What Shall I Stand For

"Every journey, wherever and whenever it begins, has a before and after"

Sean Prentiss

Finding Abbey

"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul"

Edward Abbey

Growing up in southwest Colorado, surrounded by mountains and rivers and only a stones throw from canyon country, almost instantly give a connection to the literature of Edward Abbey. Activist, monkey wrencher, river runner, outdoors man, and writer, his writing shaped the way I see the world around my than any other writing. The Monkey Wrench Gang changed the American west, turning conservation into a main stream issue, helping to protect the wilderness so that it was not gone by the time that I was born. He was a man who took his stand.

I first read Edward Abbey when I was nineteen. My parents were passionate outdoors people and by that age I was already an accomplished river runner (not to toot my own horn or anything), and Desert Solitaire struck a chord in me. I was studying at Fort Lewis College at the time, majoring in both Chemistry and Philosophy, and just learning how to structure my thoughts and arguments, really deciding who I wanted to grow up to be. While five years later I'm still not sure, Edward Abbey has become a powerful teacher in my life, being the example of what to do and what not to do. He taught me that we must take a stand.

In Finding Abbey, Sean Prentiss is searching for a place to make his stand. In his search he decides to undertake the quest to find Ed Abbey's desert grave. Along the way he explores his ideological demons while visiting the places Abbey had lived and interviewing Abbey's close friends. The result in this book was an utterly charming literary travel adventure story, a very heartfelt and sweet quest for self discovery while examining how Abbey lived and how he died, and examining the need that humans sometimes have for wildness. 

I loved this book. Truth be told, I read it in a day. It was wonderful to see the author examine Abbey the idol with Abbey the imperfect, utterly human, man, and then see him experience the same conflict viewing himself as he was, settleing in suburbia, and himself as he wanted to be, taking his stand. It is a conflict that I think we often find in ourselves. It was also a wonderful examination of the authors search for home, a quest that I think all of us partake in at one point in our lives or another.

"What's the use: no matter where I go, what I do, I can't get the canyon country out of my heart. A love affair with a pile of rock."

Edward Abbey