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A review by pammyj1883
The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
2.0
You may have thought I had forgotten about this project. I hadn’t… It’s just taken me this agonizingly long to read through this book. Yes, I could have stopped at any point - but I couldn’t. I wanted to have read the whole thing so that when I eviscerated it, I’d at least know what I was talking about. Okay eviscerated is a harsh word. But I definitely did not enjoy this book.
The reason I wanted to do this project was partly to read outside of my comfort zone and pick up books that not only exemplified the states they were set in, but also to break me out of reading the same kinds of things I naturally gravitate towards. The problem was when I sat down to find a book for Arizona - the pickings felt very slim. And then I stumbled across an article from an Arizona native about Arizona set books that lamented that there aren’t many pieces of great literature set in Arizona. But one of the few books that kept coming up on lists, and one that didn’t feel like the most depressing read ever, was The Monkey Wrench Gang.
The book, written in the mid-70s, is about a group of four somewhat social misfits who decide to take on the man – or more accurately the machine – in the name of environmentalism, and destroy every man-made object all over the southwest in order to preserve nature’s pristine condition. It’s supposed to be comical and/or satirical (didn’t really find it either, tbh) and supposed to reflect on how nature should be preserved in any way possible – even if it includes blowing up every damn thing that could possibly scar nature’s pristine horizon.
It’s not necessarily a bad premise - and author Edward Abbey was known for his outspoken love of Arizona’s (and the US’s southwest in general’s) vast natural experience. One of the better elements of the book is the Abbey’s immense passion glowing through the descriptive passages. The Arizona desert is a thing of beauty, and Abbey’s frustrations clearly are from man coming in and filling it with technological advances, particularly industrial advances that dirties nature’s wonder and purpose. There is definitely a conversation here to be had about technology’s effect on the environment - and how far is too far.
I don’t necessarily even mind that the entire book is one act of environmental extremism after another. I do understand that there’s an interesting story to be told under that premise. And being that the book was released in the 1970s, when these conversations really started to be had, it doesn’t surprise me that Abbey was laying blueprint for how to do eco-terrorism. In fact, based on the blurb before the book starts, he definitely was encouraging actions to be inspired by his book.
The problem, and why this book took me nearly nine months to complete, is twofold; I felt bored by the repetition of it and irritated by the characters.
It’s not a hard book to read - despite there being some occasional weird tense shifts going on (is it past tense - is it present tense? Pick a lane, Abbey), the reading level is on the easier side. It’s densely descriptive (in a way that reminds me of Stephen King’s somewhat tangent-y style - without the horror) to the point where I began to glaze over a lot of it. On the one hand - that is why the book ends up on lists, not just the kicking off of eco-terrorism but because Abbey’s deep affection for the Arizona landscape shines through his words. But on the other hand, I can only take so many descriptions of how to blow something up or of the main character peeing into the wind. A lot of this book felt like it was treading water until it could get to its big climatic chase at the end.
(As an aside - it is interesting that so much of this book is detailed at length, and yet, every time it approached sex, it was always fade to black. There are definitely some conclusions to be said there - but that’s probably too lengthy to get into for this review.)
The characters, however, are really what had me wanting to stop reading all together. There are only four of them, really, and they’re all assholes. To be fair - it is sort of the point that they are, but you’re supposed to find them endearing anyway. I did not.
The main character is George Hayduke - a jaded, ex-military man in his (I think?) twenties – though he feels like he’s much older, and if I had to guess, is an insert for the author. He has a real chip on his shoulder about technology - and wants to go out in a blaze of glory, making a statement about saving the environment. But I suppose the irony is that he seems less concerned about the actual environment, and more about preserving how he feels that the Arizona/Southwest landscape is something that is ‘his’ and shouldn’t be encroached on by people with big machines. The ironic part is that he is casual about his littering, which leads to the somewhat hypocritical part of his character. He also is super racist towards Native Americans, finding them dumb and uneducated, and also believing that the land belongs to him and not to people he believes are beneath him.
Hayduke also has a backstory of a veteran who had it rough in Vietnam - and part of the story is him dealing (or really not dealing) with some sort of PTSD. Part of his anger and motivation to blowing all the things up is based in wanting a sort of revenge on the type of men who put him out there to essentially get tortured for a few years. And while I get it - I do (though I think this kind of revelation would have helped the character in the beginning of the book more so the end) the raging masculinity of him needing to blow up machines as a way to say FU to the people (and ideas) he doesn’t like makes him mostly an unpleasant character to spend a majority of the book with.
Meanwhile, there’s Seldom Seen Smith - a nature guide Mormon, who I think is supposed to be considered the comic relief? There’s one joke late in the book where Seldom only knows which wife is which based on the shape and feel of her breasts. And then there’s Doc Sarvis, an aging hippy-esque professor bored with life, so he decides blowing up billboards is his way of flipping the middle finger to ‘the man’. He’s mostly there as a way to encourage Hayduke to take up the fight for all the old geezers who aren’t able to anymore.
And lastly, there’s Bonnie Abbzug. And… just, okay. She’s an early-twenties Jewish girl from Queens just wanting some adventure. She’s with Doc (at least thirty years older than her) during the first half of the novel, and then halfway through, decides he’s an old fart, and starts sleeping with Hayduke. That is until Hayduke goes off the rails, but more so her ‘womanly instincts’ kick in and she wants a kid and family, so she goes back to the Doc. I just cannot even with this.
There are a few attempts to make her more than the ‘girl’ of the group - but she’s so ridiculously stereotyped as this sexy, mysterious, feisty object of affection that it’s clear Abbey is conjuring up an idea of a ‘strong woman’ without understanding who one would really be. Abbey is so bad at understanding women let alone writing one that she might be the worst character in the whole book. She really isn’t more than an object to pass from Doc to Hayduke in some kind of ceremonial passing of the torch.
This book is deeply misogynistic. And while I wouldn’t think this book would be strong on its romance angle - it all together falls flat because Abbey is, clearly, more interested in landscapes and explosions than he is trying to think about women as actual people. It feels rather obligatory, and more so a tangential reminder that women are helpful because you can get your jollies off before and after blowing up whatever bridge you’re onto next.
While I think there is still an audience out there for this book - mainly people who want a more action centric narrative, and while I do think there are conversations to arise from it - namely centered around preservation of land in the Southwest, I cannot recommend this book. I definitely don’t think it’s the worst book ever written, even if it is overwrought. But I found it tedious to read and tiresome in its plot and characterizations. And while I can understand why it’s upheld as a precursor of environmental activism, I don’t think it stands on its own today.
The reason I wanted to do this project was partly to read outside of my comfort zone and pick up books that not only exemplified the states they were set in, but also to break me out of reading the same kinds of things I naturally gravitate towards. The problem was when I sat down to find a book for Arizona - the pickings felt very slim. And then I stumbled across an article from an Arizona native about Arizona set books that lamented that there aren’t many pieces of great literature set in Arizona. But one of the few books that kept coming up on lists, and one that didn’t feel like the most depressing read ever, was The Monkey Wrench Gang.
The book, written in the mid-70s, is about a group of four somewhat social misfits who decide to take on the man – or more accurately the machine – in the name of environmentalism, and destroy every man-made object all over the southwest in order to preserve nature’s pristine condition. It’s supposed to be comical and/or satirical (didn’t really find it either, tbh) and supposed to reflect on how nature should be preserved in any way possible – even if it includes blowing up every damn thing that could possibly scar nature’s pristine horizon.
It’s not necessarily a bad premise - and author Edward Abbey was known for his outspoken love of Arizona’s (and the US’s southwest in general’s) vast natural experience. One of the better elements of the book is the Abbey’s immense passion glowing through the descriptive passages. The Arizona desert is a thing of beauty, and Abbey’s frustrations clearly are from man coming in and filling it with technological advances, particularly industrial advances that dirties nature’s wonder and purpose. There is definitely a conversation here to be had about technology’s effect on the environment - and how far is too far.
I don’t necessarily even mind that the entire book is one act of environmental extremism after another. I do understand that there’s an interesting story to be told under that premise. And being that the book was released in the 1970s, when these conversations really started to be had, it doesn’t surprise me that Abbey was laying blueprint for how to do eco-terrorism. In fact, based on the blurb before the book starts, he definitely was encouraging actions to be inspired by his book.
The problem, and why this book took me nearly nine months to complete, is twofold; I felt bored by the repetition of it and irritated by the characters.
It’s not a hard book to read - despite there being some occasional weird tense shifts going on (is it past tense - is it present tense? Pick a lane, Abbey), the reading level is on the easier side. It’s densely descriptive (in a way that reminds me of Stephen King’s somewhat tangent-y style - without the horror) to the point where I began to glaze over a lot of it. On the one hand - that is why the book ends up on lists, not just the kicking off of eco-terrorism but because Abbey’s deep affection for the Arizona landscape shines through his words. But on the other hand, I can only take so many descriptions of how to blow something up or of the main character peeing into the wind. A lot of this book felt like it was treading water until it could get to its big climatic chase at the end.
(As an aside - it is interesting that so much of this book is detailed at length, and yet, every time it approached sex, it was always fade to black. There are definitely some conclusions to be said there - but that’s probably too lengthy to get into for this review.)
The characters, however, are really what had me wanting to stop reading all together. There are only four of them, really, and they’re all assholes. To be fair - it is sort of the point that they are, but you’re supposed to find them endearing anyway. I did not.
The main character is George Hayduke - a jaded, ex-military man in his (I think?) twenties – though he feels like he’s much older, and if I had to guess, is an insert for the author. He has a real chip on his shoulder about technology - and wants to go out in a blaze of glory, making a statement about saving the environment. But I suppose the irony is that he seems less concerned about the actual environment, and more about preserving how he feels that the Arizona/Southwest landscape is something that is ‘his’ and shouldn’t be encroached on by people with big machines. The ironic part is that he is casual about his littering, which leads to the somewhat hypocritical part of his character. He also is super racist towards Native Americans, finding them dumb and uneducated, and also believing that the land belongs to him and not to people he believes are beneath him.
Hayduke also has a backstory of a veteran who had it rough in Vietnam - and part of the story is him dealing (or really not dealing) with some sort of PTSD. Part of his anger and motivation to blowing all the things up is based in wanting a sort of revenge on the type of men who put him out there to essentially get tortured for a few years. And while I get it - I do (though I think this kind of revelation would have helped the character in the beginning of the book more so the end) the raging masculinity of him needing to blow up machines as a way to say FU to the people (and ideas) he doesn’t like makes him mostly an unpleasant character to spend a majority of the book with.
Meanwhile, there’s Seldom Seen Smith - a nature guide Mormon, who I think is supposed to be considered the comic relief? There’s one joke late in the book where Seldom only knows which wife is which based on the shape and feel of her breasts. And then there’s Doc Sarvis, an aging hippy-esque professor bored with life, so he decides blowing up billboards is his way of flipping the middle finger to ‘the man’. He’s mostly there as a way to encourage Hayduke to take up the fight for all the old geezers who aren’t able to anymore.
And lastly, there’s Bonnie Abbzug. And… just, okay. She’s an early-twenties Jewish girl from Queens just wanting some adventure. She’s with Doc (at least thirty years older than her) during the first half of the novel, and then halfway through, decides he’s an old fart, and starts sleeping with Hayduke. That is until Hayduke goes off the rails, but more so her ‘womanly instincts’ kick in and she wants a kid and family, so she goes back to the Doc. I just cannot even with this.
There are a few attempts to make her more than the ‘girl’ of the group - but she’s so ridiculously stereotyped as this sexy, mysterious, feisty object of affection that it’s clear Abbey is conjuring up an idea of a ‘strong woman’ without understanding who one would really be. Abbey is so bad at understanding women let alone writing one that she might be the worst character in the whole book. She really isn’t more than an object to pass from Doc to Hayduke in some kind of ceremonial passing of the torch.
This book is deeply misogynistic. And while I wouldn’t think this book would be strong on its romance angle - it all together falls flat because Abbey is, clearly, more interested in landscapes and explosions than he is trying to think about women as actual people. It feels rather obligatory, and more so a tangential reminder that women are helpful because you can get your jollies off before and after blowing up whatever bridge you’re onto next.
While I think there is still an audience out there for this book - mainly people who want a more action centric narrative, and while I do think there are conversations to arise from it - namely centered around preservation of land in the Southwest, I cannot recommend this book. I definitely don’t think it’s the worst book ever written, even if it is overwrought. But I found it tedious to read and tiresome in its plot and characterizations. And while I can understand why it’s upheld as a precursor of environmental activism, I don’t think it stands on its own today.