UKH

Hi guys,

I'm studying English Literature and am moving on to my final thesis soon. I would like to write something along the lines of: "Literary/Poetic approaches to climbing".

I am now looking for books that you can recommend which talk about climbing in some sort of poetic fashion (not the "How to train" or "Guide to climb mountain/rock x")

Best are books from British authors, then everything in English and then everything else.

If you know films or clips that also contribute to the topic, I'm happy to take a look.

Thank you so much in advance. :-D

'Native Stones' by David Craig would be a good starting point...

'Climbers' by M. John Harrison. A proper novel. More in the camp of "gritty" than "poetic".

The Mammoth Book of ON THE EDGE is a compilation of 25 different extracts from a wide range of mountaineering books and could be an interesting place to start.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mammoth-Book-Edge-Books/dp/1845299248

My favourite chapter is The Devil's Thumb by Jon Krakauer.

A Dream of White Horses - Ed Drummond - should suit your purposes.

Another vote for Drummond's 'A Dream of White Horses'. You might also want to check out some of Dermot Somers's work, such as 'Mountains and Other Ghosts'; and 'At the Rising of the Moon'

There is a vast amount of literature which might fall under the general subject you raise. Some in books; some in climbing club journals; some in first ascent logbooks; etc. etc. etc. Which resources have you already investigated?

Why 'British' specifically? What is the title of, and scope of, your thesis?

The Jim Perrin anthologies ‘On And Off the Rocks’ and ‘Yes to Dance’. On climbing, landscape, Wales etc. Highly recommended.

Some of Tom Patey’s stuff?

Helen Mort is a very fine young poet from Chesterfield who writes about climbing, among other things - "No map could show them" is her latest collection.  From the USA, and a previous generation, the beat poet Gary Snyder was strongly influenced by his mountaineering experience (eg "John Muir on Mt Ritter" - http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jan/18/books/bk-9459)

In prose, I strongly second Nige M's recommendation of M. John Harrison.  "Climbers" is a great novel, I'd argue it was poetic as well as gritty.  

For non-fiction, I agree with Greenbanks on "Native Stones", David Craig himself is an English Literature academic (IIRC) but he writes very well.  Robert Macfarlane's "Mountains of the Mind" is similarly literary.  

Might be stretching the envelope further than you want but some guide book work by the likes of Menlove Edwards, Tom Leppert and Andy Popp are pure poetry. Short, sometimes terse, high impact writing.

Some Menlove extracts from 'Idwal' got used in one of the big climbing essay anthologies; Mirrors in the Cliffs, I think.

Steve Rhodes wrote a complete section of the YMC definitive climbing guide in rhyme. Route descriptions etc.

I agree that some guidebooks are pure poetry, especially climbers waxing lyrical about certain areas. The Ground Up Slate guide is a good example of this with some brilliant stories that certainly cast a rose tinted light on that era of climbing. 

Samson - The life and writings of Menlove Edwards  by G Sutton and W Noyce has a lot of his writing and poetry, highly recommended.  

Many of the romanticists wrote a lot about the lakes, Wordsworth has written specifically about climbing Helvellyn. This article will also be of interest; https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/mar/15/art.artsfeatures

For a direct reference to a climber  speaking poetically, you can't do better than John Redhead in E9 6C: youtube.com/watch?v=urX7x68jCh8&

Also check out the stories on the Jam Crack Podcast

Fervently seconding "Native Stones" and "Climbers" (I don't know if fiction's within your remit, but it's very rooted in observations of the climbing scene of the era), and would suggest "The Climbing Essays" for some collected Perrin

Adding to the list:

"Full of Myself" by Johnny Dawes

"Deep Play" by Paul Pritchard

(And I suspect I'll think of more once I've had more coffee ...)

Do you have any preferences about era? There's a long tradition of climbing literature, so I suspect you're going to find you need to narrow it down somehow, whether that's by era or by finding a particular focus within "literary/poetic approaches" -- theres's going to be too much material otherwise!

How could we get this far without mentioning "....and one for the crow" by John Redhead.

p.s. i have many of the books mentioned above if you need a loan.

Maybe have a look at Frank Smythe, for example "The Valley of Flowers". Overblown maybe, but his work is shot through with this sort of stuff:

 But of all my memories, distinct or vague, one memory stands pre-eminent: the silence. I have remarked before this silence of the high mountains. How many who read this have experienced silence? I do not mean the silence of the British countryside or even of the northern hills or moorlands, for though we may strain our ears and hear nothing there is always life not far distant. I mean the silence of dead places where not even a plant grows or a bird dwells. That day there was no wind, not the lightest breathing of the atmosphere, and I knew a silence such as I have never known before. I felt that to shout or talk would would be profane and terrible, that this silence would shatter in dreadful ruin about me, for it was not the silence of man or earth but of space and eternity. I strained my ears and heard- nothing. Yet even as I strained, I was conscious of something greater than silence, a Power, the presence of an absolute and immutable Force so that I seemed on the very boundary of things knowable and things unknowable. And because I have felt this more than once before on the high mountains I know that death is not to be feared, for this Force is a part of Heaven and part of us; how else should we be aware of it? From it we have evolved; into it we quietly and peacefully return."

Another recommendation for Native stones (David Craig) & A Dream of White Horses (Ed Drummond). I'd add Andrew Greig's Men on Ice (a long poem possibly based on Dougal Haston) and some of his other poems. His two expedition books are much more literary than most expedition books & are worth a read.

Not sure why you are restricting yourself to British authors but if you do look at North American authors look at some of David Roberts books/novellas and if possible look at old copies of Ascent. There are also several works in French by eg Bernard Amy & Anne Sauvy (some of which have been published in an English translation)

Are you including actual poetry in your study?  Geoffrey Winthrop Young wrote some very good poems on the outdoors and climbing in particular.

The Cragsman is probably his most famous, but I Hold the Heights and Avalanche are pretty good too.

"The Games Climbers Play" is a good starting point.

Look at anything by Robin Smith, my favourite writer on climbing.

It's a bit off the wall (and French!) but Gaston Rebuffat explicitly espoused a 'poetic'  and romantic approach to Alpine climbing at a time when his contemporaries were all about technical details, 'conquest' and competitiveness. His book titles themselves reflect this: 'Starlight and Storm'; 'Between Heaven and Earth'. His whole approach is described very well in True Summit by Dave Roberts.

First thing that came to mind for me too. Hard to find now though?

I liked "Moments of Being" by Raymond Greene, sometime mountaineering brother of Graham Greene, for the fact that it's a view from a different perspective than many of the dedicated mountaineers.

Another quirky look at hill going and climbing is "Rock and Roll Mountains" by Graham Forbes, one time member of The Incredible String Band.

If you are referring to Samson, there are 12 copies listed on ABE used books, one at a good price.

As part of your thesis I'm sure you will touch on the early Victorian travellers who romanticised and popularised mountains, so you could do worse than to look at the poetry of Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and several others of his ilk, for example Alfred Wills who probably kick-started the golden age of Alpinism.  In a broader context the Victorian landscape artists like Landseer and writers such as Scott and Burns who romanticised Scotland and arguably promoted the modern fascination with the country that had hitherto been considered the domain of savages.  As Michael Portillo will tell you, none of this burgeoning tourism would have been possible before the coming of the railways.

More recently there is a wealth of great literature, my own favourite being Patey's One Man's Mountain, which captures the feel of Britsh mountaineering in the 60s and 70s.

Further to your OP. I really envy you being able to do this study. It might, with some substantial precis work, also make a great UKC article...though I'm sure that is far from your thoughts at present.

One 'angle' that is interesting (to me) is the choice given by climbers/climbing authors to the books/articles they produce.

Good luck with it anyway. Hope your supervisor is a climber(!) or at least on-side

mountains of the mind - McFarlane.

That's a can of worms you've opened there, not least because one person's poetry is another's babble.  In addition, work that self-conciously sets out to be 'literary' is frequently self-absorbed; the literary worth of writing should be for people other than the author to judge.  And just because a novel is about climbing or climbers doesn't mean it's any good.

In this, as in much else, I seem to swim against the tide.  I found 'Mountains of the Mind' to be little more than adolescent noodling and 'Climbers' to be unmemorable for anything other than it being a novel about climbers.  To each their own.  And just what does 'poetic fashion' mean, exactly?

Which is not to say that writing about climbing can't be good - it can be excellent - or that British climbers who write lack what you might call a 'house style', and much could be written about the understated, self-deprecating style often seen in things British climbers write (see, say, Mick Fowler's essays or books, or, though there is much to take issue with here, Eric Jones' 'A life on the edge').  But if I had to suggest a starting place, it'd probably be with Peter Boardman's books, particularly 'Sacred Summits'.

But as I say, my views on this differ from many others and I'm sure they are as comfortable with their opinions as I am with my own.  Good luck; and is there any chance of you coming back and telling us what you thought?

T.

Well, aren't most of your (quite reasonable) queries down to the OPs own interpretation? That's part of the point of doing the diss, isn't it?

Me too.  In fact, I'm not sure I want to read (or watch) any fictional climbing.  Climbing stories are authentic or they are nothing. 

Tilman 

Shipton

Boardman

Tasker

A good start might be to look at the shortlists for the Boardman Tasker Award. There is usually a good range of books that are well written and go beyond the "Then I did this climb........" genre. I note that one book this year is indeed in verse.

Yvonne Reddick has a very powerful poetry pamphlet out 'Translating Mountains'

She's doing a session at Kendal MF as part of the literature strand and lectures  in Creative Writing at the University of Central Lancashire. 

http://www.mountainfest.co.uk/programme/event/yvonne-reddick-translating-mo...

Obviously you'll be able to get some insight to writers work at the Boardman Tasker Prize event as well, several of the authors will be interviewed about their practice by Stephen Venables. ( a wonderful writer in his own right ) 

http://www.mountainfest.co.uk/programme/event/the-boardman-tasker-prize-for...

Being at these events and others over the weekend would be hugely advantageous if you serious about writing a good thesis.

I also think you ought to check this authoritative source on UK climbing literature/history:

http://www.mountain-heritage.org/collections/

If you're local(ish) it'd be a great place to do some desk research

I would agree. It is not something I would choose to read again in my leisure time. But, whilst not 'authentic' (what that means is itself questionable in this context though - Robert's writing of the mountains is not untrue to his experience, even if not a true to the bone account of a particular outing), it has to be one of the more poetic/exploratory/literary examples of modern writing on mountains and mountaineering.

I think that, unless exceptionally well written, climbing literature often tends to be a bit too much along the lines of "X happened then Y happened". It therefore often fails to make you think about the interesting questions - when does risk become unjustifiable, for example. On the other hand, I agree entirely that those that set out purely to address such questions tend to be far too far towards "what is the meaning of life" drivel. That is what I think makes writing in this area so difficult - cunningly approaching the interesting questions whilst encapsulating the reader in an enthralling story. Very few succeed.

Were bits from that published in Mountain magazine? If so, it's powerful stuff, the memory of which still lingers many years after the magazine ceased to exist.

T.

I think Joe Simpson succeeds pretty well in The Beckoning Silence wrestling with the "why am I doing this" question. I also thought his The Sound of Gravity worked well as a climbing novel.

But for me the all time greatest bit of climbing writing is Robin Campbell's brief but utterly devastating obituary of Dougal Haston in the SMC journal which can be found in Games Climbers Play.

And his piece on climbing Great Wall in Hard Rock is also excellent. 

'Lovely boy Crew, arrow climber. Wall without end.'

Thanks to everybody that had answered me so far. 

Wow, that is a lot of material and suggestions! You guys are awesome!

I will not really start writing until march but I wanted to preselect and narrow a bit down over the winter. I also have to come up with an actual precise thesis but I find this often comeswhen you go through the material a bit. 

Of course everybody is welcome to read it afterwards who wants to.

To answer one question: No, my professor does not have a climbing background but he is interested and that's always nice.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Frank Smythe. He's very out of fashion now as his his rather romanticised view of the mountains but he was probably the premier mountain writer of the interwar years. "Valley of the Flowers" and "The spirit of the Hills" are two of his best known works.

I'd think it was vital to read him to understand the evolution of mountain writing.

Surprised nobody has suggested Kurt Diemberger's "Summits and Secrets" (English translation published 1971)

I think someone did

How about Coleridge's essay on his descent from Scafell down Broad Stand.. can't find the essay online - but some descriptions and analysis of it..

https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/ravon/2012-n61-ravon0834/1018600ar/

Ah, sorry missed it! No harm in repeating I guess.

The 'Speak to the Hills' anthology would be very useful to you. Has a huge range of mountain-related poems from climbers and others. Available from a few places, on AbeBooks for £7.28 at the moment with free postage.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30027921231&searchu...

Should be really good fun, this project!

I suspect it's a bit more light-hearted than many of the suggestions so far but what about "The Owl and the Cragrat". It's a poetry anthology, often rewriting well-known poems from a climbing perspective. The book was put together about 14 years ago by people suggesting poems on UKC. The two named authors are both active on here as well. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Owl-Cragrat-Anthology-Climbing-Poetry/dp/095471070...
https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/premier_posts/the_owl+the_cragrat__poetry...

Mehmet

Overwrought, overrated and overwritten bollocks, from a professional author seemingly determined to carve out a lucrative niche for himself in the outdoors/natural history space, but who has never done any interesting climbing from which he might have gained useful insight. Best just avoid.

Ditto anything by either Fergus Fleming or David Craig (also by now mentioned in this thread.)

You could well be correct.  However it has occurred to me that the OP was specifically interested in English literature and this is really French literature.

I've got some sympathy with that view. As per usual this year I took x3 climbing books on holday with me. Mountains of the Mind was put down after about 30 pages. I found it very hard to engage with. Each to their own I suppose - but it wasn't for me.

Jim Perrin's Climbers Essays is great I thought. There's also a good thread on UKC about climbing songs which might be fun, useful, or half an hour of your life wasted. Half Man Half Biscuit had a song which may have started the thread (something something Hard Severe). 

And we have sone quite literary posters on this very forum: Mick Ward has had me finding something in my eye on occasion...does that count?

Harsh. I too thought Mountains Of The Mind disappointing, but I think The Wild Places is one of the few almost life changing books I have read (though it's not, of course, really climbing literature).

Indeed. Nevertheless . . .

T.

<And we have sone quite literary posters on this very forum>

Goucho and Gordon Stainforth spring easily to mind...

Lots of posts but has anyone mentioned, "Games Climbers Play"?

Yes, RTFT

From today's thread:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/these_are_my_riches_poem_author...

THESE ARE MY RICHES
From “A climber in Wales” by Showell Styles

These are my riches, that none can take away from me,
stored as mountain grass is stored in the byre;
These shall shine of an evening when winter befalls me,
Sitting by the fire.

Mine are the torrents and the timeless hills,
The rock face, the heather and the rain,
The summits where the life-wind thrums and thrills,
And, answering, the glad heart sings again:
The good grey rock that loves a grasping hand,
The stress of body and the soul’s rebirth
On the tall peak where gods and men may stand
Breathless above the kingdoms of the earth:

The drowse of summer on the sunlit crags
Lulled in the blue and shimmering air of June,
When Time, the lazy mountain- traveller, lags
To dream with us an endless afternoon:
The ice-wind stealing downwards from the crest
To hush with frost the reedy river’s flow,
When all the mountain land on winter’s breast
Sleeps, in the deathly silence of the snow.

These are my riches, these and the bright remembering
Of ridge and buttress and sky-shouldering spire;
These I shall count, when I am old, of an evening,
Sitting by the fire.

CTFD

Agreed - I have a permanent bookmark in my copy of GCP, page 538 - Cumha Dougal, as powerful now as the first time.

Cheers,

DW

Nowhere else are so many emotions packed into so few words. 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Geoffry Winthrop Young https://www.abebooks.co.uk/High-Hills-Memories-Alps-Geoffrey-Winthrop/10962... .

From an old thread:

 https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/please_help_i'm_looking_fo... 

The Cragsman. 

In this short span 
between my fingertips on the smooth edge 
and these tense feet cramped on the crystal ledge 
I hold the life of man. 
Consciously I embrace 
arched from the mountain rock on which I stand 
to the firm limit of my lifted hand the front of time and space: - 
For what is there in all the world for me 
but what I know and see? 
And what remains of all I see and know 
if I let go. 

With this full breath 
bracing my sinews as I upward move 
boldly reliant to the rift above 
I measure life from death. 
With each strong thrust 
I feel all motion and all vital force 
borne on my strength and hazarding their course 
in my self trust:- 
There is no movement of what kind it be 
but has its source in me: 
And should these muscles falter to release 
motion itself must cease. 

In these two eyes 
that search the splendour of earth, and seek 
the sombre mysteries on plain and peak 
all vision wakes and dies. 
With these my ears 
that listen to the sound of lakes asleep 
and love the larger rumour from the deep 
the eternal hears: - 
For all of beauty that this life can give 
lives only while I live; 
And with the light my hurried vision lends 
all beauty ends. 

Geoffrey Winthrop Young 
from “Freedom”. 

Also The Mountaineers' Weekend Book - a 1950s anthology edited by Showell Styles https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mountaineers-Week-End-Book/dp/B0014LAS5Q 

There's an anthology of (excerpts from) climbing writing edited by Anthony Kenny that has quite a literary bent. It would probably be worth glancing at for ideas beyond the range of mainly contemporary writing that has been mentioned in this thread. (And fwiw, I agree with those who think McFarland is over-rated: too self-consciously literary. But Nan Shepherd, who McF has championed, was a real writer.)

From the past, a name that hasn't been mentioned is the poet (amongst other things) Michael Roberts. Had he lived, I suspect he'd have been as well-known and as influential as, if not more than, Sir Jack Longland. He was married to Janet Adam Smith and there was an article (disappointing, I thought) about some of his poetry in a recent number of the Alpine Journal.

Although I've not read it for decades, I've always loved Michael Roberts' poem 'On a Dying Boy' (if I remember the title correctly). Just thinking about it gives me goosepimples - Robert Graves' acid test of true poetry. Roberts hauntingly caught the terrible sense of loss, the futile agony of regret. If only the fall hadn't happened... but, of course, it did.

As with so much great climbing writing, I first read it at far too young an age - early teens. Subsequent experience validated its authenticity. People such as Roberts and Whymper utterly conveyed the emotions you experience. For me, Whymper's concluding paragraph in 'Scrambles...' will always remain the most eloquently profound piece of writing about climbing and the best advice to any climber.

Mick

Mountaineering literature, literature about climbing, and literature about mountainous areas are three distinct and enormous fields of literary output; and stretch back over more than 200 years. Some significant refining of your topic will be needed!

A good starting point may be those writers who've spent time debating the aesthetics of climbing, mountaineering and mountain landscapes:

David Craig, the author of Native Stones, was a lecturer at Lancaster University; a Marxist, a poet, founder of the Creative Writing programme in (I think) the early 1970s. His book approaches the aesthetics of climbing and landscape through a consideration of British Romanticism, and is well worth considering alongside debates about Romanticism and contemporary nature writers, e.g. Robert Macfarlane.

Jim Perrin's oeuvre as a whole, including the biographies of Menlove, Whillans and Shipman and Tillman, are deeply concerned with how the ideology and aesthetics of mountaineering were revolutionised by these figures and by broader social change. In particular, the achievements of working-class climbers of the postwar  generation, which Whillians and Joe Brown are emblematic of, really shattered the genteel mountaineering establishment. Rock climbing became and end in itself, something ludic, material, sometimes even dissenting, and cutting through the nationalistic bombast (according to Perrin) often associated with big mountain climbing at that time.

Helen Mort is a contemporary poet, but she has written poetry that explores the lost history of women mountaineers in some of her writing, such as No Map Could Show Them:

When we climb alone
en cordée feminine,
we are magicians of the Alps –
we make the routes we follow
disappear

I also get the feeling that she picks up on some themes in Perrin's work about the Peak and the intersection of climbing history with the history of industrialisation, post-industrial society and the working-class - but that's based on slight reading.

All to say: some work on the aesthetics of writing about mountaineering has already been done - by writers, nevermind academics - so, that could be a good place to start (although a bit of a rabbit hole, too!).

Mark Twight's 'Kiss or Kill' for a punk take on alpinism that was big in the 90's.

'Starlight and Storm' by Gaston Rebuffat, beautifully written.

'Conquistadors of the useless' by Lionel Terray

and for something more modern here's an excellent blog:

https://throughother.blogspot.com/

And so far nobody seems to have mentioned W.H.Murray, hugely praised by many of the writers already suggested - like Winthrop Young, Jim Perrin, Robert Macfarlane.

You'll find an interesting collection and perspectives on Mountain Literature in "Orogenic Zones", collated by Terry Gifford and Rosie Smith. This covers the first 5 years of the international festival of mountaineering literature held at Bretton Hall, Leeds University, before the Banff Festival was born. 

ISBN 0 9524693 0 8

Dave

Journey After Dawn by Bill Peascod if it hasn't already been suggested.

DC

Loads have been mentioned, but one that made me laugh loads as a teen was John Barry's the Great Climbing Adventure. An underrated stylist and humourist with a poetic streak.

Thanks for that, Mick. I should declare an interest (though I don't imagine I'd be the first on here to need to do so): one of Roberts's sons is a friend of mine, but I obviously wouldn't have made the suggestion if I hadn't thought him worthy of rediscovery, so your endorsement means all the more. Cheers.

Good idea. Climbing humour deserves to be reflected on from a "literary" point of view and JB is a prime example. Key question would be whether any potential researcher could avoid dying laughing.

A few more;

Dermot Somers’ collections of short stories have been mentioned- unique and beautifully written.

Always a Little Further by Alastair Borthwick is historically interesting on hillwalking in the 1930s and later and nicely written.

A Short Walk with Whillans by Tom Patey is an exemplary character sketch and One Man’s Mountains is consistently good.

Deeply unfashionable and largely forgotten are the Doctor stories by G J F Dutton, collected in The Ridiculous Mountains and Nothing so Simple as Climbing. They are of historical and literary interest ( to me at least).

John Long writes powerfully about American climbing. It’s macho, funny and deeply affecting, I think he has an archive of stuff in the rock and ice website.

What makes you think they're either unfashionable or forgotten? I think they're great.

Have you seen the recently published 'Waymaking - an anthology of women's adventure writing, poetry and art'

https://www.v-publishing.co.uk/books/categories/wildlife-photography-and-ou...

Helen Mort, who has been mentioned by several people above, is one of the editors.

Continuing the theme of women's writing (which is a focus that could help narrow the field , there's obviously Gwen Moffat's Space Below my Feet, Dorothy Pilley's Climbing Days, Julie Tullis 'Clouds from Both Sides', ...

Then there's this by Helen Mort and Gwen Moffat (see what I did there?): https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2017/09/gwen_moffat+helen_mort_on_bbc_radio...

Whilst on the theme of women writers, the work of Maria Coffey is of note too; see, for example:

https://quillandquire.com/review/where-the-mountain-casts-its-shadow-the-da...

Her stuff might already have been mentioned - this is now a longish set of suggestions!

Cheers

Seems entirely plausible that Helen Mort was influenced by Perrin's writing, but I wouldn't underestimate what she would bring from her own experience of being brought up in Chesterfield in the 90's and learning to climb in the Peak.  I do know, having heard it from her directly, that she's been strongly influenced by M. John Harrison's "Climbers".  Her own first novel - "Black Car Burning" will be out next year.

This UKC video featuring a poem by her about Alison Hargreaves was very moving, I thought.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/videos/play.php?i=3439

Just viewed this interesting thread. Phil Bartlett's 'Undiscovered Country' contains some interesting work, perhaps suitable. Also, I'd suggest Patey's 'One Man's Mountains' also verges on the poetic.

Please do not omit magazine writing, Alex MacIntyres articles ( Mamas boys etc) are superbly written.

+1 for Menlove Edwards, Games climbers play, Perrin (Street legal) and Smith, Patey, Murray.

I too was disappointed by Harrisons Climbers, and am not a fan of Rebuffat.

So much to read, so little time!

Great thread, thanks!

Not British, well not writing about Britain anyway, but John Muir wrote some distinctive books

In fact Muir was Scottish: he was born in Dunbar.