I read somewhere that this would have made a better comic book than a novel, and I think I would agree with that. The style is reminiscent of the worst overwriting of New Journalism, a la Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. If you dig that, you'll love this. I found it a bit of a slog. The book's at its best when Abbey is describing the landscape of the Southwest. It's certainly still an important work in the context of environmental activism (ecoterrorism, we'd call it now), and Abbey has a great sense of humor. ( )

This is a rollicking, preposterous tale featuring overdrawn, equally preposterous characters, but it has a kernel of truth that makes it compelling. Early on, while the characters were on their own, I found the story hard to relate to, especially given the unnecessarily oblique prose and humour which seems to be trying a bit too hard. However, once they come together a kind of alchemy that takes place and there is a realness to how four quite difficult characters negotiate the process of being true to themselves without tearing the gang apart.

I also found it very easy to relate to the motivations of the Monkey Wrench Gang, to the sense of despair and frustration at seeing beautiful and precious landscapes sacrificed for no discernible gain, to the confusion over what constitutes the limits of what is acceptable in environmentalism (recycling, not littering) and what is unacceptable.

The other thing that grows throughout the book is the role of the landscape. It's a spectacular part of the world and Abbey shows his love for it with descriptions of its beauty, harshness and changeability. About three quarters of the way through the book I started to seriously consider booking myself on a flight to the USA. Then the plot took over and I just wanted the four desperadoes to succeed and come out alive.

The prose has that oblique, early '70s, forced humour which I find quite difficult to come at (I didn't really enjoy [b:A Confederacy of Dunces|310612|A Confederacy of Dunces|John Kennedy Toole|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1436747103s/310612.jpg|968084], which has a similar style), but it settles down and from then on is very good. The descriptions of the landscape are wonderful and the dialogue snappy and fun. ( )

There is no doubt that this is a terrifically exciting adventure novel: the chase and escape scenes are so intense it is incredible that Hollywood has not yet made the film. Hayduke's disappearing acts are outrageous. The eco-sabotage plot is 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' on acid.

But as I reread it I'm struck by its literary qualities too.

The metaphors are fresh: a boulder levered down a mountainside bounces from ledge to ledge like a jackrabbit. "Great blue herons once descended, light as mosquitoes, long legs dangling, to the sandbars." Just the right choice of similes.

The writing creates so many different tones: pastoral, profound, ironic, cutting, sometimes in immediate and absurdist counterpoint: "... While outside in the fields of desert summer the melons ripened at their leisure in the nest of their vines, and a restless rooster, perched on the roof of the hencoop, fired his premature ejaculation at the waning moon, and in the pasture the horses lifted noble Roman heads to stare in the night at something humans cannot see."

The presentation of the landscape comes from deep knowledge: this is no research-project novel but one of real familiarity with its desert setting and the human society there. Who but somebody who knew their patch of nature implicitly would imagine a depiction of animals such as this: "One thin scream came floating down, like a feather, from the silver-clouded sky. Hawk. Redtail, solitaire, one hawk passing far above the red reef, above the waves of Triassic sandstone, with a live snake clutched in its talons. The snake wriggled, casually, as it was borne away to a different world. Lunchtime."

The characters are described in glorious colour, even the supporting roles: our protagonists' enemy, the Mormon Bishop Love, is bishop “on Sundays and Wednesday church-study nights only. Rest of the time he’s neck deep in real estate, uranium, cattle, oil, gas, tourism, most anything that smells like money. That man can hear a dollar bill drop on a shag rug. Now he’s running for the state legislature. We got plenty like him in Utah. They run things. They run things as best they can for God and Jesus, and what them two don’t want why fellas like Bishop Love pick up."

It conjures personalities that feel original and distinctive, that stand out from the society around them and have their individual points of view: "'You can never go wrong cuttin' fence,' repeated Smith, warming to his task. (Pling!) 'Always cut fence. That's the law west of the 100th meridian. East of that don't matter none. Back there it's all lost anyhow. But west, we cut fence.'"

It is a novel of depth of feeling expressing itself in uncompromising bluntness: behind the great damnation, the Glen Canyon Dam, lies "Lake Powell: storage pond, silt trap, evaporation tank and garbage dispose-all, a 180-mile-long incipient sewage lagoon."

It punctures American pretensions without compunction: "“What’s more American than violence?” Hayduke wanted to know. “Violence, it’s as American as pizza pie.” “Chop suey,” said Bonnie. “Chile con carne.” “Bagels and lox.”"

All this excitement, character, humour, irony, poignancy, knowledge compressed into a thrilling adventure story: that's why it's my favourite novel.

P.S. Two women blogged and photographed their epic hike through and between the national parks in the canyonlands in honour of Hayduke: https://hayduketrail.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/ ( )

Eco action. This is a book both serious and funny. ( )

Bravery and truth

We should have done it when we had the chance.

Kill one and you're a murderer.
Kill a million and you're president.

Restore beaver and you save far more.
Great western. Only a couple horses. A few more Indians. A ton of lawmen and four Desperados. No killing. Mountains of machinery and money sacrificed to their Gods and returned to them 10-fold. God can be disappointing that way. ( )