But what is Hopkins’ line doing, serving as an epigraph to such a book? Hopkins’ poem is about melancholia; indeed, it might be one of the most powerful and moving explorations of the mind’s travails. Here is how I read his line: our mind is capable of entertaining thoughts and feelings which contain within them chasms of despair, points at which we stare into a dark abyss, an unfathomable one, with invisible depths. These are our own private hells, glimpses of which we catch when we walk up to the edge and look. The effect on the reader–especially one who has been to the mountains–is dramatic; you are reminded of the frightening heights from which you can gaze down on seemingly endless icy and windswept slopes, the lower reaches of which are shrouded with their own mysterious darkness; and you are reminded too, of the darkest thoughts you have entertained in your most melancholic moments. Over the centuries, though, this has obviously changed. Writers and painters began to look on mountains as things of beauty. Geologists studied them in their efforts to describe the creation of earth itself. With the reputation of mountains growing, adventurers began to assault their slopes, risking all for an ephemeral thrill, which then had to be rationalized at length. He didn’t even reach the summit although his group had one, notable achievement of sorts: they were the first to discover a climbable path towards the very top of the tallest mountain in the world located at its so-called “North Face” (thus, maybe, where the now famous brand of outdoor gears and apparel got its name). By now, my slow reading was more by choice. I was savouring the passages I read, seeing the world through new eyes.

The last two chapters of the book were the best. The chapter on Everest gave a straightforward account of George Mallory's obsession with climbing Everest that I found compelling, and the final chapter, which is also the shortest chapter, was most like what I expected the book to be about: a critical analysis of the human drive to climb to the top. Liberated from fear, he achieves a serene, practical awareness and what has seemed like a dead end now becomes a way forward. Most of us regard risking our lives in this way as foolish, but such profound experiences are compelling, even addictive. Macfarlane's "history of the imagination" is resolutely Eurocentric, and little space is granted to the non-Western mind (.....) Mountains of the Mind is, broadly, a cultural history interleaved with autobiographical vignettes (the author's agent told him to "put an 'I' into it"). The latter are nicely handled." - Ian Pindar, Times Literary Supplement Gradually, the team moved up the mountain, establishing successively higher camps. The altitude, the extreme cold and the load-bearing began to take their toll. But as Herzog grew physically weaker, so his conviction strengthened that the summit was attainable. Eventually, on 3 June, he and a climber called Louis Lachenal left Camp V, the highest camp, in a bid for the top of Annapurna. Mountains of the Mind is a tumult of delights all the way. I found it particularly rewarding on early puzzling about the origin of mountains." - Roy Herbert, New Scientist

Success!

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.

Over and over I read that passage, and I wanted nothing more than to be one of those two tiny dots, fighting for survival in the thin air. Of course the significant difference between de Saussure's chamois hunter and me was that for the hunter, risk wasn't optional - it came with the job. I sought risk out, however. I courted it. In fact, I paid for it. This is the great shift which has taken place in the history of risk. Risk has always been taken, but for a long time it was taken with some ulterior purpose in mind: scientific advancement, personal glory, financial gain. About two-and-a-half centuries ago, however, fear started to become fashionable for its own sake. Risk, it was realised, brought its own reward: the sense of physical exhilaration and elation which we would now attribute to the effects of adrenaline. And so risk-taking - the deliberate inducement of fear - became desirable: became a commodity. Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination is a book by British writer Robert Macfarlane published in 2003 about the history of the human fascination with mountains. The book takes its title from a line by the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and combines history with first-person narrative. He considers why people are drawn to mountains despite their obvious dangers, and examines the powerful, and sometimes fatal hold that mountains can come to have over the imagination. The book's heroes include the mountaineer George Mallory, and its influences include the writing of Simon Schama and Francis Spufford. [1] In the end, Macfarlane criticizes Mallory for devoting more time to the mountain than his wife and notes that he has personally sworn off high-risk mountaineering. The New York Times's John Rothchild praised the book, writing "There's fascinating stuff here, and a clever premise, but Mountains of the Mind may cause recovering climbaholics to trace their addiction to their early homework assignments and file class-action lawsuits against their poetry teachers." [2]That was it - I was sold on adventure. In one of the reading binges which only the expanses of childhood time permit, I plundered my grandfather's library and by the end of that summer I had read a dozen or so of the most famous real-life exploration stories from the mountains and the poles, including Apsley Cherry-Garrard's tale of Antarctic endurance, The Worst Journey in the World, John Hunt's The Ascent of Everest and Edward Whymper's bloody account of his Scrambles Amongst the Alps. The accounts of exploration are interesting but this book is chiefly centered on cultural fascination rather than tales of daring do. This is a history of mountains not mountaineering which is an important distinction. In a nutshell why people came to the mountain and how they dreamed and desired it is McFarlane's chief concern. This is a geneology for how people thought about mountains not a list of statistics and dates. 'Mountains of the Mind' is a challenge to hubris. It speaks to our complacency that the world is made by and for humans. Macfarlane tells this tale using a variety of techniques, melding cultural history, geological history, and his own experiences as a climber. The result is a beautifully written meditation that attempts to deconstruct the gravitational pull of mountains, while often succumbing to it. Macfarlane, a mountain lover and climber, has a visceral appreciation of mountains. . . . He is an engaging writer, his commentary, always crisp and relevant, leavened by personal experience beautifully related.”– The Observer (UK) Macfarlane writes with tremendous maturity, elegance and control. . . . A powerful debut, a remarkable blend of passion and scholarship.”– Evening Standard (UK)

Then came a shout. "Cailloux! Cailloux!" I heard yelled from above, in a female voice. The words echoed down towards us. I looked up to see where they had come from. 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:Clearly Mallory himself didn’t know why he kept on doing what killed him in the end. Certainly there was a promise of fame and fortune. Had he succeeded, he would have come down from the mountain a hero and a celebrity, his name forever etched immortally in the history of mountain climbing. But this could not have been just the reason because even up to now, after countless successful climbs by all sorts of people (even kids, the blind, old people and the one-legged), people still continue to climb it and dying either on their way up or on their way down. McFarlane juxtaposes the cultural history with his own personal accounts. Some reviewers are of the opinion that the personal stories were unnecessary but I didn't mind his own input and I felt that it was a nice diversion from the more academic parts of the book. US hardcover subtitle: How Desolate and Forbidding Heights Were Transformed into Experiences of Indomitable Spirit 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. There was something unusual in the way I saw Lachenal and everything around us. I smiled to myself at the paltriness of our efforts. But all sense of exertion was gone, as though there were no longer any gravity. This diaphanous landscape, this quintessence of purity - these were not the mountains I knew; they were the mountains of my dreams. "