Unit 2: Abbey and "Encounters"

Here is Bob Brock's visual representation of the entire book of Desert Solitaire:

EDWARD ABBEY'S DESERT SOLITAIRE

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION:

-What does Abbey tell us about striving for accuracy and truth in his natural descriptions of the desert?

-What does Abbey say about his focus on the physical reality of surfaces and avoiding philosophy on the "underlying realities"? (see Thoreau’s desire to pierce surfaces and know the underlying reality behind nature)

THE FIRST MORNING:

6=reverence for geology, not God

7= paradox and bedrock: a human / ecocentric view of nature

(compare with Emerson’s transparent eyeball and Thoreau’s “Spring”)

SOLITAIRE:

11=intricacy and purpose in nature's design

13=silence and continuous present: human v natural time

15=machine of the flashlight

16=nature enters after the machine: “a box of artificial light and tyrannical noise”

THE SERPENTS OF PARADISE:

19=resists dove personification

24=resists anthropomorphism and grants emotions and ideas beyond human access to animals

25= sees all life as kindred embraces continuity

CLIFFROSE AND BAYONETS:

30-31= intuition fails with juniper

38-39= stoning the rabbit / eats sandwich (not full immersion into nature?)

41-43= nature creates a “reawakened awareness” / “the shock of the real”

INDUSTRIAL TOURISM:

55= machine in the garden prevents seeing

60= no cars in churches or national parks

66= need to learn to revere space as much as we revere time

WATER:

157=frog songs, joy and celebrating that “benovelence is absolute” (Emerson) and "nothing is lost"

159-160=economy destroys essential self

THE HEAT OF NOON: ROCK AND TREE AND CLOUD

162=need for wilderness is need for hope and refuge

163=need wilderness for “guerrilla warfare against tyranny”

165=no wilderness / no freedom

166=nature as the only reality

169-170=nature increases sensory awareness and juniper resists human knowledge

1-25

141-170