Notes

Notes To the editor: Becky Jo Gesteland’s note in the November, 1993, issue of WAL asserts Edward Abbey was sexist and invites “a continuing discussion about Abbey, female readers, and the good-old-boys’ club of nature writing and criticism.” Since she mentions some of my work, with the implication I belong to that club (dues? a password? I don’t remember joining), perhaps I should join that discussion. For this note, I will narrow the discussion. WhetherAbbeywas sexist is not a question we can get at entirely through his published writing. As Abbey said, and I have tried to demonstrate, the persona in Abbey’s nonfiction is not necessarily the actual Edward Abbey, any more than the protagonists of his fiction were their author. To keep from assuming Ranger Abbey of Desert Solitaireis the author, let us focus on whether or not Abbey’s uniting is sexist. Even that is complex, requiring more careful consideration than notes such as Ms. Gesteland’s, or mine. Here I will only consider Gesteland’s specific examples ofAbbey’s sexism. I believe they are misapplications of the term and illustrate tendencies in contemporary criticism that should be resisted. The allegation of a “good-old-boys’club of nature writing and criticism”is startling, given the many highly regarded, widely published female nature writers and critics. That only Ann Ronald and Patricia Limerick have written about Abbey (Gesteland says only Ronald, but later cites Limerick) can hardly be blamed on Abbey or male critics. We all choose our topics. Gesteland does not allege that female critics have been kept from writing on Abbey. How, then, is there a “club,” other than as a code word to elicit an attitude of “us” and “them”and imply victimization? To infer that Abbey’s prefatory comment, that Desert Solitaire may seem “coarse, rude, bad-tempered, violently prejudiced, unconstructive—even frankly antisocial,” is evidence that he is sexist and proud of it is to reduce our reading to a single issue. If anything negative or irritating in a work makes it sexist, we are in for difficult times. Gesteland offers Abbey’s statement that he reacts to the landscape by wanting “to know it all, possess it all, embrace the entire scene intimately, deeply, totally, as a man desires a beautiful woman” (5) as sexist, yet it hardly seems to denigrate women. Surely we can allow Abbey to express himself as a heterosexual male with sexual desires. That the landscape arouses him to emotions similar to these strongest ofhuman feelings would seem an exaltation 144 WesternAmerican Literature of the landscape, not a debasing of women. He is trying to describe a basic human emotion. In Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman, Don Juan says of his sexual desire, “I blush for it, but I cannot help it.” Abbey’s statement shortly thereafter that he tries to suppress the tendency to personify nature is hardly a contradiction of his earlier response, as Gesteland asserts. His earlier statement does not personify nature. It likens his reaction to nature to his reaction to a beautiful woman. Finally, there are Gesteland’s “few choice phrases” to illustrate her point. Let us look at each, briefly. Her first “choice” phrase is “the brown silt-rich bosom of the Colorado” (153). The context contains no gender indicators. To argue thatAbbey is sexist, and therefore this passage is gender related, and then use the passage as evidence of sexism, is hopelessly circular. If “bosom” is only female, those expecting to rest in the bosom ofAbraham are in for a surprise. The second example refers to the pleasure Abbey feels upon embarking down the Colorado. He says it is “a pleasure almost equivalent to that first entrance—from the outside—into the neck of the womb” (154). Gesteland says Abbey is “crawling up the birth canal,”but again she misreads. Abbey is describ­ ing sexual intercourse, from the male point of view. He is equating the begin­ ning of the river trip to a supreme physical pleasure. Raunchy perhaps, but hardly sexist. The third example, “the same old wife everynight” (155), is Abbey’sjoking (?) glance at promiscuity in a series ofreactions against the restraints of...