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The Monkey Wrench Gang is a novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
 written by American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 author
Author

An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created....
 Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey

Edward Paul Abbey was an United States author and essayist noted for his advocacy of natural environment issues and criticism of public land policies....
 (1927–1989), published in 1975.

Easily Abbey's most famous fiction work, the novel concerns the use of sabotage
Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy, oppressor or employer through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction....
 to protest environmentally
Natural environment

The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a term that encompasses all life and non-living things occurring nature on Earth or some region thereof....
 damaging activities in the American Southwest, and was so influential that the term "monkeywrench
Monkeywrenching

Monkeywrenching is economic warfare by sabotage, or ecotage, with the intent to slow down or halt activities which the monkeywrencher perceives as destructive....
" has come to mean, besides sabotage and damage to machines, any violence, sabotage, activism, law-making, or law-breaking to preserve wilderness, wild spaces and ecosystems. It is the bible of what some critics call "eco terrorists".

Plot summary
The book's four main characters are ecologically-minded misfits — a Jack Mormon
Jack Mormon

The term Jack Mormon is a slang term that was originated in the nineteenth century. It was originally used to describe somebody who was not a baptism member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , but who was friendly to Church members and Mormonism, sympathized with them, and/or took an active interest in their belief system....
 river guide, a surgeon, his young assistant, and a rather eccentric Green Beret
United States Army Special Forces

The United States Army Special Forces is a Special Operations Force of the United States Army tasked with five primary missions: unconventional warfare , foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action , and counter-terrorism....
 Vietnam veteran
Vietnam veteran

Vietnam Era veteran is a phrase used to describe someone who served in the armed forces of participating countries during the Vietnam War. The term has been used to describe veterans who were in the armed forces of South Vietnam, the United States armed forces, and countries allied to them, whether or not they were actually stationed in Viet...
, George Hayduke.






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Encyclopedia


The Monkey Wrench Gang is a novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
 written by American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 author
Author

An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created....
 Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey

Edward Paul Abbey was an United States author and essayist noted for his advocacy of natural environment issues and criticism of public land policies....
 (1927–1989), published in 1975.

Easily Abbey's most famous fiction work, the novel concerns the use of sabotage
Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy, oppressor or employer through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction....
 to protest environmentally
Natural environment

The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a term that encompasses all life and non-living things occurring nature on Earth or some region thereof....
 damaging activities in the American Southwest, and was so influential that the term "monkeywrench
Monkeywrenching

Monkeywrenching is economic warfare by sabotage, or ecotage, with the intent to slow down or halt activities which the monkeywrencher perceives as destructive....
" has come to mean, besides sabotage and damage to machines, any violence, sabotage, activism, law-making, or law-breaking to preserve wilderness, wild spaces and ecosystems. It is the bible of what some critics call "eco terrorists".

Plot summary


The book's four main characters are ecologically-minded misfits — a Jack Mormon
Jack Mormon

The term Jack Mormon is a slang term that was originated in the nineteenth century. It was originally used to describe somebody who was not a baptism member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , but who was friendly to Church members and Mormonism, sympathized with them, and/or took an active interest in their belief system....
 river guide, a surgeon, his young assistant, and a rather eccentric Green Beret
United States Army Special Forces

The United States Army Special Forces is a Special Operations Force of the United States Army tasked with five primary missions: unconventional warfare , foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action , and counter-terrorism....
 Vietnam veteran
Vietnam veteran

Vietnam Era veteran is a phrase used to describe someone who served in the armed forces of participating countries during the Vietnam War. The term has been used to describe veterans who were in the armed forces of South Vietnam, the United States armed forces, and countries allied to them, whether or not they were actually stationed in Viet...
, George Hayduke. Together, though not always working as a tightly-knit team, they form the titular group dedicated to the destruction of what they see as the system that pollutes and destroys their environments, the American West. As their attacks on deserted bulldozers and trains continue, the law closes in.

the Monkey Wrench Gang
The book was praised for its erudition, flair, down-home wit, and the accuracy of its descriptions of life away from civilization. (Abbey made the West his home and was a skilled outdoorsman.)

Interestingly from a 21st-century viewpoint, the Gang in some ways bears little resemblance to the modern media's portrayal of environmentalists — they eat lots of red meat, own firearms, drink beer (and litter the roadside with empty cans), drive big cars, etc. (Abbey's habits were reportedly similar.) Also, Abbey's politics are not "bleeding heart" (as most of the characters dismiss liberalism
Political liberalism

Political liberalism or constitutional liberalism is a body of thought that attempts to provide justification for the principles of limited government, including most or all of the following: restrictions against arbitrary use of power, constitutional definition of legitimate government power, the rule of law, government that exists by...
): they attack Indians as well as whites for their consumerism, hold little regard for the Sierra Club
Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892 in San Francisco, California by the well-known conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president....
, etc.

The Gang sees the 'enemy' as those who would develop the American Southwest: despoiling the land, befouling the air, and destroying Nature and the sacred purity of Abbey's desert world. The greatest hatred is focused on the Glen Canyon Dam
Glen Canyon Dam

Glen Canyon Dam is a dam on the Colorado River at Page, Arizona, USA, operated by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. The purpose of the dam is to provide water storage for the arid southwestern United States, and to generate electricity for the region's growing population....
, a monolithic edifice of concrete that dams a beautiful, wild river, and which the monkeywrenchers seek to destroy. Indeed, one of the book's most memorable scenes is that of Abbey's character Seldom Seen Smith
Seldom Seen Smith

Seldom Seen Smith is a character in the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang by author Edward Abbey. This character was known as the Jack Mormon in a group of people who would stop at nothing to prevent what they saw as the destruction of the desert wilderness which they loved....
, as he kneels atop the dam praying for a "pre-cision earthquake" to remove the "temporary plug" of the Colorado River.

Sequelae

The book may have been the inspiration for Dave Foreman's and Mike Roselle's creation of Earth First!
Earth First!

Earth First! is a radical Environmental movement that emerged in the Southwestern United States United States in 1979.Inspired by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Aldo Leopold's land ethic, and Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang, a group of activists pledged "No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!" Environmental activist Da...
, a direct action
Direct action

Direct action is politically motivated activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political goals outside of normal social/political channels....
 environmental organization that often advocates much of the minor vandalism depicted in the book. Many scenes of vandalism and ecologically-motivated mayhem, including a billboard burning at the beginning of the book and the use of caltrops to elude pursuing police, are presented in sufficient detail as to form a skeletal how-to for would-be saboteurs.

Literary significance and criticism

  • From the National Observer
    National Observer

    The National Observer was a weekly American newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company from 1962 until 1977. Hunter S. Thompson wrote several articles for the National Observer as the correspondent for Latin America early in his career....
    , "A sad, hilarious, exuberant, vulgar fairy tale... It'll make you want to go out and blow up a dam."
  • From the New York Times, "Since the publication of The Monkey Wrench Gang, Mr. Abbey has become an underground cult hero."
  • From the Washington Post, "One of the best writers to deal with the American West."
  • From the Houston Chronicle
    Houston Chronicle

    The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, United States. As of March 2008, it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States....
    , "What a thing of beauty is Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang."
  • Slovic, Scott. "Aestheticism and Awareness: The Psychology of Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang." CEA Critic 55.3 (1993): 54-68.
  • Cassuto, David N. "Waging Water: Hydrology vs. Mythology in The Monkey Wrench Gang." ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment 2.1 (1994): 13-36.


Sequel

  • Hayduke Lives
    Hayduke Lives

    Hayduke Lives! , written in 1989 by Edward Abbey, is the sequel to the popular book The Monkey Wrench Gang. It was published Posthumous work in 1990....
     - Continuing the story from where The Monkey Wrench Gang left off.


Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

A film adaptation of the book, to be directed by Catherine Hardwicke
Catherine Hardwicke

Catherine Hardwicke is an United States production designer and film director. Her works include the independent film Thirteen , the Biblically-themed The Nativity Story, and the vampire film Twilight ....
, is being planned.

Other works

  • See Edward Abbey
    Edward Abbey

    Edward Paul Abbey was an United States author and essayist noted for his advocacy of natural environment issues and criticism of public land policies....
     for a detailed list of Abbey's other works.


External links