The Serpents of Paradise: A Reader [Hardcover]

Edward Abbey (Author), John Macrae (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1995

Collects the best and most inflammatory writings of the late naturalist, environmentalist, and libertarian, a former National Park ranger and the author of Desert Solitaire, The Journey Home, and other works. 12,500 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The late Abbey was not only a singularly talented novelist some of whose books have acquired cult status (The Brave Cowboy; The Monkey Wrench Gang; The Fool's Progress), but also a polemicist of considerable force and an eloquent essayist. This anthology, edited by his longtime editor and friend Macrae, makes for a splendid summary of his best work?though it does not slight his faults. Abbey was above all a committed craftsman ("I write to make a difference"); and his passions?about the rape by ranchers and the industrial powers of his beloved Western desert country, the progressive disintegration of the quality of modern life, the dread development that would "democratize" wilderness by making it easily accessible to all?are on plain view. So, too, are his liabilities: his occasional outbursts of xenophobia and old-fashioned sexism, his gleefully overweening destructive fantasies. Abbey was an anarchist at heart, an often difficult loner who would probably find life unendurable in any organized, populous society. But as an analyst and gadfly of so many contemporary absurdities, and as a powerfully lyrical chronicler of desert solitudes and communion with nonhuman nature (something like Barry Lopez in a snit), he is in a class by himself. Anyone who doesn't already know his work will find this volume, culled from more than a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, an addictive introduction.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

To sample the best of Abbey's work is to whet the appetite for more. Excerpts from One Life at a Time, Please (LJ 2/1/88), the journal ramblings Desert Solitaire (LJ 1/1/68), the autobiographical The Fool's Progress (LJ 11/1/88), the comical novel The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), and other pieces are arranged chronologically by incident from Abbey's boyhood in Home, Pennsylvania, to his death near Tucson, Arizona, in 1989 at age 62. Biographical remarks by John Macrae, Abbey's longtime editor and publisher, introduce each of the book's four segments. Abbey said that he wrote "to entertain my friends and to exasperate my enemies," "to honor life and to praise the divine beauty of the natural world," and "to tell my story." He does all remarkably. If your library is Abbey-deficient, this collection is essential.
Cathy Sabol, Northern Virginia Community Coll., Manassas
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co (February 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805031324
• ISBN-13: 978-0805031324
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,589,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edward Abbey was born in Home, Pennsylvania, in 1927. He was educated at the University of New Mexico and the University of Edinburgh. He died at his home in Oracle, Arizona, in 1989.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introduction to Edward Abbey's work, May 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Serpents of Paradise: A Reader (Paperback)

After reading this collection, which serves as a retrospective of the writin career of one of the better SW writers, I was left with a feeling that the selection could have been better, but this probably reflects my own eclectic readings of his work. Abbey's writings always seemed uneven, particularly in his fiction. His comments about the role of the independent writer versus that of the commercial hired of the establishment press seems right on. In spite of his many years of part-time non-writing service to various agencies he still managed to maintain his freedom to say what he wished about the rot he saw in the management of public lands. I suspect that he was always a bit shocked about how cheaply managers of public linds could be bought off. As a review of his lifetime of writing the book is excellent. McCrae includes some of his fiction, both the excellent ("The Brave Cowboy") and only fair (The Monkey Wrench Gang"). The sampling from his writings might be occasionally dated, but are still mostly relevant to the problems of the SW. His polemic about the cowboy ("Free Speech - The cowboy ans his cow") clearly points to the problems of allowing anything like an unrestricted use of and romanticism about what can easily become an extractive industry. At the same time Abbey's followers should have a difficult time justapositionng his sense of anarchy with this complaints about the institutional anarchy of commercial capitalism. To finish. A good read and certainly worthwhile for someone new to Abbey's work while being a fair sample of his writings for a person with only a passing acquaintance with the writings of one of the West's best essayist. The closing comments in Wendell Berry's poem about his friend are most appropriate.