Abbey Rocks with "Desert Solitaire"

Self-imposed isolation is Edward Abbey’s prescribed method for getting to the potential heart (he himself questions if there is one) of nature. Alone in the vast highland desert of Utah’s Arches National Monument, surrounded by harsh, dry rock and life spread thin, Abbey documents his time as a park ranger. However, this book does not deplore the desert as a wasteland, a biome of outcasts and miscreants, the dangerous wily cousins of more pleasing climates, instead Abbey paints the desert as unique and full, if not packed, of beautiful life and austere landscapes. He does so with an intense sincerity that so often makes the reader feel a little uneasy, perhaps even voyeuristic, as if looking too closely at a man alone with the one thing that truly bestirs his inner being to its fullest. This is quickly forgotten in light of Abbey’s encompassing prose that captures in impressive depth what it’s like to be immersed in the rugged beauty of America’s driest places.

                Abbey, alone in the desert for the majority of two full seasons of park work clearly has the time to, if nothing else, observe, and that he does with a keen eye and crisp, descriptive, but flowing language. “The various forms of chalcedony…are strewn freely over the dismal clay hills along Salt Creek. Here you will find tiny crystals of garnet embedded in a matrix of mica schist—almandite or ‘common garnet’.” Abbey covers everything from in depth biology and botany to geology and astronomy with surprising ease, flowing in and out of technical knowledge with the deftness of a man who knows without question the land on which he lives. It is in these sections that Abbey seems the most at ease. The pages slide together in an easy blend of information and narration, and the peace of mind Abbey must feel, alone in his element, is obvious.

                Between these sections, indeed sometimes bleeding into them, is Abbey’s social theory, his cantankerous, albeit well-founded and thoroughly rational, ideals about nature and America. Abbey’s dogma, his source of inspiration other than nature itself, seems to be that human beings, specifically American capitalists, are endangering what could be called “wilderness” like never before. While these pages are filled with malice and some surprisingly unsettling ideas (Abbey says he would rather kill a man than a snake), they are clear and cutting. Abbey shows nature as it appears to be in America; shrinking, slowly becoming another Disneyland, something kept alive for the sake of tourists in cars. This contrast between Abbey’s absolute love of the desert is powerful and complete, showing both his own character and that of the America of the late 60’s.

                Desert Solitaire is a true testament to nature, and to the uniqueness of finding oneself absolutely alone in it. Abbey weaves his way through the complexities of American culture and the problems of capitalism. What he ends up with is a book about the loneliness of being human, and the solace of forgetting it.