Customer Reviews

The Fool's Progress

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4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Edward Abbey died in March of 1989. In the latter part of 1988, he saw his last and perhaps most accomplished work brought to bed at his publishers in New York. The author of many highly controversial works of fiction and non-fiction, best known for his seemingly solitary stand against the ecological destruction of the western American deserts, Abbey's last book effectively completed a cycle. At the same time it was a very close foretelling of his own probable doom.

Abbey was an environmentalist from the beginning. In the East of his youth, he saw strip mines close in on his father's mountain acres. Out West, he witnessed the early preparations being made to dam the Colorado and its tributaries. He rafted down Glen Canyon and saw the hidden valleys filled with a beauty that was soon after to be engulfed. He smelt out the tricky political deals being woven by senators and landowners in the forgotten tracts of the butte country and did his best to expose them. Against all of the attempts to tame this corner of the American wilderness, Abbey railed.

In books ranging from "Desert Solitaire" (1967), a journal of a season in the desert, to "The Monkey Wrench Gang" (1975), an explosive novel of saboteurs versus dambuilders, Abbey argues his points in favour of preserving the canyon country. Having been there "before" and "after," his voice has a compelling authority. To read his account of Glen Canyon before the dam is to be filled with regret at the later spoliation.

In "The Fool's Progress," Abbey gives us something of a summing up of his own life. The book is like a reverse history of Kerouac's "On the Road." Instead of youth rushing out through the length of America to meet its new and cosmic identity on the West Coast, here is a life which is wearing down, attacked from within, going back from the desert to the Appalachian hills of birth and ancestry. In the chronicle of the winding down, as the truck begins to fail and a mortal pain begins to rise, boyhood is measured against the actual experience of the now hard-bitten adult.

"The Fool's Progress" is the work of a now accomplished writer in his prime. We might have expected much more from Edward Abbey and his early death is a great loss. Nevertheless, his completed works stand on their own and I can recommend them to anyone who is intrigued by the workings of an original mind as it tackles the problems of our age.

Being an avid reader, I've read all of the "great works" -- from Socrates and Plato to Steinbeck and Hemingway -- and this is the best fiction/philosophy that I've ever read. Abbey's discriptions of his travels and laments are first class -- funny, honest, and down-right on the mark. When I met Henry Lightcap in chapter one, I wanted to know who he is and how he became to be. At the end, I cried for a man that I came to know and love. Although I love and respect many of the great works of the west, this is the most incredible novel I have ever read. I re-read this book at least once a year -- it's a wonderful journey, never a chore. If I could recommend one book out of the multitudes I've read, this would be the one. And the only.

Life. Death. Love. War. The life-long struggle away from what you are towards what you might be, if only..., or the struggle back to what you were. Read this. Read the rest of the reviews below. Then shell out twelve bucks and buy this book. When it arrives at your door, dedicate a few hours in an out-of-the-way place. Keep those that you love handy. Keep your spirits up, life is one kick in the groin after another and this tome is no different. It's a long, hard race kids. No one wins or loses, we simply end up carrying our stinking dying dogs the last few miles home.

I sent this book to my mom when she asked me why I thought the way I did. A few months later I got the best letter of my life.

Not every book will fully resonate the first time you read it. Some books require experience on the part of the reader, experience with life and its endless variety of pain, suffering, joy, beauty, etc. Edward Abbey's, "The Fool's Progress" is such a book. If you've never treated a person badly, lost an opportunity or felt the disquiet of not knowing where you "fit" in the world, the book might not resonate as much with you as it did with me.

Still, don't pass up the opportunity to experience a well-crafted story and the kind of tale where the imagery stays with you long after the final page. I rode along with Abbey's alter-ego Henry Lightcap, sitting on the front seat next to his steadfast, last companion and ate up the miles from Tucson to that place of green hills, back East. Along the way, I too recalled my first love, the life I might have had and the chances I took that didn't quite turn out the way I'd planned. Sometimes it was a painful journey, sometimes wistful, but in the end after all was said and done, like Henry, I too felt refreshed, newly awakened and excited to learn what the future holds.

This book offers glimpses into the life of a person who even at the very end doesn't feel the need to say "I wish I'd done it differently." We know he'd have done some things differently. That's not the point. The point Abbey makes through Henry is that it's critical to recognize the value of the things we do when we do them. Reach out to the person you care about, take the chance or opportunity when it's presented, look for the beauty in the things that make you feel at peace with yourself. Abbey knows, it's not always an easy road but the journey is what makes the destination.

In sum, Abbey has crafted the kind of high quality story that in the end reminds the reader that we can only be ourselves, warts and all. Let's be honest, the warts are often the most interesting parts.

To be honest, I was concerned while reading the opening scenes and almost put the book down: Henry Lightcap treats his current wife miserably. when she decides to leave him for a computer engineer, he is so distraught that he takes out a .22 and shoots the refrigerator (the culmination, as it turns out, of his hatred for technology and "modern civilization". Oh no, I thought, a self-absorbed misogynist tells his sufferings. For the most part, I was wrong (there is plenty of suffering). This was one of the best books I've read in a good long while.

The main character Henry, I learned later, is a close representation of the reclusive author. Abbey apparently reveals much of his own life through this "honest novel", but to what extent...I wish I knew. Henry grew up in the West Virginia backwoods, submerged in nature, and later rediscovered the even more intense wilderness of the West.

The flashback chapters to the past are interspersed with the Henry here-and-now, older, in his sixties, and harboring a grim secret. Like him, his truck is on it's last odometer rotations. The dog, Solstice, is also old and sickly, and is one of the few beings Henry is tender toward, and makes for some of the more touching scenes.

What initially perplexed and repelled me at first was Henry's treatment of women. Throughout his life he only falls for the bombshells who, ultimately, have nothing in common with him and his love of the wilderness. When he drags is first wife from NYC to barren New Mexico, things do not bode well. After so much trouble with women, evidence of Henry's first real love comes as a shock. Henry is more complex than he seemed, and I began to empathize with him.

This book seems outwardly like it would be a simple semi-memoir, but Abbey's descriptions, especially of nature and wild places, elevate it to something more. The tone is bleak, of a man looking back on his life and contemplating his regrets, but is not without humor (a certain Grand Canyon scene, for example, or his arrest in Denver). When I read Abbey, a (para)phrase from his Desert Solitare comes to mind: get out of the car and walk, better yet crawl through the dirt and rocks and cactus. You can't get the full experience any way else--this philosophy sums up A Fools Progess well. Highly recommended.

Not everyone agrees with Abbey's politics, but he can write an incredible story. Never again will you see the imagery that Abbey uses. This is one of his later books about the story of him traveling home. He was born in the East and left as soon as possible to go West. Once he got there, he had crazy experiences and an all around wacky life. Well, this book opens up some of the "New Thoreau's" experiences. This book is a great start for any possible Abbey fan. His politics are mellowed out, and his story-telling shines. The man writes an incredible story, and he has many incredible stories to tell. _The Fool's Progress: an Hones Novel_ is just that. BUY THIS BOOK

I have loaned Fool's Progress out more times than I can remember, to all sorts of people, always with the stipulation that the person has to either read it or return it quickly. It's not a book to lose, but one to carry with you on long outdoor adventures: the more dog-eared, the better. Without fail, the response of people who borrowed & read it has followed a progression of illumination not unlike the one presented by Abbey himself: 1) geez, this guy is a pig!; 2) Well, he's a pig, but I sort of understand how he got to where he is; 3) I get it, and I understand the protagonist. This is a fantastic novel.

Every time. I never ever want to be without a copy of Fool's Progress.

Yeah thats right Profound...My god ..when I read a Fools Progress I was blown away. The kind of book that makes you truly glad to be alive. You know the kind where you get goose bumps and then go outside to stare at the stars and ruminate on the human condition. I had that feeling with very few books Maybe Jack London's "Call of the Wild" or Ayn Rands "The Fountainhead" both read when I was young .. I never thought I'd feel that way about a book again but I had it in middle age....with this one. One of the top 3 or 4 books Ive read period. Maybe more than any book (Including somthing by Thoreau) this book reminds you what it means to lead a simple life....and preferably one outdoors. I spent 24 years in the military and this book reminded of the joy of going home again after being off the path. I cried it was so moving. Can't say enough .. a truly truly great book.

If you're even the least bit prudish or squeamish about startling sex scenes leaping off the page and coming right at you, forget Ed's book. If you're not, dig in - it's a hoot - tempered throughout by sorrow, regret over fancied failure, soft heart pretending to be tough, a personality so complex as to never be destined to be happy with a woman. The reader senses that he wishes it were otherwise but really doesn't know what to do about it without becoming someone he himself can't live with. Ed Abbey represents the true essence of the person known as a "Free Spirit." It was written as he himself was failing in health as I understand it from those who have gotten into his biography - and as a result of this, he probably thought "let it rip - it's my finale - let them think what they will".

It's a vast departure from another well-written book of his, "Desert Solitaire," which I thoroughly enjoyed in an entirely different way. It starts out with our hero whipping up a batch of bread - something he obviously has done many times before during a crisis, kneading, kneading, working out on the counter a recurring upheaval: yet another wife left him. In fact, in one of the funniest lines, he receives a phone call from a male friend during the bread baking, who asked him how he was. Answering "I'm baking bread", the friend responds "she left you again, didn't she?"

He sets out on his journey across country to forget and possibly to get another grip against his latest personal failure; tries valiantly to leave an old, ill dog behind because he knows he shouldn't take it along, and fails at that too, slamming on his brakes in a cloud of dust, opening the door in resignation and the mental scene of the old dog struggling to get into the front seat is heart rendering. It goes from one outrageous adventure to another, rendering you helpless in laughter or astonished and breathless at some hidden aspect of human nature he doesn't bother to conceal through discreet wording; sometimes you can't believe he can keep up the pace of the idea stream, yet he does throughout.

I enjoyed it and found it one of the most unusual books I ever read but in recommending it to others, refer to "sentence # 1" of my review.

This is one of the best and most memorable books I've read (having just finished it for the second time). It often lays bare innermost thoughts we all have but can't find words for. It often leaves you wondering "how could he have known...?"

Yes. And this book makes me want to quit my office job, drink beer, eat beans, call friends and family, and get outside for prolonged periods of time.

Oh yeah. And it makes me want to talk with my dog more.

This book is about enjoying--not enduring--both the difficult and the easy; the ugly and the beautiful. It's about plain old good and well-fashioned living. In one man's opinion, anyway.

Buy it. ...