Is Desert Solipsism a real book?

September 6, 2006 8:39 PM

Is Desert Solipsism a real book?

In The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey, the character Abbzug allegedly has a book titled Desert Solipsism. This sounds interesting to me, yet an internet search on the title performs the amazing feat of returning no results. Obscure, I guess. Does anyone know if this is a real book, a made up book, or an in-joke that I don't get? Thanks.

posted by copmuter to society & culture (9 comments total)

A search on RedLightGreen, the Research Libraries Group's union catalog, shows no hits. Is it possibly a slightly self-deprecating reference to Abbey's Desert Solitaire?
posted by IshmaelGraves at 8:46 PM on September 6, 2006

This book, calls it "...an allusive echo of Abbey's original title for the work Desert Solecism which became Desert Solitaire."
posted by vacapinta at 8:53 PM on September 6, 2006

Desert Solitaire is a good read. Wonderful stories and prose about the Western US National parks. I recommend picking it up.
posted by Roger Dodger at 9:09 PM on September 6, 2006

If you're interested, Wikipedia has an ineteresting list of fictional books, though judging from the Nabokov entries there, I would venture that it's less than exhaustive.

I seem to remember reading about another website (maybe on the blue or the green?) that catalogs fictional books, but I can't quite bring it up. Anyone?
posted by trip and a half at 9:53 PM on September 6, 2006

ineteresting == interesting, btw
posted by trip and a half at 9:54 PM on September 6, 2006

Yup, Desert Solitaire. Great read--it's what helps the Arches area distract me from other places I wanna see when I plan out road trips.
posted by notsnot at 9:54 PM on September 6, 2006

Having read Desert Solitaire a couple of times, I probably should have figured that out. I guess I had high hopes about this other book. Maybe I should take it as a challenge to write it.

I don't know if such a reference could be seen as self-deprecating, having a character in one of your books idolize your previous work. Sounds a little more megalomaniacal to me.

Another Monkey Wrench Gang question: are the characters purposefully portrayed as hypocritical, is this a description of personal and group dynamics, or am I overthinking this one too? An example of what I am thinking of concerns the group's attitude towards fences. One of them orders everyone to cut every fence they see, followed by a diatribe. Then later, upon almost hitting some animals in the road, one goes off about the natives being hopeless, not even being capable of erecting a proper fence. This is an important question for me as ideologically I sympathize with the characters in the book, but can't see a way to reconcile them with modern society. I also like when things get desperate, and Hayduke throws a can onto an unpaved road, against his stated principles, with a rebuttal consisting solely of obscenities. This theme in the book leads me to believe that Abbey has changed his role from ethicist to shit-disturber.
posted by copmuter at 10:34 PM on September 6, 2006

>I seem to remember reading about another website (maybe on the blue or the green?) that catalogs fictional books

It's the Invisible Library, http://invisiblelibrary.com/ but I can't get to it for some reason. Its domain may have expired or something.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 11:30 PM on September 6, 2006

Thanks, AmbroseChapel, that was it. I hope it comes back someday... in my memory it seems to have been much more extensive than the wiki link I posted.
posted by trip and a half at 12:27 AM on September 7, 2006