Environmental blog 2
Make-up Blog in response to: Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness.
I really enjoyed Abbey’s tone and flow that he has developed in this book. It is somehow
carefree, but it is very apparent that he has an incredible passion for the Arches National
Monument and also the environment as a whole. At first his writing style seemed a bit
informal for an environmental book, but I soon realized that he did not intend it for a
scholarly audience. I believe that he was targeting the younger, future generations that
would be forced to deal with these issues later on in life. In the introduction he even
states “I quite agree that much of the book will seem coarse, rude, bad-tempered,
violently prejudiced, unconstructive- even frankly antisocial in its point of view. Abbey
obviously doesn’t care of what others think of him, so why write a book? I believe he did
it because he wants to be heard by being direct and to be understood as best as words can
offer. I also enjoyed how he chose to look at only the surface of things, and not to get
into the underlying links between them. I also believe that the surface has a lot to say
about an issue. So many people jump right past the surface and label it as “misleading
or “not the whole truth. But does that mean you should totally disregard it? I think not.
By using only the “surface of things you can get much more detail and understanding of
it. When books attempt to do both and more it becomes incomprehensive and confusing
to the average reader. With Abbey’s unique language and straightforward approach I
believe that he is on the right tract to capturing a bigger and better audience than most
environmentalists would ever achieve. He effectively balanced information with
interesting real-life experiences to make for a very interesting read. However, does this
approach lose credibility to the reader? I think for some people it most certainly would.
However, for most I believe they would sense his passion and dedication to the
environment and take to heart what he has to say.