This is the first book published by Macfarlane, in 2003, marking fifty years since the ascent of Everest. He has subsequently written several books on climbing, walking and the natural landscape. The 306 pages give a contemporary and individual slant on the history and issues from this academic, campaigner and climber.
“O the mind, mind has mountains” Gerard Manley Hopkins 1880, is the books epigraph indicating the contribution to the history of imagination made by the high places. He traces the development of attitudes to places of altitude from horror and rejection to being imbued with sublimity and spiritual purity by the romantic artists and writers. From places to be dominated, conquered in the high Victorian era to a changing more empathetic appreciation in more recent times-though this is contradicted by our own mass tourism and continuing exploitation.
The text steps forward with thematic discussions on subjects such as the development of geology, glaciers and ice, mapping and perceptions to altitude. As well as many references and quotes from significant writers Macfarlane also intersperses the text with personal experiences from his climbing life: the realities of extreme weather and rock forms. This is critical as it gives the book added dimension. The incidents are creatively developed in the light of common experience. He considers questions, such as why are we drawn to the high places? Why do we take on personal risk? What is the role of perception and imagination, do they make reality, are they shaped by it, or are they phantoms?
The book culminates with a retelling of the ill-fated Mallory/Irvine ascent of Everest in 1924. Mallory who was lured from a young family to return to Everest for a third time, as Macfarlane says, “Posthumously, Mallory has perpetuated the very feelings which killed him-he has made even more glorious the mountains of the mind.”
For most of us, beauty, breathing space and a kind of freedom are the attractions of the high places, as Macfarlane examples in a particular fleeting encounter with a Snow Hare. This is an intimate book with a wide ambition. Some of the ground is familiar, but here the writer is marking out a starting point for his own subsequent books and continuing encounters. Interestingly, he particularly acknowledges Simon Scharma’s “Landscape and Memory”. This is someone taking up a baton and running impressively with it.
Mark's Reviews 