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. ( )

This ain't high literature, but it's a fun romp, passionately written.

( )

classic fiction piece about an unlikely gang of eco-terrorists. Writing is witty, entertaining and frequently quite hilarious. Also a fun tour of the desert and canyons in the four-corners region. ( )

Probably my favourite book of all time. It's excellent, story, writing style, imagery, terrible puns. It's all there and it's superb. ( )

Unbelievably good. Brilliant even. ( )

The Gang itself is a motley enough crew to keep you fairly entertained on their “Mission from God” to make the Southwest right again in the face of commercial onslaught–though they really do seem to hate bulldozers. I don’t buy into their eco-terrorism, but it seems to be a seventies kind of thing that moves the plot along. My favorite character is the scenery. Abbey captures the land in his prose on a par with Hayduke, which kind of makes you pull for the Monkey Wrench Gang. ( )

This is a book that I will remember for a long time, The story is entertaining, as are the characters. I firmly believe the author intended that the story have a moral, but I have no idea what it is. ( )

Edward Abbey has wit to burn and a hearty appreciation for the joys of wordplay. His voice is assertive; he’s a man with something to say! And he’s determined to have fun saying it, which is great good luck for readers of his novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang.

Aside from provoking laughs, Abbey gives us a destructive fantasia. It is kin to the childish revenge fantasies even the most anodyne of adults can harbor, with a plot consisting of one demolition after another. Out of demolished machinery and wrecked infrastructure is fashioned his fictional polemic. The “gang” consists of an at times ill-disciplined group of saboteurs: Doc Sarvis, the money behind the enterprise; Bonnie Abbzug, love interest and spunky monkey-wrencher; a practitioner of plural marriage called Seldom Seen by his patient and widely dispersed wives; and ex-Marine George Hayduke. The gang ranges the red rock lands of Utah and Arizona to destroy the machinery that destroys the rivers and landscapes the author loves (and how can he not love them?). Hayduke, in particular, seeks vengeance with fire in his heart, and after spending time with him you get the feeling that a Hayduke in rut would boink an armadillo if doing so could help the cause somehow.

All in all, a novel that will be best enjoyed by people who display, have wish for, or remember having, a little anarchy in their souls. ( )

There are two ways to review this book.

One, as a novel. Edwards Abbey writes a blazing, funny, madcap zany story of a group of four anarchist friends, hell-bent to stop the development of the southwest wilderness by crushing dams, bridges, power plants and anything else they can. On the run from the local Mormon do-gooder Search&Rescue crew, the FBI, the National Park Service and anybody else they run into, the quartet is likeable, entertaining and extremely enjoyable.

The dialogue is massive. Dialogue drives the book, and it never clunks and is often wildly witty. There are more turns of phrase that make you gasp and laugh than anything else I've read.

The one female character is written perhaps a bit more sexist than you would find today, though she is certainly her own woman. The three men are all unique and grand personalities.

Monkey Wrench Gang compares well to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - less trippy, but just as grand and impactful. Less weird, more witty.

Second, as a call-to-arms for environmental anarchism: I suspect that to some, this novel is dangerous. The characters should be darker, less idealistic. The impact of their approach should be interpreted more brutally.

But.

I think the novel provides a challenging commentary on American consumerism and our unwillingness to stop and consider the cost of our lifestyle. That it's packaged in a fun adventure story with amazing dialogue makes it all the more subversive. ( )

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/ ( )

I vaguely remember reading Abbey's novel when it first came out in the 1970s. Rereading it, it did not live up to expectations; there is something dated about the whole enterprise, from Abbey's cardboard characters (particularly the villain) to the wreckage of the landscape in order to destroy machinery that is wrecking the landscape. I know this novel inspired a number of ecological and environmental movements, but still, it's just not up to his non-fiction, especially "Desert Solitaire". ( )

Apparently, this is a book that many eco-activists use as there go to guide for stopping large, environmentally unfriendly projects, either public or private. I don't know how much of this type of activity is done today, however, I really would applaud the destruction of bill boards...

As for the story itself, we have a bunch of loner type characters, from Hayduke, a Vietnam Vet, who came home with a felling of not belonging, and needing a purpose. Than there is "Seldom Seen" Smith, a Semi Morman with three wives. He runs a rafting business, and is upset about the damming of his river. There is Dr. Sarvis who is a middle aged doctor with a vendetta against billboards, and his lovely assistant, lover, keeper, and all around gal, Bonnie Abbzug. She is originally from New Jersey, and is looking for purpose, just like the rest of the gang.

Overall - this is a funny book. From the Morman criminal patrol, trying to catch them, to the lengths Hayduke will go to get revenge on a (possibly) false arrest. At times it is sad, plowing over beautiful, untouched land. Over all, a well written book. ( )

good enough for a re-read. ( )

What fate befalls the cult classic over time? Forgotten is one option, trapped in time is another. Retention of status quo is probably the most pure, the book ‘rediscovered’ every generation or so. The other two I can think of relate to books that continue to attract attention: they become considered gimmicks, cult classics remembered, often because of the movie based on it. And, probably but too rarely, they become part of the canon. Readers decide on these categories one way or another, which is a complicated matter it would be boring to explicate: suffice it so say that the reader is overburdened by the extraordinary number of great books available. In the 19th century you could read all the great books still. You would read Carlyle because you ran out of material. Now you read Carlyle, and maybe Braudel, but Montaigne will remain unread on the toilet shelf which you put there so you could look at your Toynbees, also forever unread. And why not, given that when you were 22 you dropped out of university to read Spengler. Your literature is extremely important, so you make sure you read at least one Dostoevsky besides Crime and Punishment, maybe the same month you add Middlemarch to Mill on the Floss, but maybe not, because you’ve decided you need to read at least a few of the great Latin American writers, meaning at least ten books and a half year of reading. And don’t forget German literature. You can say damn the Goethe and Hoffmannia, I will stick with this dramatic century, but after Berlin Alexanderplatz through Gunther Grass you find there are a billiard table of great works remaining. Maybe save time and go back to Goethe and Hoffmann.
It needed to be said.
The best of us remain on page 149 of The Anatomy of Melancholy and lie about Cervantes and Rabelais figuring we got the idea a couple decades ago when we dashed through the first two hundred pages of each. So over and over again we meet well-meaning literati who ask, not meaning to be impertinent: You haven’t read Angle of Repose? And we meet well-meaning literati who say, here: this is one of the great forgotten books, the author drowned himself in the Seine, and hand you The Blind Owl. And you have a glorious summer following some cat’s advice and read the Ching ping mei and the Monkey novel.
It’s not a bad life, but you probably have been missing out on about fifty books you had to dismiss in order to read as many as you have. You decided, for instance, that The Monkey Wrench Gang was a gimmicky book, probably a movie with Jon Voigt. I make such connections—Deliverance, wackiness and the out of doors—eco sabotage comedy…But luckily I can make other connections. By means interesting but elided here I came to meet the biographer of Aldo Leopold and no I have not read The Sand County Almanac. His name is Curt Meine, and he writes essays in the tradition of Leopold yet with current knowledge of how the United States rambles on over the best of historical ideas, at most having to fix a flat (Leopold was probably a broken bottle). I decided that perhaps better than filling the Leopold gap with the popular book, the classic, I would read the biography, and I have been and still am, slowly, as other books need reading as ideas come together. One of those books my brother bought for my 14 year son: Doug Peacock’s Grizzly Years, which was surprisingly thoughtful and well-written, and which had a great deal more to say to me than any book about observing bears is expected to. In the book, he mentions Ed Abbey a couple times, and I figured it was probably that guy Edward Abbey, author of Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang, but thought little of the connection until mentioning the book in a mail to Curt Meine who said Hayduke of Monkey Wrench Gang was based on Doug Peacock. Then my brother told me the same thing.
So now let’s go back. The whole mess started with something I tried not to mention in order to streamline this review: I decided I need to write one more novel, a giant one, about the US, this one to be called The Assassination of Olof Palme, this one to rid myself of all of my own autobiographical burdens and to go beyond the intentions of my most recent book about the U.S., The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas, which tries to fictionally explain how the U.S. got the way it got. But there was, I realized after over a year, too little of the way it got, how it is. Before long I realized Nancy Reagan would have to be a character, Alzheimer’s a broader characteristic, and, to do it all right, C. Wright Mills would have to be a fulcral character in the novel. I don’t generally use real folk as characters, now I had two of them. So I got a biography of Mills and a new copy of The Power Elite, and then realized it could not begin there, at least not my research, or the spurring of my recollection. I would have to read the great and enduring biography of Thorstein Veblen by Dorfman. Soon after that book arrived in the mail the story with Meine began and it was clear that the third biography preparatory to beginning the novel was that of Aldo Leopold.
Imagine my surprise then when pressed by circumstance at its heaviest and most manipulative into reading The Monkey Wrench Gang that I found about halfway through the book a paragraph consisting of the words of one of the four main characters, Doc Sarvis, more or less explaining how the U.S. works, concisely eliminating the need for most people to read The Power Elite. Doc pretty much says it all. But by then I was not at all surprised at the intellect of Abbey, whose book seems to have gotten the reputation as a non-literary, near literary, important gimmicky cult book, mostly important for being ahead of the story on eco-activism. It turns out, though, that Abbey was also a terrific writer, and this book one of the best nature books, among other features, ever written. His relentless need to describe extraordinary landscapes is exceeded by his ability to do so. And his characters, though none of them written to match a Karamazov, are as real and interesting as can be, the dialogue smart, funny, dead on. And the mark of what I take to be the best comic writers—he’s willing to toss in the worst possible jokes, which, because they are literature’s fart jokes, actually are funny:
Bonnie Abbzug and Hayduke are arguing, Hayduke misleads the vultures of capitalism by using the nom de guerre Rudolf the Red. Hayduke felt rain. Bonnie didn’t.
“Am I Rudolf the Red or ain’t I?”
“So?”
“Well, goddammit, Rudolf the Red knows rain, dear”
“Say that again?”
I assume the story is well enough known, that the gang in question is a group come together deciding to sabotage disastrous ecological activity, sabotaging machines, blowing up pursuit vehicles like helicopters, shutting down hideously gigantic coal operations, with an eye on bridges and ultimately an absurdly placed dam, the Glen Canyon in case you don’t know. And I will tell you that this book has something to say, something to suggest, something to actively do to improve your life, which is rare among literary works (I think of Zorba, a book that can literally improve your life), and that thing is this: if you get the chance, blow up that fucking dam! Abbey himself apparently was coy about the effect his book had on a generation of activists tired of bourgeois Sierra Club environmentalism (Abbey takes an effective, funny shot at S.C. toward the end of his book), a faction of which took up lawless destructive eco-activism. Abbey clearly approved. And of course he did. This book makes its case and the case is that it is time to start the revolution without them, start sabotaging the techno future. I didn’t need that message, but I won’t go into my own night activities here, but had the message of Abbey been heeded and the mechanisms of the power elite headed off, global warming would have been a footnote by now. Instead, The Monkey Wrench Gang needs to be required reading for all humans before they reach puberty or the planet is doomed. ( )

While not a new release, this 1975 classic is well worth a revisit and perfect for July's adult SLP theme. Ex-Green Beret George Hayduke returns from war to find that his beloved southwestern desert is being threatened by rampant industrial development. Joined by an unlikely group of allies, Hayduke sets out to save the natural landscape that he loves as he rages against men and their machine-driven destruction. This wildly entertaining read will keep you on the edge of your seat as you're placed smack dab at the front of the environmentalist movement.

Bettina P. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.

( )

If you like reading books with unmemorable characters and agenda pushing story line, the The Monkey Wrench Gang is the book you need to read. Horrible book. I had to read Abbey's book for a literature class. I have never read a book that makes me hate every character, until I read this book. This book does nothing but push an agenda. I do not have a problem with writing about environmental issues, however when the characters and the author condone criminal activity, then I have a problem. How can you "care" about the environment when you make one of your characters throw his empty beer cans on the ground while he vandalizes others property? I wish I had never read it..... ( )

Abbey at his best! Should be of particular interest to environmental activist, anarchist and those familiar with Northern Arizona. ( )

As relevant today as it was 40 years ago. Message loud and clear, written in delightful prose, to protect our earth. To stop the destruction of our land and preserve nature. To prevent big business from raping our land, mountains, rivers, prairies for profit. ( )

The 4th or 5th time I've read the book....probably the last. Still an excellent read, full of one-liners, but sad all at the same time. Humans never learn and we continue to mess up our home for money/power. Most people alive on this planet, even the so-called environmentalists, don't seem to care. This is a good book, but that's all it is, a book. Virtually nobody that I know is or has done a thing to make life on this planet a bit better....and I worked for the NPS for 15 years! Sad.... ( )

Zany characters and a zany plot make for a fun read. ( )

Another book I have no idea when I finished it or why it didn't get a review. I liked it, of course. How could a crazy hippie like me not like this book? I have fantasies about keeping a chainsaw in the back of my car and cutting down billboards now. Note to Homeland Security: if billboards are destroyed in my area, it's totally a coincidence. I have an alibi. ( )