Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

by Abbey, Edward

• ISBN13: 9780345326492
• ISBN10: 0345326490
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1985-01-12
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

When "Desert Solitaire" was first published in 1968, it became the focus of a nationwide cult. Rude and sensitive. Thought-provoking and mystical. Angry and loving. Both Abbey and this book are all of these and more. Here, the legendary author of "The Monkey Wrench Gang, Abbey's Road" and many other critically acclaimed books vividly captures the essence of his life during three seasons as a park ranger in southeastern Utah. This is a rare view of a quest to experience nature in its purest form -- the silence, the struggle, the overwhelming beauty. But this is also the gripping, anguished cry of a man of character who challenges the growing exploitation of the wilderness by oil and mining interests, as well as by the tourist industry. Abbey's observations and challenges remain as relevant now as the day he wrote them. Today, "Desert Solitaire" asks if any of our incalculable natural treasures can be saved before the bulldozers strike again.

Author Biography

Edward Abbey, a self-proclaimed “agrarian anarchist,” was hailed as the “Thoreau of the American West.” Known nationally as a champion of the individual and one of America’s foremost defenders of the natural environment, he was the author of twenty books, both fiction and nonfiction, including Desert Solitaire, The Monkey Wrench Gang, and The Journey Home. In 1989, at the age of sixty-two, Edward Abbey died in Oracle, Arizona.

Table of Contents

Author's Introduction	p. ix
The First Morning	p. 1
Solitaire	p. 9
The Serpents of Paradise	p. 17
Cliffrose and Bayonets	p. 26
Polemic: Industrial Tourism and The National Parks	p. 48
Rocks	p. 74
Cowboys and Indians	p. 102
Cowboys and Indians: Part II	p. 119
Water	p. 141
The Heat of Noon: Rock and Tree and Cloud	p. 161
The Moon-Eyed Horse	p. 171
Down the River	p. 188
Havasu	p. 246
The Dead Man at Grandview Point	p. 259
Tukuhnikivats, the Island in the Desert	p. 272
Episodes and Visions	p. 290
Terra Incognita: Into the Maze	p. 313
Bedrock and Paradox	p. 330
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