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Edward Abbey: A Life
including sixteen national parks and forests. He also explores Abbey's writing process, his broad intellectual interests, and the philosophical roots of his politics. For Abbey fans who assume that his "honest novel," The Fool's Progress, was factual or that his public statements were entirely off the cuff, Cahalan's evenhanded treatment will be an eye-opener....more
Hardcover, 357 pages
Published
September 1st 2001
by University of Arizona Press
(first published 2001)
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Overall, this biography gave me what I wanted: a fairly comprehensive overview of Abbey the man and Abbey the writer/public speaker (two distinct personas). However, I felt that Cahalan bent over backwards to address some of what he clearly believes are unfair judgments of Abbey, namely that he was both a misogynist and a racist. The fact is that Abbey was human like all the rest of us, and as such, he was imbued with contradictions. His love life was a constant wreck until the last few years of...more
Abbey was the consummate Hippie. Just pissed at everyone because they didn't understand wilderness. And indeed as a people, I still think we don't understand wilderness. Sometimes I get the sense that he was just pissed because they were ruining His wilderness. He did say "the perfect country is 40,000 savages and me." Sometimes I feel like he hijacked my motto "Subvert the dominant paradigm." Well, duh, his masters thesis was "Anarchism and the morality of violence"...more
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I don’t read many biographies. (In fact, the only other one I can remember reading is one about Ben Franklin.) This book did not whet my appetite for them; I struggled through it. Cactus Ed is one of my favorite and most admired writers, and a fantastic Western character. The Monkeywrench Gang is one of my top 20 books of all time. I loved Edward Abbey: A Life because it revealed the dichotomy that was Ed Abbey by describing how Abbey created a public persona, Cactus Ed —a virtual caricature of ...more
The difficulty of writing a biography of Edward Abbey is that he wrote so much about himself, and so much of what he wrote was a half-truth or not even a truth at all. This book becomes bogged down in trying to separate the fact from the fiction.
Because of the book's constant negotiation with Abbey's own mythology, I believe this would be a cumbersome book to get through if you were not very familiar with Abbey's writings. Details that are important to the author are important la...more
Because of the book's constant negotiation with Abbey's own mythology, I believe this would be a cumbersome book to get through if you were not very familiar with Abbey's writings. Details that are important to the author are important la...more
Though this book was very informative, it didn't "flow." Probably too much information and too many references. I found it somewhat interesting because I loved Abbey's Desert Solitaire, and have spent time the last 5 summers in Moab, Utah, where Abbey is a local hero. The last 2 years we've rented a house just outside of town right across the road from one of Abbey's best buddies, Ken Sleight (Ken used to own this house), and across the road from Abbey's 4th wife out of 5 (she lives...more
Was this curmudgeon bipolar? He certainly had a protracted youth. His writing is entertaining, even beautiful. He was the epitomey of the American starving artist with an attitude. James Cahalan was fair, and unrelenting in his pursuit of Abbey's life and the sources are well documented. This will become the definitive work on Abbey, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang and Desert Solitaire. Of course, Abbey's list of writings is very lengthy.
Well written and researched (I think). At first I was disheartened that he was not the perfect man (: and the myth of him is revealed as just that in many ways in this book. But, of course we are all imperfect and ultimately this made him more real for me and I still admire his commitment to enviromental issues, his vocabulary, entertaining storytelling style and more. He is still one of my heroes.
I usually can't handle biographies, but I liked this one quite a bit. After all, if you like Edward Abbey's books there's a good chance you'll enjoy reading about him as well.
And what a life it was! This is supposed to be the best combined stud of Abbey's life in conjunction with his writing, that's been done so far. We shall see...
This book is a bibliographer's dream! Cahalan is favorable toward his subject, without being reverential or cloying.
this book is really hard to get through...very dry, but it's been 8 mos+ and I'm still trying..
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