Response 3: Desert Solitaire

Reading this book, one gets just as much as sense of the desert of Arches National Park as they do of Edward Abbey; the writer and the subject are tied to each other. I wouldn't be surprised if, in reading any other book on the desert, I don't wonder what Abbey would have to say about it, or if Abbey would agree or (more likely) disagree with what the other writer had to say.

It really is just as much a book about him, his exploits, his vision and knowledge and crotchety opinions on almost everything he saw, said or did in his three summers working for the government. I was appalled sometimes at his recklessness and lack of foresight: sledding down a thousand-foot snowfield, trying a mystery canyon to find his way back after dark, going on when he knows, after this, there's no going back. Traveling alone, for chrissakes. But Abbey did it, not because he wanted recognition or fame, but because he was Abbey, and that's what Abbey does.

My copy of the book has little illustrations at the beginning of every chapter, and often these depict crude silhouettes of horned men - demons. It seemed fitting to me, that demons like thirst, heat, and mountain lions would hound a man in such a harsh country. Apparently, however, they are the work of Peter Parnall, based on Abbey's sketches of Native American pictographs and petroglyphs in Arizona and southern Utah. A little research reveals that these pictures aren't showing demons at all, but men wearing headdresses. And how could they be demons, when the people creating them had no concept of Satan, Lucifer, or Beezlebub? This time, my objectivity failed me, and my interpretation came from my history and experience - quite different from that of a Ute or Anasazi. We cannot help, as readers or writers, injecting ourselves into what we see and how we see it.

I really can't help but see Abbey's Country as related to Thoreau's cabin on Walden Pond. What both of these men did, really, was venture into what used to be a frontier, and by their lifestyle, knowledge, and bottomless stores of insight, their endless ability to be affected by what they saw, they made it a frontier once more. When Thoreau was writing Walden, Abbey's country was being explored by the first pioneers. When Abbey when to Arches, there were different explorations happening - industrial explorations. Both men are trying to reclaim something of a forgotten way of life, of life on a grand scale of intimacy with the land. They certainly have different voices, and go about it in different way. I'm not sure if either of them had any idea of what their work would eventually mean to later generations. They are both thinkers in the finest American tradition. We were founded as a country full of untamed spirit, of fearlessness, of boldly going where no man (that they knew of, at the time) had gone before. Excuse the kitschy Star Trek line, but I've got a point.

Anyway. We should be able to have some gooood discussion on Thursday.