| Book
Review
Beyond the Wall by Edward
Abbey
It's hard to believe that writer Edward Abbey has been gone only
four years now. I first read his work about the time of his death in 1989,
starting with the classic Desert Solitaire. He wrote it way back in 1968, ten
years after he spent the summers of 1958 and 1959 as a seasonal park ranger in
Arches National Monument. In Solitaire he made living in a desert seem so
inviting and beautiful, and he influenced my thinking so much that I imagine it
was years and years ago that I first read it. Since that first nonfiction
account I went on to try some of Abbey's fiction as well. I liked Fire on the
Mountain, the story of an old rancher and his grandson who, for a time at
least, successfully fight off the government that wants to take the old man's
land for military target practice. Lest you think I only liked Abbey for his
non-conformist views, let me say that The Monkey Wrench Gang and Hayduke Lives!
weren't exactly my cup of tea but I know that many others don't share that
opinion. Later, looking for yet more Abbey to read, I bought The Best of Edward
Abbey and found only a few things in it that were new or different.
Nevertheless I recommend it to friends who want to know what he was all about
(however I always tell them to start with Desert Solitaire).
Recently,
browsing the bookstore shelves for something new to read, I came across Beyond
the Wall, a collection of nonfiction essays Abbey wrote over a thirteen year
period. Many of them appeared in expensive, large-format photography books
about which the author said, characteristically; "my enemies could buy them but
few of my friends." He also believed that no one bothers to read the words in
picture books and so he collected these writings and published them in 1983. Do
they stand on their own without pictures? The answer is yes, certainly.
The best essay in Beyond the Wall, at least to my mind, is A Walk in the
Desert Hills. It resembles a trip report for the solo 115 mile, six day
backpack Abbey made when nearly 60 years of age, carrying only enough water for
a day's needs at a time. What a trip leader Abbey would have made. Relying on
old maps of the area, actually an off-limits military reservation in southern
Arizona, be plotted a route over or around several mountain ranges and always
arrived at the next water tank (tinaja) just in the nick of time (what would a
good desert tale be without a little suspense?). On the way he describes what
he sees (lots of plants, many birds, |
only indirect evidence of the larger
animals) how he feels (sore muscles, aching feet), what he eats (salami,
cheese, fig newtons, crackers, raisins, apricots, nuts), and what he thinks
about (plenty there to entertain himself and the reader for many miles.) On the
bus taking him to the start of this trip, another passenger looks out the
window at the desert and says "Ain't nothin' much out there." Looking at the
country he was about to cross, Abbey agrees. "Nothing but nothing", he says,
not able or willing to tell the truth.
On another backpack trip in On
the High Edge of Texas Abbey describes the country he and a companion traveled
to get to 8751' Guadalupe Peak. As with A Walk in the Desert Hills water, or
the need for it, figures in the story. But there is much more. Abbey had the
knack for recounting facts about geography, geology, botany, zoology, history,
national park politics and just plain local lore as if he were simply
conversing with a friend on the trail, passing the time and making the miles go
by.
In How it Was, Abbey lets us in on his first encounters with the
canyon country be came back to, over and over. He first glimpsed the Colorado
Plateau from its southern edge near the Arizona towns of Flagstaff, Winslow,
and Holbrook. There he hopped a freight that took him on across New Mexico and
into Albuquerque. For years be retained the memory of one single afternoon of
"hot dry wind. The odor of sagebrush and juniper, and black baking lava
rock...the sweet green of willow, tamarisk, and cottonwood trees in a stony
canyon." A few years later, in 1947, he returns with friends to navigate a
passage across southeastern Utah in an old pickup truck over then primitive
roads. Hue crossing on the Colorado was still a ferry, as Halls Crossing
remains today, an interesting diversion on the route from Natural Bridges to
Capitol Reef. But the ferry crossed a river in 1947, not the huge lake now held
back by Glen Canyon dam. Climbing out of the canyon after crossing the river,
Abbey and his friends nearly got caught by a flash flood like "a freight train
rolling full speed down North Wash. Where there never was a railway."
There are ten essays in Beyond the Wall. Days and Nights in Old Paria, Desert
Images, The Ancient Dust; all but one are about the desert southwest. Edward
Abbey's nonfiction earned him the title "The Thoreau of the American West" from
Larry McMurtry. But as another writer (I forget who) said; "he was better than
that".
Reviewed by Jim Schoedler |