The Monkey Wrench Gang (P.S.) by Edward Abbey - A true "new" classic

Ed Abbey called The Monkey Wrench Gang, his 1975 novel, a comic extravaganza. Some readers have remarked that the book is more a comic book than a real novel, and its true that reading this incendiary call to protect the American wilderness requires more than a little of the old willing suspension of disbelief. The story centers on Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III, who returns to the desert to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial development. On a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with feminist saboteur Bonnie Abbzug, wilderness guide Seldom Seen Smith, and billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., and together they wander off to wage war on the big yellow machines, on dam builders and road builders and strip miners. As they do, his characters voice Abbeys concerns about wilderness preservation (Hell of a place to lose a cow, Smith thinks to himself while roaming through the canyonlands of southern Utah. Hell of a place to lose your heart. Hell of a place... to lose. Period). Moving from one improbable situation to the next, packing more adventure into the space of a few weeks than most real people do in a lifetime, the motley gang puts fear into the hearts of their enemies, laughing all the while. Its comic, yes, and required reading for anyone who has come to love the desert. --Gregory McNamee

A true "new" classic
THE quintessential environmentalist novel. Edward Abey's most famous and influential work, "The Monkey Wrench Gang" is a funny, inspiring, adventurous, beloved book about the 1970s environmental movement in the American West.

Abey's characteristic blend of irreverent humor and deep love for the American landscape make this book a fun and moving read at any time.

However, his pointed social commentary is to a certain extent less applicable today than at the book's first publication in 1975. Mostly importantly, ideas about protecting wilderness areas and managing resources have changed significantly over the past thirty years. Added to that, Ms. Abbzug's second wave feminism has long sense gone by the wayside; Hayduke's Vietnam experience has been (at least temporarily) superseded by the very different war in Iraq; and anyone practicing "eco-terrorism" today would come off in a far less positive light than our heroes in the gang.

Highly recommended, both for pleasure and for history.

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