Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Here is a summary of our final discussion of Abbey's Desert Solitaire.

We discussed the various organizational "regimes" that Abbey questions over the course of the text: the BIA, automobile manufacturers, the National Parks Service, organized religions. He appears to question the necessity for humans to follow such structures, indicating that the structures prohibit rather than enhance freedom.

In regard to structure, though, what are the textual conventions to which Abbey does adhere? Does he ignore stylistic conventions? What literary traditions does he replicate? What does he say about literary history or philosophical approaches to existence? As far as his text is concerned, in the end is it like many other memoirs? Many other examples of literary nonfiction? How "renegade" is he? Certainly, his text is mass-produced, marketed, exchanged for money, printed on paper -- simply because he wants to call into question the structural practices of humans does not necessarily mean he can free himself, or that he wishes to free himself, totally from such relationships of organization or exchange.

In what ways do you think Abbey is a "quintessential American"? Statistically? Otherwise?

Abbey seems to have a strong desire to frustrate academics. Is his text anti-intellectual? Does he frame himself as the "common man"? What does he make of the American common man?

Why has the desert been neglected narratively? What is his aim in "capturing" or describing it?

Is Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire a book about Edward Abbey? If we look at the text this way, how does it differ from The Land of Little Rain? Is he anthropocentric whereas Austin is not? Puzzle through this.

In Abbey's narrative, what imprint do we see of the "environmental literature" trope of "man freeing himself through an escape into nature"? Does Abbey "fetishize" nature?

We questioned the provocative series of words "arrogance and environmental purpose." Is Abbey's text arrogant? If so, how? Is he indifferent towards people? Or hostile towards them? Is there love in Desert Solitaire? Does Abbey live "the tension" between various binaries, so, does he choose the line?

Is Desert Solitaire a book about an end, about change, about termination, or about persistence? What lies between homogeneous chaos and homogeneous "order" (i.e., civilization)?