Mountains of the Mind

Robert Macfarlane's Mountains of the Mind is the most interesting of the crop of books published to mark the 50th anniversary of the first successful ascent of Everest. Macfarlane is both a mountaineer and a scholar. Consequently we get more than just a chronicle of climbs. He interweaves accounts of his own adventurous ascents with those of pioneers such as George Mallory, and in with an erudite discussion of how mountains became such a preoccupation for the modern western imagination.

The book is organised around a series of features of mountaineering--glaciers, summits, unknown ranges--and each chapter explores the scientific, artistic and cultural discoveries and fashions that accompanied exploration. The contributions of assorted geologists, romantic poets, landscape artists, entrepreneurs, gallant amateurs and military cartographers are described with perceptive clarity. The book climaxes with an account of Mallory's fateful ascent on Everest in 1924, one of the most famous instances of an obsessive pursuit. Macfarlane is well-placed to describe it since it is one he shares.

MacFarlane's own stories of perilous treks and assaults in the Alps, the Cairngorms and the Tian Shan mountains between China and Kazakhstan are compelling. Readers who enjoyed Francis Spufford's masterly I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination will enjoy Mountains of the Mind. This is a slighter volume than Spufford's and it loses in depth what it gains in range, but for an insight into the moody, male world of mountaineering past and present it is invaluable. --Miles Taylor

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A passion shared - Rated
...is not a passion halved in this case. I, like MacFarlane, am a bloke slightly obsessed with mountains and he took me back to some good memories of climbs that I will probably never attempt again. It was with open-eyed exhilaration that I read this book. Splendid reading, even for those who like level terra firma.

Fantastic prose! - Rated
I have tended to read books of the mountains when skiing each year and this book was fantastic in its ability to explain why we take risks and why people climb mountains. It was great to read then go up into the mountains and it gave me a completely different appreciation of where I was. Bravo!

If you love mountains you must read this. - Rated
I don't feel qualified to review this following the universally excellent comments it has justly received. However, I must say that it is one of the few books that I return to to read passages from time and time again. It is a fantastic book and for Lake District lovers, a must read.

A gentle climb - Rated
This book has been deservedly praised for the way it traverses a great deal of material with such elegance and elan. It retells some familiar stories in a fresh way and neatly blends cultural history with evocative descriptions of the author's mountain experiences. Although the central theme that landscapes are culturally determined is familiar and the format of these kind of cultural histories is now well established (Sprawson on swimming, Solnit on walking, Woodward on ruins etc.), the book never feels tired and the pace is maintained until the last page. MacFarlane is sure footed on writers like Shelley or Dr Johnson, stumbles a bit on art (Alexander Cozens was not a nineteenth century artist!) and is really in his element with anecdotes on Victorian climbing. 'Mountains of the Mind' centres on European attitudes in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, culminating in Mallory's ascent. This leaves a slightly disconcerting gap between the 1920s and MacFarlane's own recent experiences: it would be interesting to read how cultural attitudes have changed since Mallory's time. Although the mountains of Asia are central to the narrative, the cultural attitudes to mountains in Asia are not discussed. So for example, he doesn't discuss Hsieh Ling-Yun or Han Shan or the Western beat poets and climbers subsequently inspired by them. Then again, it's such a mountainous subject it would have been a challenge to include everything in one volume.

Travels through 'Deep Time.' - Rated
O the mind, mind has mountains..............

Gerard Manly Hopkins. c.1880

In this unique book Robert MacFarlane presents us with mountains both as physical/ geological construct and, as the title would suggest, the mental construct of modern man.

His very persuasive standpoint being, that mountains and our attitudes towards them owe as much to mindscape as they do to landscape.

MacFarlane cleverly blends the two in a progression from 16th century 'terra incognita' and a 'There be Dragons' mentality, through the 'sublime' mountain worship of Shelley, Ruskin et al, to the scientific endeavors still linked with mountaineering at the beginning of the 20th century, arriving finally at the noble pursuit of mountain climbing and the consequent courting of danger as a laudable end in itself. And all this, running in parallel with the acknowledgement of 'Deep Time' inherent in the ongoing decoding of geological encryption.

His description of landscape and geological forces in what he calls 'The Great Stone Book' is fascinating and is achieved in such a way that it is both simple and at times poetic in its rendering of information more normally associated with the technically prosaic.

He is eclectic in his literary references with quotes ranging from Petrarch to Simpson - Joe and all points in between, sampling freely from poetry, prose, diary and letter. He also draws heavily on the artistic endeavors of many across the ages and it is in this department that the book displays what is, for this reviewer, its only weakness, poor quality photographic reproduction.

Mountains Of The Mind could be said to be truly, and indeed literally, visionary in its conception and MacFarlane has succeeded in telling a wonderful tale of the evolution of the mountain world in the consciousness of modern man.