Desert Solitaire

1. The author explores the possibility of using language to explore nature. What problems does he see and experience in this effort? How is he successful?
Edward Abbey is clearly descriptive throughout the book. Practically all of the 292 pages of it are dedicated to describing the phenomena of nature. Edward Abbey

I think Edward Abbey fails to see how nature is perceived by many, not just him. Throughout the book he is complaining of industrialism overtaking the natural world as we know it. It's also explained how he is against the growth and spread of national parks everywhere, as they pave unnecessary roads and bring human pollution into once untouched. Surely, this is an issue, but in full he never really realized how this can be stopped. Why didn't he? Because it can't. He proposes with the 2 officials that come to his trailer to have tourists be forced out of their car and walk along the blazed trails of the park instead of speeding through them like there's nothing to see. However, he fails to realize that this is not the way nature is perceived by the mass; that the
3. The author writes: "If I am serious, and I am, then the desert has driven me crazy. Not that I mind." What does he mean? What is the significance of this quote?
In the book the desert solitaire, Edward Abbey is very attached to the nature of the desert as a whole. He even goes as far as to say he'd rather eat a human than harm an animal. Clearly he was some sort of crazy, at least, when he "brained a little bastard" one day on the job by killing a rabbit with a stone, then declaring that his soul was clean as snow. Perhaps this sort of initiative is not the only "different" thing about him. The quote is significant because of what he means behind it. He may have already been crazy before he came to the desert but that just aided in his hate for society.