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A review by bookishwendy
The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
3.0
I took this one on a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. It was the perfect read for the setting -- or would have been if I'd have been able to read more than 2 - 3 pages each night before the sun set (headlamp batteries must be saved for emergencies). And if I were a guy. And it were still the 70s or maybe 80s. I love Abbey's Desert Solitaire so much, but something about this novel rubbed me the wrong way at times. Mostly the childish, objectified Bonnie. Also, the radical "save the earth by blowing things up" message just doesn't have the same resonance after 9/11, you know?
But then one of the desert descriptions, a snark on Utah, or some shard of Abbey's dark wit (or one of his stupid puns, God bless him) would make me smile and keep me reading. Some of the best bits are the meta-appearances of Park Ranger Edwin Abbott, the handsome, young and officious nuisance who appears occasionally to arrest the Gang for stealing raw meat or carrying dynamite.
And yet... as you float down a beautiful canyon, past three sites where dams were *nearly* built, and Redwall Cavern and Vasey's Paradise and Havasu Creek, and you think about Glen Canyon now buried under the silt of Lake Powell, you have to wonder was lost forever. So as a mere individual I really do get the gut of this book -- the frustration of powerlessness and the desire to wreck industry the way it has wrecked nature. So this is basically a fantasy novel in that respect (and also due to those rather nauseating hookups the male characters all either have or fantasize about with the one female).
All the outdoorsy guys I know love this one, and I can totally see why.
P.S. For the record, as of July 2014, that infamous coal elevator and automated train serving the power plant in Page, AZ, are still very much in operation some 40 years later, as witnessed by yours truly. Though perhaps the end for it is near: http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/2014/07/28/epa-approves-plan-curtail-operations-navajo-generating-station/13277331/ Well, maybe in 30 more years.
But then one of the desert descriptions, a snark on Utah, or some shard of Abbey's dark wit (or one of his stupid puns, God bless him) would make me smile and keep me reading. Some of the best bits are the meta-appearances of Park Ranger Edwin Abbott, the handsome, young and officious nuisance who appears occasionally to arrest the Gang for stealing raw meat or carrying dynamite.
And yet... as you float down a beautiful canyon, past three sites where dams were *nearly* built, and Redwall Cavern and Vasey's Paradise and Havasu Creek, and you think about Glen Canyon now buried under the silt of Lake Powell, you have to wonder was lost forever. So as a mere individual I really do get the gut of this book -- the frustration of powerlessness and the desire to wreck industry the way it has wrecked nature. So this is basically a fantasy novel in that respect (and also due to those rather nauseating hookups the male characters all either have or fantasize about with the one female).
All the outdoorsy guys I know love this one, and I can totally see why.
P.S. For the record, as of July 2014, that infamous coal elevator and automated train serving the power plant in Page, AZ, are still very much in operation some 40 years later, as witnessed by yours truly. Though perhaps the end for it is near: http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/2014/07/28/epa-approves-plan-curtail-operations-navajo-generating-station/13277331/ Well, maybe in 30 more years.