Mountains of the Mind: a History of a Fascination

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I don’t read a lot of books like Mountains of the Mind. My bookshelves are lined with hefty volumes filled with high-stress historical events, of war and plague, oppression and political upheaval. In troubling times, I was drawn to this book’s low stakes, its thoughtful deliberations, and its gorgeous nature writing. Mountains are exceptionally hard to describe in words; even pictures often fail. But Macfarlane is exceptionally talented at describing indescribable sights. Below Toby, the slope narrowed down to a chute which funnelled out over the precipices on the south face of the ridge. If I slipped, or the snow gave way, I'd slide past Toby, pull him off, and we'd free-fall hundreds of feet down to the glacier.

In the final analysis, however, it could very well be just instinct. There is that universal, unexplainable pleasure in being confronted with fear and danger provided you survive it. That is why some love to watch horror movies, do shoplifting, race cars or ride roller coasters. I read someone describe mountain-climbers as the “Conquistadores of the Useless.” And echo of this is found in the following quote in this book: US hardcover subtitle: How Desolate and Forbidding Heights Were Transformed into Experiences of Indomitable Spirit Above all, I was drawn to those men who travelled to climb the high peaks of the Greater Ranges. So many of them died. I learned the roll-call by heart: Mallory and Irvine on Everest, Mummery on Nanga Parbat, Donkin and Fox on Koshtan-Tau . . . The list went on and on, through the ranks of the less familiar. The imaginative light the mountaineers cast over me was like that cast by the polar expeditions - the beauty and danger of the landscape, the immensities of space, the utter uselessness of it all - but with high altitudes in place of high latitudes. To be sure these people had their faults. They were beset by the sins of their age: racism, sexism and an unflagging snobbery. And mingled with their bravery was an acute selfishness. But I didn't notice these traits at the time. All I saw was impossibly brave men stepping out into the brilliant light of the unknown. Macfarlane adds his bit to the long lore of mountaineering, but his encounters with the peaks themselves have special presence and acuity. (b&w illustrations) I felt my feet freezing, but paid little attention. The highest mountain to be climbed by man lay under our feet! The names of our predecessors on these heights chased each other through my mind: Mummery, Mallory and Irvine, Bauer, WeIzenbach, Tilman, Shipton. How many of them were dead - how many had found on these mountains what, to them, was the finest end of all . . . I knew the end was near, but it was the end that all mountaineers wish for - an end in keeping with their ruling passion. I was consciously grateful to the mountains for being so beautiful for me that day, and as awed by their silence as if I had been in church. I was in no pain, and had no worry."

Success!

A convincing book of historical evidence alongside his own oxygen-deprived experiences in an attempt to answer the age old question, ‘Why climb the mountain?’"– San Francisco Chronicle

Mcfarlane has written a book on the fascination with mountains and has provided us with a survey of the associative literature, history and personal accounts. He documents the changing attitudes of men to mountains. He tries to answer the question 'Why do people still go to mountains? He answers this by showing us images, emotions and metaphors. "The way you read landscapes and interpret them is a function of what you carry into them with you, and of cultural tradition. I think that happens in every sphere of life. But I think in mountains that disjunction between the imagined and the real becomes very visible. People die because they mistake the imagined for the real". Macfarlane presents the material well, though occasionally (a bit too frequently for comfort) he over-reaches: Oil painting is an appropriate medium to represent the processes of geology, for oil paints have landscapes immanent within them: they are made of minerals. I was a twelve-year-old in my grandparents' house in the Scottish Highlands when I first came across one of the great stories of mountaineering: The Fight for Everest, an account of the 1924 British expedition during which George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared near the summit of Everest.Robert Macfarlane, Mountains of the Mind: How Desolate and Forbidding Heights Were Transformed Into Experiences of Indomitable Spirit I read Annapurna three times that summer. It was obvious to me that Herzog had chosen wisely in going for the top, despite the subsequent costs. For what, he and I were agreed, were toes and fingers compared to having stood on those few square yards of snow? If he had died it would still have been worth it. This was the lesson I took away from Herzog's book: that the finest end of all was to be had on a mountain-top - from death in valleys preserve me, 0 Lord. A crisp historical study of the sensations and emotions people have brought to (and taken from) mountains, laced with the author’s own experiences scrambling among the peaks.

When I read this passage, it made absolute sense to me, despite the intervening centuries. As de Saussure said, risk-taking brings with it its own reward: it keeps a "continual agitation alive" in the heart. Hope, fear. Hope, fear - this is the fundamental rhythm of mountaineering. Life, it frequently seems in the mountains, is more intensely lived the closer one gets to its extinction: we never feel so alive as when we have nearly died. Early mountaineers were lost for words to describe the splendor of the mountains, but Robert Macfarlane is not; in particular, he has a gift for arresting similes.”– The Times Literary SupplementAn imaginative, original essay in cultural history–a book that evokes as well as investigates the fear and wonder of high places.”–William Fiennes, author of The Snow Geese