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A review by laura_corsi
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
5.0
Edward Abbey is not from my home in the Southern part of Utah, but he did fall in love with it. Many do. They come here from all over the world finding something mysterious, beautiful, ancient here. They fall in love, move here, and then find others with the same idea are spoiling their view. Such is Abbey's story. In a land so barren of resources, population is the enemy for water is scarce even before humans arrived. I don't know what the answer is...in my growing up years (the 80s and 90s) it was possible to go out into the wilderness and find some patch to call your own for a time. Now, it is 2020 and to get to old favorite haunts you have to get in a line of people that stretches for miles to get to a favorite spot and then one can only glance at it as you go by in the line. It seems so much less majestic with so many around, less wild, less real...so I stopped going to visit the old places.
Abbey's book was written in 1968, but his lament is much the same as mine. His politics are a bit different than mine....he is an anarchist....but we share the elegy to this rugged land so beloved whose future seems in doubt. Beautifully written evocation of the land and the strange mix of peoples who have made this land home over the eons.
Abbey's book was written in 1968, but his lament is much the same as mine. His politics are a bit different than mine....he is an anarchist....but we share the elegy to this rugged land so beloved whose future seems in doubt. Beautifully written evocation of the land and the strange mix of peoples who have made this land home over the eons.