Canyonlands National Park, Utah, is the geographical starting point of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. More
specifically, within the park his home base, a "little tin government housetrailer" in which he lived for the six months of
summer three different seasons, watches over the Arches National Monument. He travels this expanse of land, containing
a large number natural arches, carved out of the desert rock by the persistent forces of nature over the years, cleaning up
after weekend tourists, scouting for lost or confused hikers, and simply taking part in the world of nature which surrounds
him. In the introduction of Desert Solitaire his love of this work is easy to see: "Those were all good times, especially the
first two seasons when the tourist business was poor and the time passed extremely slowly, as time should pass, with the
days lingering and long, spacious and free as the summers of childhood." `

Edward Abbey uses adjectives freely threw out the essays in this book, often more than one at a time, yet done in such
away that he is not verbally gaudy.

               "Each day begins clean and promising in the sweet cool clear light of dawn." "Stars which are unusually
               bold and close, with an icy glitter in their light--Glints of blue, emerald, gold….cliffs and pinnacles and
               balanced tacks of sandstone (now entrusted to my care) have lost the rosy glow of sunset and
               becomes soft, intangible, in unnamed unnamable shades of violet, colors that seem to radiate
               from--not overly--their surfaces."

At first a reader may find it almost laborious to concentrate on the sentence at hand in order to keep the motion of the
piece flowing. After reading the first essay or two his style becomes less taxing and more enwrapping.

Abbey uses commas almost as a cushioning between all the thoughts he squeezes into one sentence, and even with the
padding the pieces of the sentence some times rub against each other. Occurring even more often than his detailed
adjectival phrases are the serial listings of thoughts or objects of nature. When running off on a tangent raging against
paved roads in a park and of the need for requiring tourist to get out of their cars and on their feet to enjoy the land he
says:

               A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off in their own, and no obstacles should be placed
               in their path; let time take risks, for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by
               bears, buried alive under avalanches--that is the tight and privilege of any free American. But the rest,
               the majority, most of them new to the out-of-doors, will need and welcome assistance, instruction and
               guidance. Many will not know how to saddle a horse, read a topographical map, follow a trail over
               slickrock, memorize landmarks, build a fire in rain, treat snakebite, rappel down a cliff, glissade down
               a glacier, read a compass, find water under sand, load a burro, splint a broken bone, bury a body,
               patch a rubber boat, portage a waterfall, survive a blizzard, avoid lightning, cook a porcupine comfort
               a girl during a thunderstorm, predict the weather, dodge falling rack, climb out of a box canyon, or
               pour piss out or a boot. Park rangers know these things, or should know them, or used to know them
               and can relearn them; they will be needed."

This quote is one of the more exaggerated examples of his work. It does how ever illustrate his taste in this grammatical
sense quite distinctly. The style displayed here gives one a sense that he is simply spilling over with information that he
wants to tell so he squeezes every word he can into each sentence, and sometime more. Abbey uses these types of
extended sentences a little less than sparingly, yet not to the point of being over whelming. These paragraph long sentences
are very similar to the way Brian Doyle's essay Two on Two capture's the reader in an intense drive forward. The majority
of these sentences are a grammatical nightmare and he knows it. He makes no apology, in fact he makes it quite clear in
his introduction that his intention is not to meet grammatical standards. "Serious critics, serious librarians, serious associate
professors of English will if they read this work dislike it intensely; at least I hope so." On the opposite extreme are
sporadic one, two, and three word long sentences.

Spontaneity is a word that is very descriptive of both the man Edward Abby, and his writing. In one instance while
stopped by the Grand Canyon on the way to Los Angeles with a few friends he hears of a place called Havasu, down in
the canyon that he decides he must visit. He runs down the fourteen-mile trail to "look things over. When [ he] returned
five weeks later [ he] discovered that the others had gone on to Los Angeles without [ him] ." This for me is the epitome of
spontaneity. His writing possess a feeling of freeness or openness because of the way his mentality affects his work.

The majority of the essays within Desert Solitaire are elaborations of his experiences while employed as a ranger in the
Canyonlands National Park, or of his experiences at other times yet in the same area. Abbey does not build essays in
direct relation to his personal experience in only three instances. Yet, even in these there is a type of introduction in which
he is sharing or experiencing something and them he shoots off on a tangent. One such tangent ends up telling a short story
of a man and his family trying to strike it lucky in the Uranium mining business. (This is in the Sixties when the government
was paying anyone for uranium.) This short story takes on a style much like a novel about some character. His second
tangent is his numerous reflections on "industrial tourism" (Tourism solely as a money makeing enterprise). Thus, industrial
tourism causes loss of sensitivity to nature and the best ways to enjoy that nature. He continues to explain what this type of
tourism will do to the parks and nature and how he dislikes it. His last major tangent is the plight of the Native American.
He discusses a little of their history and their "current" problems.

Edward Abbey uses the desert "more as a medium than as a material." The desert plays a clear unifying role threw out the
essays of the book. Each essay unfolds in its own unique way, yet always in the background (and foreground) so
consistent that almost becomes second nature the hot, dry, dusty, sandy, rocky Utah desert wraps around everything.
Abbey simply writes out of the world in which he is living. It is not something exotic or extra special, it is simply his world,
but he examines it in such a way as to draw every bit if goodness from it. It is in much this way that the Amish essayist
David Kline writes out of the world of his community. Each have the commonality of writing on things of nature, but they
are very different in their mental, physical, and spiritual worlds. Kline thrives in community and his essays are full of
relationships and nature of the Ohio mid-west. Abbey seeks solitude, will interact with people when necessary, and writes
from the Utah desert. Kline's appreciation of nature is evident simply in the way he writes about it; Abbey openly explains
the greatness of pure nature and just as openly criticizes anyone who would think differently. Kline's faith is a subtle
constant in his essays; Abbey only briefly mentions God:

" 'Ralph Newcomb,' I say, 'do you believe in God?'

'Who?' he says.

'Who?'

'Who.'

'You said it,' I say."

Abbey writes not to reveal any deep, thought provoking, life philosophies. He simply writes of things of surface
importance, for it is these things, "…the flavor of an apple…the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite
and sand…" that he loves. He writes of the land surrounding him and cherishes it. He writes to preserve the pure nature
that he once was a part of and is so quickly vanishing. He writes so that others may also take part in this nature.