|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
From Amazon
"I am not a naturalist. I never was and never will be a naturalist." So Ed Abbey opens The Journey Home, a collection of essays that turns every page or two to some aspect of the natural history of the desert West. Abbey had recently been compared to Henry Thoreau as a writer who had made a home both literary and real in the wild, and he was having none of it: he wanted to be thought of as a novelist and environmental activist, not as the author of gentle essays on self-sufficiency and the turn of the seasons. The Journey Home is thus full of politically charged, often enraged essays on such matters as urban growth ("The Blob Comes to Arizona"), the gentrification of the small-town West ("Telluride Blues--A Hatchet Job"), and wilderness preservation ("Let Us Now Praise Mountain Lions"). He raised a few hackles with this book, but he also found many devoted readers, fans who wanted and got an update of and rejoinder to Abbey's Desert Solitaire. Agree with him or not, you can't fault Abbey for his honest self-assessment: "I am--really am--an extremist," he wrote, "one who lives and loves by choice far out on the very verge of things, on the edge of the abyss, where this world falls into the depths of the other. That's the way I like it." --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Long considered an underground classic, The Journey Home stands beside Desert Solitude as one of Abbey's most important works. In a voice edged eith chagrin, Abbey offers a portrait of the American West that readers will not soon forget, presenting the reflections and observations of a man who left the urban world behind in pursuit of the natural one and the myths buried therein.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
In the summer of 1944, the year before the year I fell in love, I hitchhiked from Pennsylvania to Seattle by way of Chicago and Yellowstone National Park: from Seattle down the coast to San Francisco; and from there by way of Barstow and Needles via boxcar, thumb, and bus through the Southwest back home to the old farm, three months later. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
In the summer of 1944, the year before the year I fell in love, I hitchhiked from Pennsylvania to Seattle by way of Chicago and Yellowstone National Park: from Seattle down the coast to San Francisco; and from there by way of Barstow and Needles via boxcar, thumb, and bus through the Southwest back home to the old farm, three months later. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Abbey for President - Ed come back we need you now!,
By
This review is from: The Journey Home (Paperback)
Its been over ten years since I read Desert Solitaire and I've combed through a couple of his works looking for another collection of stories that hit me with the same "between-the-eyes" impact as Desert Solitaire. Well, I found it with Journey Home. To me Edward Abbey represents the second coming of John Westly Powell. He, like Major Powell, foresaw the westward expansion of the U.S. and in the case of the desert southwest instinctively knew that water would be the limiting factor. It's important to remember that Abbey saw the huge growth up tick coming some 25 years ago. And places like Phoenix, and Vegas have exploded in size ever since. Abbey puts it all in focus with "The BLOB Comes to Arizona." "Telluride Blues - A Hatchet Job" is another case in point. But for pure fun, nothing tops Abbey's "premarital honeymoon" adventure in "Disorder and Early Sorrow." If you're a fan of Abbey and you buy the book for that story alone, you won't be disappointed.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Arguably Abbey's best,
By mrgrieves08 (tucson) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Journey Home (Paperback)
That claim may seem a little rash in the face of Abbey's great prose work, Desert Solitaire, but this book in my view offers a more intimate and personal look at Abbey himself and provides some great insights into his formation as writing placed withi the context of the American west. One of the strengths of this work, as opposed to Desert Solitaire, is the broadness of subject matter covered. Abbey begins by recounting his life changing hitch-hiking, train jumping tour across america to the west in the summer of 1944. His style, however, is like Kerouac, but without the without the self consciousness and pretension. Through Abbey's it is nature that is the subject, his personal exploits are merely secondary/accidental; Abbey is just along for the ride. He tells of his first glimpse of the mesa's of Hopi country on the fringes of the Painted Desert as viewed from the side door of the Pullman as he drifted down the tracks towards New Mexico. Throughout, he describes his love of the desert and the creatures that live there with a vitality and gentleness uncommon in today's environmental discourse. This sensitivity is even more pronounced when compared with his verbal protests against what he sees as the destroyers of his desert paradise, such as, the miners, developers, dammers, trappers and, yes, even the tourists. "The Journey Home" closes with a surrealistic celebration of the desert as seen through the detached lens of an anonymous camera, which I consider some of his most beautiful and original writing. For all those who have read Desert Solitaire, read this to get a more intimate look of the man behind the ideas. Abbey's contradictions are what makes him so great as an American writer. He is at once an anarchist, environmentalist, desert rat, river-runner, essayist and novelist, but above all a man from pennsylvania who became entraptured by the mysteries of the desert and dedicated his life to celebrating its beauty.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Extremists aren't usually this much fun,
By
This review is from: The Journey Home (Paperback)
Reading Abbey reminds me of lines from the Scottish poet, Hugh MacDiarmid:I'll have no half-way house, but aye be where/ Extremes meet; it's the only way I ken/ To dodge the cursed conceit of bein' rich/ That damns the vast majority of men. That's Abbey for you, and he has a helluva great time out there where extremes meet. Is there any other way to live?
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Specific Groups > Adventurers & Explorers
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics > United States
- Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Classics
- Books > Outdoors & Nature > Nature Writing
- Books > Outdoors & Nature > Reference
- Books > Reference > Writing > Travel
- Books > Science > Nature & Ecology > Essays
- Books > Travel > Reference & Tips > Essays & Travelogues
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
