dammed up. Having spent a lot of time on rivers I felt like I was there enjoying the wonder and excitement he felt while fishing for his daily meal and exploring lonely side canyons along the way. His adventures in the Maze remind me of exploring tight slot canyons with friends over the years.

With my current job I spend a lot of time around campfires of juniper and sage. My favorite quote in the book is: "The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante's paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalysis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West. Long may it burn."

There are times in this book that Abbey gets stuck on political rants about the commercialization of national parks. It struck me several years ago, while entering Zion National Park, that I resented paying for a park pass when I've already paid for park access through my taxes. I got over it quickly as I reflected on the many park improvements I've seen in Zion over the years and how talented their canyoneering/climbing rescue team has become. So, while I can somewhat relate to Abbey's demonization of the government and National Park Service, I wish he could have lived long enough to see how the system strangely works somehow.

Abbey's favorite rant is about the laziness of tourists, especially Americans. I've often shared these feelings while in Zion NP. More specifically, I have felt sorry for the 90% of tourists who drive through ZNP or Arches NP and don't walk more than 100 yards from their vehicle. My greatest memories in most national parks have required backbreaking sweat and toil to get into the backcountry but have been more than worth it. Rather than complaining about the tourists' laziness, I think Abbey should have been grateful for their laziness since the byproduct of such is having the peace and solitude in the backcountry all to himself!

Again, I wasn't a big fan of Abbey's political rants. Nevertheless, I feel that this book fully deserves a 5-star rating for how well Abbey has captured the stark beauty and magic of the wild desert landscape. This book made me even more grateful than I already was for the time I get to spend in this amazing part of our country.

I've read "Desert Solitaire" so many times, I almost have it memorized. Always room for another read, though. One never tires of the classics.

After living in Abbey Country in Albuquerque for a while, i discovered I don't like the desert. It may be clean, it may keep its geology out in plain sight, but I prefer forests and mountains to the desolate despair of arid lands.

But then, Desert Solitaire is not all about the desert, it's about people and the inside of Abbey's head. Desert Solipsism, he often called it.

I spent an evening with Ed Abbey once, on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, the Good Rim. That year's Earth First! Rendezvous had died down and we settled around a campfire as the stars blazed in their own right overhead. It was a memorable conversation.

I'm looking forward to a good conversation about Ed's writing around this here campfire.

Jason wrote: "I live in the West Desert of Utah 2 days every week, year round. My job duties require this. When I first accepted this job, after living near lush Glacier National Park in NW Montana, I wasn't loo..."

Ed never saw himself as a Nature writer. He had literary aspirations more than environmental. He wrote so eloquently about the natural world, that he quite naturally attracted a scruffy bunch of environmeddlers to his work.

"Desert Solitaire" was far more instrumental in inspiring Earth First! than was his later work, "The Monkey Wrench Gang."

Yes - he helped start the ball rolling for Earth First, which, I believe he called "Rednecks for the Environment." This is a link to a sort of tribute to Abbey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFwG7...

I have read this book a multitude of times. Reading it on Nook this time around.
I was struck by the poetic quality of the writing in chapters two and three. Perhaps more controversial than his political rants is a brief passage in chapter four.

Ray, I loved that video clip - thanks for sharing. :)

Terrific - thanks for the link.

I missed this book the first time around, and I did not realize it was widely read. I have mentioned our read to a few of my 60 plus age friends, and they have all read Desert Solitaire. Hmm, well I will bring a new eye to it. Thanks Michael and Jason for your interesting posts! Sher

My favorite chapter in "Desert Solitaire" is The Moon-Eyed Horse. I find the chapter Dead Man at Grandview Point the most poignant.

I won't go into details now so as to not spoil the read for others, other than to share my delight in Abbey's descriptions of the desert landscape and the human condition.

It's been awhile since I read the book, but I kind of liked his rants (along with his beautiful nature writing). The visit from the road building engineers is thought provoking, (and kind of funny in his reaction to it),0 because the conflict is that we want to have wilderness, but we want to have access to it which kind of defeats the purpose. I don't have a four wheel drive vehicle, so I like having a paved road to get there, but some of the parks kind of have an amusement park atmosphere now. It has been shocking for me to visit a park after 25 years and see how much it has changed-- Acadia for one example, or the area outside Great Smoky Mountains NP. Abbey was prescient in his discussion of this issue, and some changes in the parks, like bus-only access to some areas, are finally catching on.

Yes - he definitely did not want the wilderness mechanized. The visit from the civil engineers is a key point.
Any comment on the incident with the rabbit in Chapter 3? I have known some folks who were very put off by that incident.

Hi Ray-- I've just begun the book, but I will look out for the rabbit incident.

Right now I am interested in Abbey telling his readers in the intro that he wants to just give the facts. He's comfortable with appearances, and he's not looking to reveal profundities. Quite the declaration. Should I believe him? We'll see.

Also, where I am in Oregon right now it's hot enough to bake a sour cherry pie outside and brown it nicely too. The opening of Abbey's book is in winter...wild to be walking in my garden and feeling so hot I could barely breathe and he is describing frost on the windows of his little camper. :)

Also, enjoy right away his presenting of opposites ---for example, desert as an ocean so full of diversity. :)

The polemic on industrial tourism is though provoking. A friend of mine once said the Americans are loving their natural wonders to death.

Sorry, that should say thought provoking.

What do you think is his point in relating the rabbit incident? He doesn't sugar-coat how he presents himself. I've noticed lots of kids have an impulse to kill for no reason.

I think he was presenting a side of himself that becomes more apparent in some of his other writing. Here, he was simply testing his skill, because he could. Gets negative comments from some animal rights groups. I think Abbey was not that kind of environmentalist. He gets negative comments from other groups as well. Abbey was happy to be known as hunter and fisherman. Some regard him as a paradox. I simply regard him as a great writer.

This profile of Edward Abbey appeared in The Hellbender Press, Knoxville, Tennessee, several years ago.

http://rayzimmerman.blogspot.com/

Ed Abbey was not an environmentalist. He was a writer. He never laid claim to being an environmentalist, denied it whenever accused. If you read his work, you'll see that he was a critic of environmentalism as much as industrial destruction of the West.

Ed called em as he saw em, and never pulled any punches.

I have read several of his books. My decfinition of the term may be a bit broeder than yours.

What did youthink of his essay, "The Cowboy, and his cow?"

Ray wrote: "I have read several of his books. My decfinition of the term may be a bit broeder than yours."

Probably so. I consider myself more of an environmentalist than a writer, though I've done both. I think of environmentalism as more activist than Ed was ever comfortable with.

Ray wrote: "What did youthink of his essay, "The Cowboy, and his cow?""

Cowboy and his Cow, in One Life at a Time, Please

Since I grew up on ranches in Nebraska and Wyoming, I share Ed's experiences at the south end of a north bound cow.

Ed knew what welfare ranching was all about, from experience and from seeing the results on the landscape. He knew the cowboy culture, admired some of it, criticized the rest. Ed was an equal opportunity critic.

One life at a Time, Please is a fascinating book. He does set himself apart from some popular movements in these essays, and I especially respect that.

I largely agree with his comments in the section of Desert Solitaire about industrial tourism in the National Parks. Too many people are loving them to death.

I took a vertical Caving course in Banff national Park in Canada a few years back. It was disturbing to see how many stores and fancy restaurants were in Banff village. I'm glad we haven't gotten to that excess. Yet.

I took a vertical Caving course in Banff national Park in Canada a few years back. It was disturbing to see how many stores and fancy restaurants were in Banff village. I'm glad we haven't gotten to that excess. Yet.

The First Morning

Two things stand out in this first chapter of Desert Solitaire:

This is a glimpse into the past, a world that no longer exists. Ed described his trip to Arches from Albuquerque, a trip I know well, and his first night and day on the job as a park ranger, such as it was at the time.

The place, the time, the culture remain as febrile figments of the imagination, memories, and a study in black and white on the pages of this book. Though some of the elements are still there: the ravens, the crepuscular rodents, the rocks, the sky and its clouds, one particular juniper tree; the place that Ed experienced is now forever drowned under asphalt, shiny collections of steel and plastic, miasmic smog, screaming children and the assorted detritus of a barely functioning human civilization.

Thank you Ed for taking notice, and for taking the time to describe it so well.

Secondly, Part B: this was Ed's journey into the wilderness, in search of... well, he didn't know what for sure, at the time, if he ever did, but he found it in a tin caravan parked in a gravel pit at the edge of a semi-road leading into parts unknown.

And deascribed that land with beautiful lyric prose No doubt inmy mind he was a great writer.

"What do you think is his point in relating the rabbit incident? He doesn't sugar-coat how he presents himself. I've noticed lots of kids have an impulse to kill for no reason. "
H Patti-- for some reason I thought Ray asked this question, but I see it under your name. I read the rabbit section yesterday, and I have been thinking about what Abbey wrote. It seems his experiment was to act like a predator, and in doing so become connected more deeply with the world he was in. He doesn't feel guilt- animals don't feel guilt for killing their prey. But as a human killer, he reminded me of the way some native peoples, well, even hunters in our family feel - a deeper connection to the animals (as a whole) that they have killed. ( I still struggle to fully understand this as I see the ducks fall out of the sky), but....
Some of the greatest conservationists were/are also hunters. I see it working in the male side of my family and also with the few females who pull the trigger.
But one aspect of this section puzzled me- what was the reason to let the animal lay out where he killed it?

Agreed his writing is strong, direct, and I find it quite sensual (masculine). Seems like most of you have already read this book; I'm 30% in, and as often happens my views will likely ebb, flow, and meander as I read on. Sher

p.s. just to be clear--in Abbey's section he was acting like an animal not a human hunter except for the part where he left the animal for the buzzards. Bad hunters might do that- animals generally don't leave their kill for another animal.

hmmm, looks like I'll answer my own question--Abbey thought the rabbit might have tularemia, so it was better left alone.

A number of predators kill more than they eat. For exame Arctic foxes depend on the leavings of wolves. I

Sorry, that should read. For example...

There is nothing to indicate that the rabbit incident occurred in reality. It most likely is a thought experiment, a work of fiction that is true nonetheless. Ed is ruminating on the meaning of life, the predator-prey relationship, man as animal, man as predator, man as prey.

The fact that he killed the rabbit for the sake of killing it, ( anyway, that's how I read it), is the problematic or provocative part. Not a question of hunting for food.

ON the other note, I found the prose in "Serpents of Paradise" incredibly beautiful. I almost said striking (Ha). A lyric description of creatures to which many people have a visceral reaction.

Hi Ray- I also greatly enjoyed the section on the bull snakes. I loved how it seemed like Abbey might have a relationship with the snake, but really the snake was just going with whatever happened. Sure the snake hung out and even relaxed inside Abbey's shirt, but the short of it- the snake was always a snake with its snake nature, and this didn't have much to do with Abbey. But, I wonder what would have happened if Abbey had not jumped up when the pair came his way.

I finished Desert Solitaire this morning as I was sweeping out the tack room and doing my morning chores around the barn.

Wow , an awesome read. I ended getting the Kindle edition, so I could see the language in addition to hearing it.

Hey Everyone:
I'm really curious how this book strikes you the second or third read around? Do you like the book as well? Do you like certain sections better? Is his message about tourism in our parks dated or timely? Are you thinking about different things now than what you thought of when you read the book the first time? My husband read the book when it was first published. He saw Abbey as an environmental hero of sorts. He felt the message was pretty important;yet, these years later Bruce feels the hippies dropped the ball somehow. I can't comment on this really since I wasn't of that generation (my husband is almost a generation older than I am), but it was interesting to hear him recall chapters in the book and to talk about Abbey from his perspective. And, to have him revisit Abbey and this book 40 plus years later made for some interesting family discussions these past two weeks.

Probably my favorite chapter on my first read is "Down the River." For me this isn't just a book you read - it is a book you react too. Laugh out loud, get angry, imagine your own wilderness adventures when you felt uncomfortable--maybe even afraid. Living life on the edge instead of driving through life in an air-conditioned car.

I was so struck by the idea that suffering seems to make the outdoor experience more meaningful.

Sher wrote: "Hey Everyone:
I'm really curious how this book strikes you the second or third read around? Do you like the book as well? Do you like certain sections better? Is his message about tourism in our pa..."

It was never "the hippies"ball to drop. Environmentalism was never the purview of "hippies," but of dedicated environmental activists who worked to stop the destruction of the natural world promoted by industry and the consumer culture.

Unfortunately, we were never more than a tiny minority, overwhelmed by the dominant culture, the corporate oligarchy that took control of the United States government and controlled access to information through the corporate media.

Despite the popularity of Ed's writing among these few, most people today have never heard of him. Walk down the street of any city and ask 10 people if they know Ed Abbey, if you're lucky, one person might know his name.

Ed constantly railed against the sycophant writers who never questioned the culture in which they lived. Ed struggled to the end of his days to open the eyes of the unknowing. Some of us saw, the rest remained blind.

Now the gauntlet has been passed to others to carry on the struggle.

I haven't weighed in on this discussion although "Desert Solitaire" changed my life. It was that powerful the first time I read it. I continue to re-read it every few years and I still miss Ed terribly. I think Michael's last comment motivated me to write because I completely agree with his thoughts. I remain shocked at how few people know of Ed and his profound impact on the environmental movement. He remains my hero and I'm glad this book is being read by the group. Its' importance cannot be overestimated.

Despite the comment about "the hippies," Sher's comment is spot on. The ball has been dropped, or perhaps more precisely, co=opted. I deal every day with people who think that they are doing great things for the environment as it continues to "go to hell in a hand basket." Americans believe that they have already made great sacrifices for environmental quality, but the truth is that all of our efforts are not nearly enough. If this is environmentalism, we are doomed. We need more writers like Abbey who tell it like it is.

Some of them reside here. https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/w...
The writing isn't always the best, but the sentiment is.

Ray wrote: "Despite the comment about "the hippies," Sher's comment is spot on. The ball has been dropped, or perhaps more precisely, co=opted. I deal every day with people who think that they are doing great ..."

Co-opted is the word. It's a very active process.

Rach wrote: "I just finished the first chapter and am already hooked. Such beautiful writing, and so many thought-provoking passages already. I look forward to finishing this book and reporting back with my rev..."
Hi Rach-- thanks for commenting. I am really interested in how you find Abbey's experience with nature? I mean do you relate to his experiences in any way--even if you have never been in the desert? I kept writing down quotes from the book and even carrying around slips of paper with quotes. When I read them/listened I was so impressed; I just wanted to share them here...but did not. :) But you did so far and thanks for that.

Jeff wrote: "I haven't weighed in on this discussion although "Desert Solitaire" changed my life. It was that powerful the first time I read it. I continue to re-read it every few years and I still miss Ed te..."

Hi Jeff-- thanks for your comments. I am happy to have discovered this book, and I am glad to see a few others who are reading Desert Solitaire for the first time too. I've decided to give some copies as gifts, and I brought up Ed Abbey and this book in a memoir class today. The instructor had heard of Abbey, but the others in the class had not. It's good his work is still in print and that an entire new generation of writers and readers can be exposed.

The dezcription of the two snakex in motion really captured my imagination.
The story at the end of the chapted titled "Rocks" reads like something would expext to bear in a prospecting town.

OK - having reread that last post, I promise to only type comments from my laptop in the future. Just can't type on a tablet or phone.

Hi Ray-- thanks. I was wondering what was happening. I am still a bit unclear about the second sentence you wrote, but I need to go and look at the end of "Rocks."

I wish I could get my husband involved here, since he seems to have quite a lot to say about Abbey, Desert Solitaire, and the future of environmentalism in response to climate change. We sat under the covered porch last night and watched the rain pour down and talked about this. But, again, dang it- it's his story, and I can't carry it to you guys very well. :)

Vivid description does not equal "relish." I've lived the life he described. It's hard, on the edge, life and death every day. It's not strolling down the boulevard.

Ed understood the abuse of animals on hard scrabble ranches and the suffering of the animals and the hands. That's why it came across so well.

If this is your first read of Abbey, you may not be familiar with his style.

Abbey wrote to shock, to dismay, to titillate, to offend, to endear, to love, to hate, to find offense. He wrote to explore the emotions hidden underneath the niceties.