Review: Desert Solitaire

February 24, 2009

Just finished reading Desert Solitaire. Amazed. Did not want this book to end. Here’s my quick review:

A philosophy of the concrete.

Edward Abbey’s love letter to the Utah desert is a pleasantly intoxicating sensory overload. Abbey magnifies for us every spec of grit, gives us a sense of the desert’s abundance through inventories of flora, fauna, rock, and sky, and leaves us with a taste of nature’s infinity.

What’s so unusual about Abbey is that, though he is naturally a philosopher, he avoids any tendencies towards the usual mediations on bottomless-pit concepts like being, existence, and essence. On the contrary, Abbey is enamoured of the physical world and the lush vocabulary that describes it: “…I can see the princess plume with its tall golden racemes; the green ephedra or Mormon tea…pepperweed, bladderweed, snakeweed, matchweed, skeleton weed – the last named so delicately formed as to be almost invisible.”

While the epic catalogs thrilled my city-dulled senses, Desert Solitaire also inspired thought. Death, tourism, solitude, companionship, greed, government, humor, and home; Abbey’s range is astounding. As is his honesty. For though many readers may find him querulous, even bitter, Abbey is frank enough to let his personal contradictions shine through. The result is a human portrait as vivid and real as the natural desert world he evokes.