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I've been thinking about this for a little while, after reading some of the extensive selection that we have here at the dam's bookstore. There are a lot of nature/desert/wilderness writers out there. Most of them are forgettable. It is not that they don't describe compelling areas, but in general their work falls flat. I have wondered and pondered this for several years, trying to figure out why. Just this weekend I think I came up with an answer.
The non-standouts in the pack are a bunch of Abbeyphiles. They blindly follow in Abbey's footprints, hero-worshiping, pretending to be the next incarnation of Abbey while falling far short of their mark. In Cedar Mesa: Where Spirits Dwell, there is a chapter entitled "The Raid at Comb Wash Redux", in homage of the famous chapter in The Monkeywrench Gang. Except instead of interesting prose and a provocative chapter about sabotaging construction machinery in Utah (which would, in my opinion, be the only appropriate subject of a chapter titled thus), the authors give us a dud - a hike along Comb Wash, interspersed with quotes from TMG. What a letdown - basically the entire passage is saying "Abbey makes me want to go hike, and I'm mad that things have changed." Except without much character.
In Where the Rain Children Dwell, the author is another Abbeyphile. He states he hates hero worship, but then turns right around and says that he makes an exception in Abbey's case. His long winded and ultimately uninteresting chapter "Down the River with Ed and the Major" describes a float trip down the Green River with works by Powell and Abbey (hence the title). The chapter is generally monotonous, and while the back cover of the book says that the author deserves a place with Abbey and McPhee, I disagree. The chapter is dull, and his imagining ("true story" of seeing the ghost of Abbey) on a beach along the Green is especially tepid and trite.
One need look no further than the internet to see legions of Abbeyphiles marching along, cranking out little "tributes", talking about their favorite place here or there, and how damn sad it is that the place is being destroyed, all in overly descriptive writing. ENOUGH! Enough I say! Regardless of if you hate or love Abbey, one must admit that he set the course for modern wilderness writing. All others, with few exceptions, fall under his umbrella. The four (or three, depending on your perspective) that escape the "write like Abbey" mold are Reisner, Krakauer, Childs, and Roberts. Is it any surprise that they are well known, then? They don't imitate an existing writer. Abbey didn't imitate Stegner, McPhee, or Muir - he broke the mold. I'm sick and tired of reading people that write like they're the Second Coming (of Abbey). It is high time someone else broke the mold.
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Jim_H wrote:

jeffmacewen wrote: How are we supposed to get people worried about the lack of water for growth in Tucson with disasters that dwarf such an issue being met with apathy on the global stage?

Charge a lot more for it.

Agreed. Sliding scale would be the way to give incentive...

Tough_Boots wrote:Totally untrue-- maybe here in the Southwest he's a pseudo-household name (not even that among non-outdoorsy people) but you'll find that's nowhere near the case in other places. Most of the new nature writing I see come through the bookstore I work at is much more journalism based.

See my statements above - I hardly ever read anything other than southwestern-based wilderness/outdoors writing. I don't read much journalistic writing, either (although David Quaamen's The Song of the Dodo was quite good). If I want journalistic stuff, I read primary research articles. If I want wilderness dialogue, or wilderness ethics, or wilderness exploration, I only turn to southwestern stuff.

I think it's fair to credit Abbey with a national reputation. He's one of the few authors you can reliably find on the ever-shrinking nature shelves of Borders and Barnes and Noble anywhere in the country, more so now than McPhee.

Ok, Bigload, re, John McPhee: I recently got Annals of the Former World via ILL and found I had already read most of it, due to the fact it is all his geology books combined into one huge unwieldy book I can't comfortably read in bed. Wish I had known that. I took it back to the library. I will request Crossing the Craton via ILL next, since that is the only part of it I haven't read. I still think I need to take a couple semesters of geology just to really begin to grasp the material, though. However, geology classes are in Show Low. Sigh...

My favorite McPhee is still that one about the bush hippies, trappers, and prospectors trying to make a go of it in Alaska: Coming into the Country. It is a bit dated, but I have read it several times over the years.

azbackpackr wrote:I had already read most of it,

That's true, but he fills in the gaps and updates bits of the earlier work. If I recall, there is at least one major section that is entirely new. I'll have to check back to identify it.

It is available on Amazon for 3 bucks right now. But I am getting rid of stuff right now, not acquiring stuff (except backpacking and kayaking gear... ) That is why the library is nice. So you are saying I would miss some of it if I just read Crossing the Craton? You want the truth? I missed half of it anyway, because I don't know enough about geology to really picture it all.

After reading the entries in this thread, I think the problem with nature writers today is they're writing for a diminishing audience... Those of us who've read most of their older stuff demand new and better material.

For most of the younger crowd, the closest they get to "nature" is when they (or their maid) cracks open a bottle of PineSol. If their Nordictrack incline trainer has an internet connection, they can have Jilian Michaels guide them through a forest or something...

I think the problem, in general, is most folks don't take the time to read. It requires work and imagination! Those are two things which will conspire to reduce new book sales no matter what the topic.

They should make an incline trainer with Bear Grylls on it, instead. You can fall like fifty feet and then you have to climb up some scaly vine for another hundred, etc...