The Monkey Wrench Gang

I needed to read a book about the South-West of the United States since I have spent so much time in Tucson on various business trips. Lately I did even so good hikes in the wilderness. That connection helps enormously to get hooked up with the book almost instantly. It is truly different when you know the places. Edward Abbey lived in Tucson and mostly out in his beloved desert. He saw this unique environment threatened by big corporations – especially the mining and logging industry. But also by infrastructure project of the government, which basically helped to get the dirty work done even quicker.
Besides the intimate description of the desert, the book is about an anarchic gang and its adventures. The gang was founded on a Canyon river tour. Drunk and around a campfire they form a gang to fight back. They form the Monkey Wrench Gang. The monkey wrench in combination with some sand is an essential tool to destroy evil machines, that build new highways, bridges, dams, help to extract raw material, or chop down trees. The gang is formed by a mormon – Seldom Seen Smith, a surgeon – Dr. Sarvis, a Jewish girl from Brooklyn – Ms. B. Abbzug, and a Vietnam veteran – George W. Hayduke. After a quick introduction of the bizarre characters the books turns quickly into a sequence of monkey wrenching sabotage actions wherever they find evil machines and subsequent chases. Theres is always a lot of humor and suspense … it could go one forever.
I concede that this is not a book for everybody, since it can easily hurt the feelings of good citizens. But I enjoyed it despite of the fact that in real life I help to optimize the machine the Monkey Wrench Gang tries to destroy. In its anarchic way it questions our right to consume nature and the right of those, who want to have an undisturbed refuge in nature. I stop here since it would turn into an essay about environmentalism and its place in democracy.