The Monkey Wrench Gang (Perennial Classics) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Douglas Brinkley (Author) "Dr. Sarvis with his bald mottled dome and savage visage, grim and noble as Sibelius, was out night-riding on a routine neighborhood beautification project, burning..." (more)
Key Phrases: loading towers, blasting machine, survey stakes, Seldom Seen, Bishop Love, Comb Wash (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ed Abbey called The Monkey Wrench Gang, his 1975 novel, a "comic extravaganza." Some readers have remarked that the book is more a comic book than a real novel, and it's true that reading this incendiary call to protect the American wilderness requires more than a little of the old willing suspension of disbelief. The story centers on Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III, who returns to the desert to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial development. On a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with feminist saboteur Bonnie Abbzug, wilderness guide Seldom Seen Smith, and billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., and together they wander off to wage war on the big yellow machines, on dam builders and road builders and strip miners. As they do, his characters voice Abbey's concerns about wilderness preservation ("Hell of a place to lose a cow," Smith thinks to himself while roaming through the canyonlands of southern Utah. "Hell of a place to lose your heart. Hell of a place... to lose. Period"). Moving from one improbable situation to the next, packing more adventure into the space of a few weeks than most real people do in a lifetime, the motley gang puts fear into the hearts of their enemies, laughing all the while. It's comic, yes, and required reading for anyone who has come to love the desert. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Excellent high adventure." -- -- Playboy

"Mixes comedy and chaos with enough chase sequences to leave you hungering for more." -- -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Ribald, outrageous and, in fact, scandalous." -- --Smithsonian

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics (July 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060956445
• ISBN-13: 978-0060956448
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #279,654 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Abbey Delivers the Goods, December 12, 2002

By	Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) is a touchstone for anyone involved in the radical environmental movement. Abbey, who looks like the product of a union between William James and John Muir, churned out numerous books and essays concerning the American Southwest and its wondrous natural beauty. His best known work is this novel, "The Monkey Wrench Gang," a fictional tale about four nature lovers who decide to wage relentless war against America's manic desire to spread the industrial system into every corner of the country. Abbey apparently based some of the characters in the book on real people he knew during his life in the boonies. It is important to remember this while you read the book because it will scare the heck out of you that people like this actually exist.

Abbey does not waste much time introducing the reader to his main characters. There is Seldom Seen Smith, a jack Mormon and river rafter who rambles around the countryside when he's not visiting his three wives. Seldom Seen quickly hooks up with Bonnie Abbzug, a Brooklyn born beauty with a predilection for older men and geodesic domes. Abbzug's flame of the moment is Doc Sarvis, an aging surgeon with a propensity for spouting off about nature and history when he's not operating on a patient. Finally, there is the hero of the story, George Washington Hayduke, a Vietnam vet who returns to his home only to discover bulldozers raping his beloved country. When the four meet up on a river-rafting excursion, Doc throws his checkbook into the ring so the four can go on an environmental rampage of astonishing proportions. No bulldozer, bridge, or member of the area's Search and Rescue team (run by the nefarious Bishop Love) is safe from the monkeywrenching activities of these four ecoterrorists.

Abbey describes the destruction of industrial equipment in loving detail. The first excursion is at a construction site, in which the gang cuts wires, pours karo syrup in gas tanks, and pours sand in the engines. Subsequent missions involve driving equipment into lakes, pulling up survey stakes, destroying an oil drilling station, and rolling boulders over pick-up trucks. Whenever trouble shows up, the four melt into the rugged terrain of the Southwest, a land of desolate wastes interspersed with stunning plateaus, mountains, and rivers. Abbey's eye for beauty rarely fails in his descriptions of these haunting images. Even the most hardened soul will feel a real kinship with our vanishing wilderness after reading this novel.

This novel is a masterwork of complexity, as Abbey juggles several themes simultaneously without missing a beat. One of these themes is, of course, the ferocity of nature. I interpreted Hayduke to be nature personified. His gruff and grungy appearance, his ability to become one with his environment, and his unbridled fury at the evil unfolding around him seem to represent the forces of nature itself. Hayduke is unrelenting in his quest to stop the destruction, even willing to resort to violence against the perpetrators whenever he sees fit. The other three characters act as a restraint on Hayduke, at least to some extent, but they also represent the various stages of humanity removed from nature. Seldom Seen Smith takes part in some of George's wilder escapades because he is closer to the environment. Bonnie and Sarvis, since they live in the city, tend to oppose many of George's plans and methods. Abbey is saying, and I may be wrong, that the farther some of us get away from the wilderness the less we are willing to do whatever is necessary to prevent the rampant destruction of the environment.

There is no doubt that Abbey was an extremely intelligent man. His writing ability is amazingly brilliant, with numerous jokes, word plays, and multi-layered dialogue thrown in at breakneck speed. For those familiar with Ambrose Bierce or Mark Twain, Abbey will seem like an old friend. Like those two august figures of American letters, Abbey is an iconoclast, always willing to take painful swipes at any institution, accepted belief, or know-it-all jerks with absolutist values. Even environmentalists take a few shots on the chin in this book (For example, George never misses a chance to throw his beer cans out the window). Abbey's tendency to make politically incorrect comments and jokes is sure to anger many people who, in their quest to lecture us about their idea of a perfect world, accidentally left their sense of humor in the trunk of their brand new SUV. In short, when Abbey comes out swinging, be sure to duck.

"The Monkey Wrench Gang" is truly an American classic, embodying just the right amount of rugged individualism, distrust of authority figures, and old-fashioned violence Americans love so well. About the only problem with the book is some of the environmentalists go nuts and try to pull a Hayduke in their own backyards. Abbey was careful to make the violence a bit cartoonish at times, perhaps to cover his own back in case someone gets a little carried away. Still, this is an entertaining that also gives an inside view of the environmentalist mindset. If you like great scenery and great writing, you will enjoy this novel.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Edward Abbey's Legacy...Great Literature and a Greater Appreciation for the American Southwest...And the Glen Canyon Dam, July 17, 2006

By	Wildness (Colorado Plateau) - See all my reviews

The name Edward Abbey is a foul couple of words for some, and is followed by foul language off the tongue of the same people. But, it shouldn't...both for his great body writings and for his fierce appreciation for everything that makes the American West great. "The Monkey Wrench Gang" and its sequel "Hayduke Lives" are classic American Literature as well as important social commentary on who we are and what should matter to us as a society and a country. (This review is for both books so might be a bit longer than usual.)

Yes, Abbey was an environmentalist; but, a he was also flawed just as we all are in this area - when he was younger on his first visit to the Grand Canyon, he rolled a tire over the edge because he could. He already appreciated the American West, but the human side of him did it anyway. Yes, Abbey was a curmudgeon; but, it worked - he got the attention of everyone, on both sides of any issue.

With "The Monkey Wrench Gang", Abbey spun a fantastic tale of a hodgepodge band of characters that were bound by a love for the west, and distaste for anything that they saw as ruining it. Bonnie Abbzug, the exile from the east who couldn't stand cheap talk and always wanted action; she found a place in the canyons of the Southwest where one could hear her own thoughts - unlike the canyons of New York that she fled. Doc Sarvis, M.D., a doctor with a passion for his hobby - the burning of any billboard that ruined everyone's view of the landscape (which were pretty much all of them). Seldom Seen Smith, a few wives, a Colorado River Boatman, and a few steps ahead of the Bishop...'nuff said.

And then there is George Washington Hayduke III...this former Green Beret will not stop until he gets to the bottom of who is messing with his desert; and he intends to put a stop to it. I had a college professor like Hayduke.

At its heart, "The Monkey Wrench Gang" is a buddy movie written in words' a buddy movie about the American West. An American West that is being overrun by those fleeing the east and looking for more space and a better life, but cannot but help but bring everything wrong with where they are coming from with them; at the same time, this is a book about those entrenched in the west for generations that can't control themselves when it comes to growth, progress, and the American Way: GREED. This is a book about those who care enough about the human race to actually do something to keep it from destroying itself. This is a book about the self-determined people of the west; a group that sometimes loses its way - a fear of the decadence of East (and California), but who can't help but let a little greed get in they way of their way of live as they build and build and build to accommodate the every expanding needs of the new exiles from more crowded locales.

"The Monkey Wrench Gang" is a book about a system gone wrong and a band of idealists looking for a way to head it off at the pass before it plummets over the edge into the abyss.

As much as "The Monkey Wrench Gang" is a book about idealists, "Hayduke Lives" is a pessimistic book about idealism gone a little wrong. "Hayduke Lives" was Abbey's last book, and it was his last will and testament in a way as well. For all that "The Monkey Wrench Gang" inspired a generation of environmentalists, "Hayduke Lives" is Abbey's critique of the fourteen years that come in between. He is critiquing what he sees is a movement that has lost its way; not just his views of where the Sierra Club went wrong, but also how Earth First! stumbled and fumbled their way off the right path. But, at the same time, Abbey is screaming for us to find our way and find a balance before it is too late.

I think that while "The Monkey Wrench Gang" is universal in its message and unambiguous - a message that everyone, environmentalist and developer alike, can learn from - "Hayduke Lives" is more philosophical and introspective...introspective for the reader as well as Abbey. In "Hayduke Lives", Abbey's message is more subtle and more undefined. What I came away with was his disgust and disappointment with a movement wandering the wilderness lost; but at the same time, I found a message of hope between the lines, a message that we better find a way to get along and work together or destroy each other and ourselves.

In the end, these two books must be judged by each individual reader; the reader must find their own path to meaning and purpose in Abbey's words. Glen Canyon Dam, at the focus of both books, is a monstrosity to some and a godsend to others; to some, it has destroyed a magnificent canyon, and to others it has made unchecked progress in the west possible. The real answer, I think, is somewhere in between.

If you advocate for the dismantling of the dam, then be honest about what that actually means: that overgrown metropolises in the dry desert such a Phoenix and Las Vegas will have to cease to exist; that people in Ohio won't get good, fresh lettuce in the winter; that first people must understand what John Wesley Powell tried to tell everyone well over 100 years ago...the American West cannot support a limitless supply of humanity, that the American West has a FINITE amount of water to go around. Until everyone affected understands what is truly at stake, then the message of tearing down the dam is empty and hollow...and maybe a bit self-centered.

If you fight to defend the dam, fine, but check your own greed (five bedrooms and 3000 square feet for a husband, wife, and two kids is greed - how many storage units do you rent for all of your stuff?). Yes, the dam has brought progress to the American West, but at what cost? What is the carrying capacity of the West? Are we approaching it? Has it passed us by and we are just waiting for it all to collapse? How low does Lake Powell need to go next time before we wake up and realize that water is not a limitless resource in the arid west?

Glen Canyon Dam was built before I was born; but, if the effort were being made today to build it, I would fight with all of my energy - resistance is never futile. But, it is there and nothing that I do, or the Sierra Club does, or the Glen Canyon Institute does will change that...not without educating Americans to what we are doing wrong and how we can do it right. Geologic time will take care of Glen Canyon Dam; it could be in 200 years, 500 years, 1,000 years, or longer, but it will remove the dam - larger natural dams have existed across the Colorado River and nature has always removed them eventually.

Read these two books. Read the writings of John Wesley Powell. Visit the area, tour the dam, and figure it out for yourself. Then, lets all figure it out together.

>>>>>>><<<<<<<

A Guide to my Book Rating System:

1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious and inspiring, if you can take it..., May 21, 2000

By	Ryan McNabb (Ooltewah, TN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Monkey Wrench Gang (Mass Market Paperback)

...which many can't do. Abbey is a fiercely skillful writer who can punch you right in the mouth with words when he wants to. This is a very unconventional novel, with writing and characterization that border on the surreal, but Abbey knows his craft. The Dream Garden Press edition has a chapter he was forced to leave out of the trade edition, and it borders on the nightmarish. He is unflinching in his criticisms and unyielding in his devotions, and The Monkey Wrench Gang is a wonderful novel. I reread it every couple of years and enjoy it every time. It's quite possible that you will hate this book and what it stands for, as well as the rest of Abbey's writings. It's also quite possible that that was Abbey's intention from the very start. Ed Abbey doesn't pander or beg. He lays it on the line and dares you to come along for the ride. And Monkey Wrench is one great ride. No, it isn't Proust. Yes, Mormons and Indians and most women may be offended. That's tough. It isn't for everyone, and thank God for that.