Crucially, people go unharmed in Abbey's novel. Civilisation violates the land, so Hayduke ("a good, healthy psychopath") and his pals violate civilisation. Their grail is the destruction of the Glen Canyon Dam that blocks the Colorado river (and, it should be noted, still does).Ĭrunch! Kapow! Crash! Bang! The Monkey Wrench Gang is the wish-fulfilment dream of eco-Luddites everywhere. Their weapons are audacity, wit and gelignite. They blast power lines and disrupt strip mines. They drive quarry lorries over canyon rims. They pour sand into the fuel tanks of bulldozers. Hayduke is joined by three other activists – an anarchist doctor, a revolutionary feminist and a polygamist river guide – and this quartet of Quixotes heads out into red-rock country to wage war on techno-industry. Pro-conservation, pro-guns and extremely pro-booze, anti-mining, anti-tourism and extremely anti-dams, Hayduke appoints himself protector of the remaining desert regions of the American southwest, and becomes a pioneer in the art of "eco-tage", also known as "monkey wrenching" – using the tools of industry to demolish the infrastructure of industry in the name of the biosphere. I don't know anything else worth saving." Thus the career plan of George Washington Hayduke, hard-nut hero of Edward Abbey's 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang. 'M y job is to save the fucking wilderness.
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