happy birthday edward abbey

Yes, then Monkey Wrench Gang. All his stuff needs it all read.

He was like Twain, Guthrie, Moore, Lincoln, etc. to me, only better 'cause it was principally his mind that started to show me just how insane we've become. But included in these revelations and actions of his are instruction manuals to change it all, if we decide to understand what he really said - and see and touch what he did.

His journey east, to die, is also a timeless, impacting, and a brave documented journey that should replace whatever lessons we're teaching our kids now in the public schools, on 10mg of Ritalin, being searched before coming in the front doors.

Timeless and more relevent than ever, he'll never be delegated to a past tense as such honors usually do in memorializing a wonderful being but instead, his books are right up there where a Bible used to be here at my house.
 
thanks to the tree dude, who loaned me Desert Solitaire for the exposure to abbey. those words written in the 1950-60 are all now true about the arches national parks.

at times he is hard to read, but you have to give it a try.

great writer
 
When my books are nearby I feel at home. Tonight I'll finish putting up my new bookshelves. There is a pattern for the ways I group my books. My favorites are grouped together in the waist and eye level shelves. Cactus Ed's books are dead center in the shelves. To Ed's left youo'll find Sigurd Olson, Twain, Tolstoy and Aldo Leopold. Above Ed is a full shelf of Patrick O'brian. Alex Shigo will be keeping company just below Abbey.

Happy Birthday Ed!
 
Nice (unsettling) article.

Desert Solitaire is an amazing book. This thread motivates me to reread it.

BTW Tom, where on your bookshelf does "High Climber and Timber Fallers" rate and therefore reside??
 
Cory,

There is a space reserved for that book, along with all of my tree books, on the lower two shelvs. It will be right alongside all of the versions of The Tree Climbers Companion, Edition 1-3, Spanish and German, and Fundamentals... My tree books are the base of my collection so they anchor and support the rest of my reading.
 
I tried so hard to like the Monkey Wrench Gang. Didn't like it.

Its gonna take me a long time to work up to reading Desert Solitaire. Should I do it now or leave it for 20 years. I'm in the middle of Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason".......should I bust outta that for Abbey's masterpiece?
 
Desert Solitaire is a much different style than TMRG. I can hear Ed's voice in both but DS is much more laid back but still confrontational.

Put DS in your reading list.
 
"Laid back but still confrontational" that's a great description of the book, and let's not forget lots of humor there too.
 
[ QUOTE ]
"Laid back but still confrontational" that's a great description of the book, and let's not forget lots of humor there too.

[/ QUOTE ]

It was the humour in TMRG that I didn't like. Just too 'look at me! look at me!'

I'll put DS on my reading list.
 
I always love Ed Abbey. I travel north to Moab every couple of months for climbing, biking or kayaking. I always have my old beat up copy of DS in the trunk. It's hard to in vision Arches National Park in his day.
About 2 years ago I was working as a swamper for a commercial rafting company in the Grand Canyon. On of the old guides actually took Ed down the Canyon. He claimed he was an arrogant jerk. I felt that same way when some kid in 1st grade told me Santa was not real.
Fools Progress is my favorite. HAYDUKE LIVES!
 
To Edward, most regular Americans were "jerks". They were the antithesis of the movements of humandkind he saw damaging the landscape, insisting on the fast foods, shopping in the endless strip malls. Therefore his encounters generated the feelings we hear when most talk about his exploits and visions...they agree in spirit but disagree in comparison to daily lives and function.

To even read his works as an "escape" implies that we're already intrenched and refusingly resistant to the ideals and realities he saw and felt. It's not too distant from our thinking a Woman - or a black man - in the office of our president can change that who we've become. Think about canyonlands as a vacation from the toils we live by? There you go, because you'll be going back to that which you are more a part of, instead a foreigner in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom