The problem with nature writers today...

[PaleoRob]

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.
[/rant]

[Randal_Schulhauser]

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),

And "The Marauders" has an appropriate subject of a chapter titled thus? Mould broken...

[big_load]

I guess I'm not the only one.
I scour the shelves wherever I go and don't find much worth reading. What frustrates to me about Abbey's followers is how many enslave themselves to his weaknesses as if they were strengths. I wonder if the subject matter lacks the popular appeal needed to attract the people who would risk making a career of it. In retrospect, there never were all that many at the top level, but I'll never stop wishing for more.

[PaleoRob]

And "The Marauders" has an appropriate subject of a chapter titled thus? Mould broken...

Well, it is true that I do have a couple things in there about that, but I don't know if my chapters are appropriately titled. ;)
Besides, I don't remove myself from my own criticism. In some of my writing/triplogs/etc., I fall into the Abbey trap as well. But in The Marauders there is a deliberate attempt to mirror many of the events within TMG, to serve as a blueprint for a plot that examines (in part) what a group of folks with similar ideals to TMG would do and how they'd fare in a post 9/11 world. By providing a familiar structure, I hoped to recall some of the parts of TMG and have that memory stand in contrast (at times) or in harmony with (at times) what was going on to the characters in The Marauders.

[PaleoRob]

What frustrates to me about Abbey's followers is how many enslave themselves to his weaknesses as if they were strengths.

Yeah, it truly is frustrating to have to reread the same old hash and wonder why the same irritating things are happening in every book, no matter the author. Abbey's strengths allowed him to overcome the faults of his writing. Most outdoor writers (specifically southwestern writers) today don't rise above them.

[big_load]

I need to edit more carefully.

Rob, do you read arctic-oriented folks like Barry Lopez and Gretel Erlich? Farley Mowat is one of my favorites, although he sometimes escaped the bounds of literal truth (mitigated somewhat by later revelations).

[JimmyLyding]

Perhaps Four Corners Rob can go up to the Arctic Circle to experience some Arctic Dreams and a Silent Spring? I know that I'd love to do so!

Most authors suffer from either not giving us what we want OR giving us almost everything we want, and then failint to give us enough because we want more.

'Silent Spring' tells us of the harm that our chemical industry does to our ecosystem, but without telling us how to reconcile that chemical industry with ecological concerns.
We know that our fellow humans should stop shooting wolves up in the White Mountains, but the people up there haven't realized the benefit of doing such. The un-knowing rednecks would never believe the words contained in "Never Cry Wolf." How could some people who are used to A + B + C = D understand that the natural world is a lot more complicated than that? Furthermore, how are they supposed to understand that the natural world works in their benefit no matter if they are raising cattlee or work @ Circle K?

[azbackpackr]

Okay, I am going to bring up Bruce Berger here again, since every time I mention him I get no response. He is, or was, (not sure he has published anything in the past few years) a very fine journalist. There Was a River, which is a collection of essays, features a story which describes his rafting trip through the Glen in 1962 or thereabouts. They figured they were the last people to boat the Glen--Katie Lee was also on that float trip. His prose is low key, well-crafted, observant. He is not trying to imitate anyone. I really like all the essays I have ever read by him. His books were published by the U of Arizona Press. I think he taught journalism there for awhile, but now lives in Colorado.

Here you can buy the book for a penny on Amazon and see for yourself:
http://www.amazon.com/There-Was-River-E ... ikearizona

Another of his fine essay books is The Telling Distance: Conversations with the American Desert.

OH HEY LOOK he has his own website, too! http://www.bruceberger.net/ Having had a long history of travels in Baja, he has written several books on that subject as well.

[PaleoRob]

Rob, do you read arctic-oriented folks like Barry Lopez and Gretel Erlich? Farley Mowat is one of my favorites, although he sometimes escaped the bounds of literal truth (mitigated somewhat by later revelations).

I read very little outdoor/nature/wilderness writing that is not centered around the desert, specifically the Colorado Plateau. I know that this places limits on my knowledge. On the other hand, I have very little desire to travel anywhere outside of the southwest (other than to Central and South America), and my few attempts to "branch out" to other locales in terms of writing have had mixed results for me.

[azbackpackr]

I have read lots of arctic books as well. My favorites are by Constance Helmericks and her daughter, Jean Aspen, who lived in Tucson for a long time--I met her and she signed my books! Jean's book Arctic Daughter is amazing.

I have also read, regarding Alaska and the Arctic: John McPhee, Barry Lopez, Farley Mowat, Richard Nelson, Alistair Scott.

I have not really spent any time in the Arctic, although landed and got off the plane during refueling in GREENLAND of all places, in 1966, on the way to Scandinavia. (I was 13, so yes, it did make an impression on me.) Up in Alberta, I think it is in Jasper National Park, there is a place where you cross the Arctic Divide, where all the rivers run into the Northland--Hudson Bay, Arctic Circle, etc.

I would like to visit Alaska and the Yukon, but it is sorta cold there in winter...

[big_load]

The arctic has a lot in common with the desert. Too bad Abe hasn't posted in a while. It would be interesting to hear his perspective.

[Jim]

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 pumpkin 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.
[/rant]

You see, now that is why I don't read. In fact, I sometimes wish I was completely illiterate. It's like a lot of things: there is the first or first few that pioneer something, and then the huge number of people that follow behind it, trying to recreate that which they admire. How many religious icons have had countless and completely un-noteworthy books written about them? While I am not into most things other people are interested in, I will say this, as it is the only analogy that comes to mind. Don't be the next Jesus follower, be the next Joe Smith! We don't need anymore Muir or Abbey (whoever that is) followers, we need someone to come along and shake things up with new criminal exploits or glowing new descriptions of a wilderness..

[Jeffshadows]

I think we are losing a lot of great opportunities for narrative on wilderness experience simply because our society is so far detached from nature and so few truly wild areas remain.

[Jim]

I think we are losing a lot of great opportunities for narrative on wilderness experience simply because our society is so far detached from nature and so few truly wild areas remain.

Perhaps a new glowing manual filled with rich prose on the Ipod touch?

[Tough_Boots]

You might want to check out Charles Bowden's last book in the trilogy Some of the Dead are Still Breathing. I thought that book was pretty amazing and its more nature driven than a lot of his more recent works. The Charles Bowden Reader comes out this fall and I'm curious to see what they include. I'll hopefully have an early copy later this summer if they print some review copies.

I'm also reading the new Bernd Heinrich, Nesting: Cuckoos, Cuckolds, and the Invention of Monogamy, which is pretty well written so far. I also went back recently and read Barry Lopez's Of Wolves and Men which was super interesting except for his extremely generalized view of Native American cultures-- but it WAS written in the 70's when it was hip to believe that Native Americans were really just a bunch of nature hippies before Europeans came over.

I've been a bookseller for about 10 years now and essentially the nature writing market is like any other genre-- most of it sucks and you have to weed through a bunch of garbage. There are also some books I think are poorly written that others love. For example, I think Craig Childs is interesting enough to be worth reading but I don't think he's that great of a writer. I'm also a big Abbey fan but think his fiction is absolutely terrible. Compared to Desert Solitaire, The Monkeywrench Gang is poorly written, poorly plotted, and just poorly executed in general.

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.

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.

[Jeffshadows]

I like most of Bowden's work. He did Killing the Hidden Waters, did he not?

[Tough_Boots]

He did Killing the Hidden Waters, did he not?

That's him alright-- AZ's best kept secret.

[azbackpackr]

Bowden's very good, brilliant, in fact, although he is very dark and pessimistic. Between him and Cormac McCarthy, you may as well commit suicide, because the world is a very bad place, and what is the point of living in it anyway? Count me out of subjecting myself to any more of that intensely depressing stuff, even if some of it is truly great literature. I just bloody well don't care. I want to be happy, and that is that.

I agree with you about Abbey. Although I have found The Monkeywrench Gang to be quite entertaining, it really isn't a great work of fiction. And his other novels mostly are maudlin and pretentious. All his books have a few brilliant moments, a few brilliant passages. If he had not been such a bad drunk, perhaps he might have been a better writer. Or then again, perhaps not...

Anyway, his collections of essays, plus Desert Solitaire generally turn out to be the best of his efforts, I think.

Check out Bruce Berger if you like essays about the Southwest.

[Jeffshadows]

RE: Bowden - I agree with most of his viewpoints, though. It's very hard not to be pessimistic given the current political climate. Exhibit 1: The oil spill. Nothing could be more obviously destructive to our larger ecosystem and patently man-caused. I still have yet to see any real outcry. 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?

[Jim]

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.