Name: elizabeth's review of Desert solitaire by Edward Abbey
Item: Desert solitaire
Rating: 3
Author: elizabeth

Edward Abbey

a season in the wilderness

Desert solitaire

This memoir of life in the American desert by the author of The Monkey Wrench Gang is a nature writing classic on par with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. In Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey recounts his many escapades, adventures, and epiphanies as an Arches National Park ranger outside Moab, Utah. Brimming with arresting insights, impassioned arguments for wilderness conservation, and a raconteur’s wit, it is one of Abbey’s most critically acclaimed works. Through stories and philosophical musings, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness, the future of a civilization, and his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey’s cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book first appeared in 1968.

Desert Solitaire

Travis Todd

To refute the solipsist or the metaphysical idealist all that you have to do is take him out and throw a rock at his head: If he ducks he's a liar.

Eitan Hershkovitz

Must-read if you're into land ethic, McCarthy's borderlands, or national parks. I'm into all of the above, so, made for me. Abbey's radicalism confronted me with  important questions about how I want to live. I like that in a book.

Abbey is averse to ownership of nature and he calls it a necessity, which is great. But he also leans in to an anarchist brand of elitism (or an elitist brand of anarchism?) that wants to limit who can access this necessity.

elizabeth

Must-read if you're into land ethic, McCarthy's borderlands, or national parks. I'm into all of the above, so, made for me. Abbey's radicalism confronted me with  important questions about how I want to live. I like that in a book.

Abbey is averse to ownership of nature and he calls it a necessity, which is great. But he also leans in to an anarchist brand of elitism (or an elitist brand of anarchism?) that wants to limit who can access this necessity.

Colton Ray

One of the classic nature books that follows the formula of spending a year or so in a spot of land with our largely solitary author, who chronicles his thoughts and musings along with descriptions and history of the land -- this time, Arches National Park in Utah. At the time of writing, national parks were in an awkward state, and not much has changed, which is why his diatribes still ring unfortunately true 50 years later. Abbey was probably a difficult man in real life with some strange tendencies and wrongheaded conclusions, but no one can deny he had an unparalleled passion for the land. This passion leads him to come across as elitist and misanthropic at times, and I doubt I would have liked the man much if I had met him in person. However, after the first third of the book, he stops ranting and shifts into travelogue mode, where he becomes much more agreeable and cheerful, describing his experiences rafting rivers, driving cattle herds, and almost dying in the desert. These are the meat of the book and well worth the effort. I haven't read many books dedicated to this area of the country, and this is one of the best. As long as you don't take him too seriously, Abbey was an accomplished writer and naturalist, and this is one of the finest elegies for nature that I've read in a while.

Dweedle 

Ruminations on life, wilderness, anarchy, and humanity. Might love one piece, or none of it, but I loved all of it

An account of the author's existence, observations and reflections, as a seasonal park ranger in southeast Utah

Melody Izard

I loved the celebration of the natural, the appreciation for the wild, the disdain of development. I think I would have enjoyed it more if Mr. Abbey had simply written an essay instead of a novel. I tired of his naked, boozed up self eating beans and fantasizing of all the "girls" he left behind.

Especially relevant as the Colorado river. Is being sapped by drought.

Eitan Hershkovitz &
Desert solitaire by Edward Abbey

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Desert solitaire by Edward Abbey