Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey...

     After last year's crash, I made a vow to develop a new habit during my recovery. I grew up seeing the pleasure my Dad gained from reading, but had never experienced it. During school it was strictly business, and I fell into years of the excuse "I don't have time to read". However, I was able to make time, and have since rolled through an average of two books per month, and zero cable bills. I get it now, and find myself often scheduling my day around getting to read. The only downfall is a lack of friends that read, so I find myself with these elaborate conversations, quotes, and ideas that remain internalized.

     And then I remembered that I run this blog, and how under-utilized it has been in the past. It's been a great outlet for some gear reviews, event recaps, and short rants, but I believe I'll had some depth here with a few book reviews. As a self proclaimed adventurer and notorious soloist, I've connected well with authors such as Edward Abbey, Aron Ralston, and Jack London. I definitely enjoy the classics as well as modern novels, but there's a certain vein running in me that enjoys the Science Fiction-esque qualities of older pieces. 

     Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire has hit my buttons on several levels. I found myself throughout the novel making notes of passages I just couldn't wait to go back and explore. 

     Released in 1968, Desert Solitaire is a collection of writings from Abbey's years as a park ranger on the backside of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. He was known for being a very surly, zero f*cks given environmentalist that would much rather spend his time alone in the wilderness than with the company of a society he liked less and less each day. The particular area he was stationed for these writings also happens to hold a dear place in my heart. Canyonlands NP is the area that contains Moab, Arches NP, Green River, and a number of hidden treasures in the desert of Utah. Rather than go into a full synopsis, I'd like to share a few of the parts that really hit home with me in hopes that it will inspire you to step away from the idiot box and pick up a book!

"Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation."

"An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human."

"Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless."

"Too late for arguments now and as usual not enough time for panic."

"Looking out to this panorama of light, space, rock and silence I am inclined to congratulate the dead man on his choice of jumping off place; he had good taste. He had good luck- I envy him the manner of his going: to die alone, on rock under sun at the brink of the unknown, like a wolf, like a great bird, seems to me very good fortune indeed. To die in the open, under the sky, far from insolent interference of leech and priest, before this desert vastness opening like a window into eternity- that surely was an overwhelming stroke of rare good luck."

"Gaze not too long into the abyss, lest the abyss gaze into thee."

     But above all, the section that raised off the page and screamed at me was the chapter that Abbey explained the value of wilderness as "a base for resistance to centralized domination." Released in 1968, and read in the light of 2013, this passage absolutely dominated my mind for several days. He even explains that his thoughts came from even earlier poets. This was an era before Internet, Monsanto, the War on Terror, and many of the other commonalities we have grown tolerant of. Without further ado, here it is:

"How does this theory apply to the present and future of the famous United States of North America? Suppose we were planning to impose a dictatorial regime upon the American People- the following preparations would be essential:

1. Concentrate the populace in megalopolitan masses so that they can be kept under close surveillance and where, in case of trouble, they can be bombed, burned, gassed, or machine-gunned with a minimum of expense and waste. 

2. Mechanize agriculture to the highest degree of refinement, thus forcing most of the scattered farm and ranching population into the cities. Such a policy is desirable because farmers, woodsmen, cowboys, Indians, fisherman and other relatively self-sufficient types are difficult to manage unless displaced from their natural environment. 

3. Restrict the possession of firearms to the police and the regular military organizations.

4. Encourage or at least fail to discourage population growth. Large masses of people are more easily manipulated and dominated than scattered individuals. 

5. Continue military conscription. Nothing excels military training for creating in young men an attitude of prompt, cheerful obedience to officially constituted authority. 

6. Divert attention from deep conflicts within the society by engaging in foreign wars; make support of these wars a test of loyalty, thereby exposing and isolating potential opposition to the new order.

7. Overlay the nation with a finely reticulated network of communications, airlines and interstate autobahns. 

8. Raze the wilderness. Dam the rivers, flood the canyons, drain the swamps, log the forests, strip-mine the hills, bulldoze the mountains, irrigate the deserts and improve the national parks into national parking lots."

     Let that sink in a bit as you read it through the eyes of today. He's a brilliant author, rough and unapologetic. It doesn't get much better than this!