78 pages • 2 hours read
Edward AbbeyThe Monkey Wrench Gang
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1975A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-24 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “Seldom Seen at Home”
At one of his wives' homes in Green River, Utah, Seldom Seen Smith lies in bed at night. He drifts pleasantly to sleep but has a nightmare. Agents of "the Director" (255) catch Smith and bring him to the Director, a humanoid creature with a single "red beam" (255) instead of eyes. Smith knows that like Doc, Bonnie, and Hayduke, he’s going to be punished.
The Director asks Smith if he's the man prophesied in the Book of Mormon who will "take his family and depart into the wilderness" (256). Answering his own question, the Director says Smith is not. Rather, Smith will become one of them. Smith finds himself "pinioned instantly by rigid, though invisible, bonds" (256). He struggles against them as agents of the Director affix cables into and onto his body. The Director orders a magnetic tape shoved inside Smith's body then tells Smith to work on a complicated math equation. The Director gives Smith "0.000012 millisecond in which to perform this basic operation" (258). If Smith fails, the Director says they'll have to harvest his organs for transplant and recycle the rest of his body.
Smith wakes with a jolt, calling for Sheila.
