Postcards from Ed

by Alpen

Product Description

Postcards from Ed: Dispatches And Salvos from an American Iconoclastby Edward AbbeyPostcards from Ed is a collection of Edward Abbey's letters from 1949 to 1980 offers a fascinating, often hilarious glimpse into the mind of one of America's most iconoclastic and beloved authors. No subject was too banal, too arcane, or too deep for Abbey to expound upon, such as: Literature, the West, Wallace Stegner, dreams, Bob Dylan children, Hunter S. Thompson, war, John Erlich, enemies, editors, critics, Noam Chomsky, music, sex, Aspen, civilization, Christians, anarchy, family, the publishing world, Tom Wolfe and Thom Wolfe, Buddhism, trophy hunting, Brower, Foreman, the NRA, vasectomies, God, Wendell Berry, men, John McPhee, Robert Redford, wilderness, Desert Solitaire, The Monkey Wrench Gang, New York, the Sierra Club, Mizz Magazine, off-road vehicles, the Bible, the East, Jim Harrison, Pirsig, feminism, cheerleaders, Edward Hoagland, patriotism, Franny and Zooey, the Bond Girls, cooking, Mormons, immigration, Updike, mysticism, Jack Kerouac, cowboys, love, Earth First!, cows, deserts, growth, death, women, betrayal, and Annie Dillard.

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• ASIN: B0016CW8VA
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wakeup Call From Ed, January 8, 2007

By 

Dean Smith (Gaston, Or) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast (Hardcover)

"Postcards from Ed" reveal an Edward Abbey that was complex -- provocative and humorous. The letters are well chosen to show Abbey's warmth towards family, anger toward establishment and delight in friendship. More than anything, Abbey's letters create a picture of a man without pretense. Secondhand clothes, trailer-living, rundown trucks and cheap beer were good enough for him so long as he could venture into the deserts of the Southwest to clear his mind and feed his senses. If he wasn't obsessed he was probably depressed. If he didn't have a deadline he was likely lazy. Or so he said.

He didn't tolerate superficial relationships well -- "Yes, to hell with it. Let's call an end to this inane, pointless, worthless pretense at communication. If you're not bored with it, I certainly am." But he knew the value of a good friendship -- "So, let me know what you [Wendell Berry] think, if you care to trouble yourself about this. I would not want to risk endangering the kind of feelings you've shown me in the past for the sake of mere polemical spleen. Your friendship is far more important to me than striving to win points in a formal debate."

He complained, but with a touch of humor -- "This is a complaint. . . What kind of people are you hiring as rangers these days? Where do you find them? They look and act like cops - not rangers - and the next time one of these armed and uniformed goons bothers me I'm going to try to find out if he knows anything about the history, wildlife, plant life or geology of Saguaro National Monument." And - "Your reviewer . . . gives us a good forthright description of the book's author. As the undersigned can testify from personal acquaintance, Edward Abbey is indeed an "arrogant," "xenophobic," "puerile," "smug" and "dopey" sort of fellow. So far, fair enough. But what about the book . . . [he] forgot to review the book."

In the Forward to the book, Terry Tempest Williams wonders what Abbey would be saying right now if he were still alive. "Postcards from Ed" gives us more than a clue. Abbey would not be surprised by today's converging catastrophes and our, so called, war on terror. He might say we get what we deserve. "Postcards from Ed" is another chance to hear Abbey's prophetic voice. I suspect he would say, "Hey, you're still alive, wake up!"

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Abbey: Now, more than ever, September 13, 2006

By 

Abbeyphile (Earth) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast (Hardcover)

This book is a great reminder of how far ahead of his time Abbey was. Issues he was concerned about 40 or 50 years ago are argued with a passion and intellect that is missing from today's political discourse. Also missing today is the humor and constructive anger which served as an undercurrent for much of his writing. Beyond all this literary mumbo-jumbo, Abbey still makes for a great read. This is possibly the last of his writing to be published. Savor it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting collection of letters, April 12, 2008

By 

Arthur Digbee (Indianapolis, IN, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast (Paperback)

This book collects the letters of Edward Abbey, author and provocateur. If you don't know and enjoy his books such as "Desert Solitaire" or "The Monkey Wrench Gang," you should read those first. If you've read his books and want more Ed, then this is the book for you.

The letters are arranged chronologically but fall into a few recurring categories. He writes often to his agents and his publishers, both about money and about his works in progress. You see glimpses of how Ed works through these letters. He also wrote a large number of letters to various newspapers, some under pseudonyms. He wrote, of course, many letters to his friends, and these are surprisingly blunt. I sometimes marveled that he had any friends left. There are surprisingly few letters to his family, even though his oldest children lived some distance from him over the years covered in these letters. His family side does not come across at all well, except for pride in his very young children with fifth wife.

These short letters are, to varying degrees, pithy, insightful, iconoclastic and funny. They show some different sides of Edward Abbey but won't really surprise any fans of his other books.

[Three stars because the book has a pretty narrow audience; it's probably a four star book for hardcore Abbey fans.]

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