Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Here is a summary of our conversations over the second week of our reading of Abbey's Desert Solitaire.

In discussing the "Moon-Eyed Horse Chapter," we puzzled over Abbey's decision to (attempt to) return old "Moon-Eye" to his "home," at Roy's. Does the horse have autonomy that Abbey is violating? Does his attitude towards the horse differ from his exhibited attitude toward other animals, plants, or physical presences of "nature"? On this line of thinking, Abbey seems interested in preserving something in nature; what is it? And what order is he trying to preserve by attempting to catch Moon-Eye and return him "home" (and how does Abbey determine where Moon-Eye's home is)?

What is Abbey's "political" message? Is he being possessive, even if this is not his attempt? Does he, if he does reveal himself as possessive, then disclose that he is not very different from the Americans he chastises throughout the book? Does he feel a sense of entitlement in relation to nature/natural places? He claims that no one should, but does he? Some students bandied about the term "anarchy" in regard to Abbey. But, is his more elemental attitude regarding the wilderness that it is a model "democracy"? Maybe? Maybe not? What is the political order, so to speak, of the wilderness? Does he propose that nature is the best political system, that humans (who are a part of this system, whether they realize it or not) should better emulate this order?

Liz commented that Abbey's "season in the wilderness" was an "experiment in complete freedom," a "love affair" with complete freedom. What are the "politics" of freedom (freedom in the wilderness, specifically)?

Earl commented that Abbey "proposes that we abandon the artificiality of human institutions." Perhaps Abbey argued that existence is more genuine outside of the human mind.

Does Abbey try to suggest eradication of, for himself or for the reader who might emulate his experiment, the layers that accrete around the mind, which distance a person from the "outside"? We can think of these "layers" as our structural or interpretive filters, the long-held ideas or books or instructions that mediate our experiences with nature. Is Abbey endorsing "unmediated" experience? But yet, are his memoirs, his accounts, just another set of lessons, thereby adding another layer?

We discussed Whitman, briefly, this semester (and I made a reference to Rick from The Young Ones declaring himself “the people’s poet”) with the goal of explaining the emergence of ideas of a democratic poetry for a democratic people. Is Abbey, in this vein, "the people's" memoirist, the people’s narrator of nature (even though he seems to have contempt for the collective of "American people")? If Abbey is not a "people's" – or a public – commentator, for whom is he speaking?

Liz contended that the overall sense of Abbey's politics seems to be anarchist, but his instructions are not necessarily anarchist. He is "experience-centric," as Liz said. Many writers use "experiences" to propel narrative, but not Abbey. We must ask, however, whether Abbey totally divests himself of narrative structures, narrative conventions of theme, plot, arc, and moral? If his narrative is "experience-centric," does that mean he just compiles a series of moments ("perfect moments," again to hearken Sartre) that are free of interpretation and that we, as readers, should not be tempted to interpret? Or does he want us to interpret his experiences so as to alter our modes of living?