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Desert Solitaire Excerpts
17 Mar 2004 by Matthew Linderman
In Desert Solitaire (1968), Edward Abbey muses on a season in the wilderness. Some excerpts…
On clarity in the desert:
To me the desert is stimulating, exciting, exacting; I feel no temptation to sleep or to relax into occult dreams but rather an opposite effect which sharpens and heightens vision, touch, hearing, taste and smell. Each stone, each plant, each grain of sand exists in and for itself with a clarity that is undimmed by any suggestion of a different realm. Claritas, integritas, veritas.
On surfaces:
For my own part I am pleased enough with surfaces. In fact they alone seem to me of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child’s hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of friend or lover, the silk of a girl’s thigh, the sunlight on rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind---what else is there? What else do we need.
Thanks to the SvN reader who suggested it in a thread here long ago.
1 comment so far (Post a Comment)
17 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...
Good stuff.
I like to talk about such things: favorite smell (lemon), favorite taste (mint), favorite sound (walking on crushed gravel), etc.
I like the feel of "pebbled" leather (for lack of a better term), much like on a football or some cigars.
Being atuned to your surroundings, the sights, the sounds, the smells ... these are the things that bring life to living.
